time-sensitive, common goal (saving lives, particularly in the crucial first days after a disaster) ( Forestier et al. , 2016 ). However, that does not mean that there are no challenges to civil–military coordination, not least when a large number of actors respond. An example of this is the 2008 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in Aceh, Indonesia, to which a reported 14 UN agencies, 16 foreign militaries and 195 foreign humanitarian organisations were involved in humanitarian assistance ( Wiharta et al. , 2008 ). However, challenges in disaster responses are
Exhumation may be defined as the legally sanctioned excavation and recovery of the remains of lawfully buried or – occasionally – cremated individuals, as distinct from forensic excavations of clandestinely buried remains conducted as part of a criminal investigation and from unlawful disinterment of human remains, commonly referred to as bodysnatching. The aim of this article is to review the role of exhumation – so defined – in the activities of CEMEL, the Medico-Legal Centre of the Ribeirão Preto Medical School-University of São Paulo, in international, regional and local collaborations. Exhumations form part of routine forensic anthropology casework; scientific research in physical and forensic anthropology; and forensic casework conducted in collaboration with the Brazilian Federal Police; and are carried out as part of humanitarian investigations into deaths associated with the civil–military dictatorship of 1964 to 1985. This article aims to offer a non-technical summary – with reference to international comparative information – of the role of exhumation in investigative and scientific work and to discuss developments in their historical and political context.
and that only presents mixed results in the so-called civil–military coordination in humanitarian responses. The challenge for humanitarian agencies to work effectively and according to their missions and principles while cohabitating the same spaces (geographical and others) as military and non-state armed actors has been a headache for decades. Contexts of violent conflict are usually examples of all that can go wrong when civil–military coordination is not prioritised. But those are not the only contexts where humanitarian agencies struggle to find and protect
plan together within an integrated civil-military command structure like NATO, the greater the likelihood of peaceful international relations. Moreover, by introducing states to western models of civil-military relations, NATO might help to stabilise weak post-Soviet states throughout eastern Europe and Eurasia – even those states that would not eventually seek NATO membership. Such a design required significant building-block initiatives to proceed in earnest and develop institutionally. NATO represented the ideal institution through which to promote this goal
Since the 1970s our understanding of the late Victorian army has benefited from a diverse and burgeoning array of scholarship. There have been major works on civil–military relations, the army and society, army reform, and imperial defence, buttressed by biographies of senior commanders, studies of war correspondents and the role of the army in imperial propaganda. 1
; Longhurst, Germany and the use of force.qxd 15/07/2004 10:49 Page 139 Conclusions 139 These security policy standpoints created strong dispositions which translated further into observable policies comprising governing premises and normative devices. Briefly, the governing premises represent the spatial, strategic and political parameters governing the Bundeswehr’s organisation and role; while the normative devices relate to the broad civil–military framework in West Germany; the parliamentary control of the armed forces, the limited role of the Generalinspekteur
same time expanding to an unprecedented level the possibilities of democratic political participation for the soldier. What is striking about this thinking is that the impetus came entirely from the Germans and, even more surprisingly perhaps, from the German military. Although Adenauer and other politicians had input to the design of civil–military relations and the armed forces’ internal structure, it was really a major concern only for the military, who realised that success for the Federal Republic and its armed forces was clearly going to be dependent on a
and the use of force of conscription enabled the new Bundeswehr to build up a substantial personnel base and augmentation strength within the context of NATO, thus contributing to West Germany’s international rehabilitation. Furthermore conscription, alongside a number of other new civil–military mechanisms, served as a bridge-builder between the new armed forces and a society largely opposed to the rearmament process and suspicious of all things military. An upshot of this was that conscription over time became more than just a staffing mechanism, symbolising the
expectations and demands which emanated from the Western powers in the context of the emerging Cold War. Aspects of this new strategic culture included the legally restricted role of the new West German armed forces; the full democratisation of civil–military relations; the reintroduction of conscription; and the Federal Republic’s tight integration with multilateral security institutions. Permeating all this was the widespread conviction that West Germany should maintain a low profile in security matters above and beyond the immediate task of defence of national and alliance
By expanding the geographical scope of the history of violence and war, this volume challenges both Western and state-centric narratives of the decline of violence and its relationship to modernity. It highlights instead similarities across early modernity in terms of representations, legitimations, applications of, and motivations for violence. It seeks to integrate methodologies of the study of violence into the history of war, thereby extending the historical significance of both fields of research. Thirteen case studies outline the myriad ways in which large-scale violence was understood and used by states and non-state actors throughout the early modern period across Africa, Asia, the Americas, the Atlantic, and Europe, demonstrating that it was far more complex than would be suggested by simple narratives of conquest and resistance. Moreover, key features of imperial violence apply equally to large-scale violence within societies. As the authors argue, violence was a continuum, ranging from small-scale, local actions to full-blown war. The latter was privileged legally and increasingly associated with states during early modernity, but its legitimacy was frequently contested and many of its violent forms, such as raiding and destruction of buildings and crops, could be found in activities not officially classed as war.