A history of the military strategy of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) involves in part China’s use of force around its periphery; whether that is the Korean War (1950–1953), the Sino-Indian border clash (1962), the Sino-Russian border clash (1969), China’s seizure of islets in the Paracels from South Vietnam (1974), the Sino-Vietnamese border clash (1979) and finally China’s seizure of islets from Vietnam in the Spratlys (1988). A close examination of these campaigns reveals a mixed pattern of strategic signalling, military opportunism, punishing adversaries and bolstering buffer zones around China to accomplish China’s long-term strategic objectives with minimal risk to China itself. Curiously, the PRC embarked on a multi-decade period in which the Chinese did not use large-scale force and initiated a concerted effort at defence modernisation and economic development. This has led to a dramatic transformation of the People’s Liberation Army from a backward force into one of the most modern militaries on the planet.

Nuclear strategy as a concept defies easy characterisation. It is a contradiction in terms: such is the destructive power of many nuclear weapons that to employ them would not bring any tangible benefit, especially if the adversary could threaten nuclear retaliation. They hold so little political appeal that since 1945 nuclear weapons have not been used in conflict and are therefore effectively unusable as weapons. Moreover, the idea of a war in which only nuclear weapons are used might exist in theory but would be a remote possibility. Instead, the practice of nuclear strategy has been dominated by ideas and plans in which nuclear weapons might be used in the course of a war alongside conventional weapons. Thus, rather than a concept of ‘nuclear strategy’, a more accurate formulation would be a ‘strategy with a nuclear component’. Yet there remained utility in thinking in terms of ‘nuclear strategy’, particularly in relation to deterrence. This chapter will explore these complex dynamics in several ways. First, it will examine the strategic ideas underpinning use of the atomic bomb at the end of the Second World War. Second, it will discuss the different strategies nuclear states have devised in relation to other nuclear states. Finally, the strategies of non-nuclear states and nuclear aspirants when confronted with nuclear adversaries will be analysed.

The wars of decolonisation in Africa were contested by national liberation movements that, to varying degrees, all modelled their insurgencies on leftist theories of people’s war. At the same time, however, African national liberation movements never followed the precepts set out by the theorists of people’s war in a slavish manner. Instead, they adapted these precepts to local conditions and needs. Drawing on examples ranging from the Algerian war of independence to the armed struggle of the African National Congress against apartheid, this chapter explores the strategic practice of a disparate group of insurgent movements that sought to end decades and more of colonial and white minority rule in Africa. Focusing on their objectives, means, methods and priorities, the chapter argues that while people’s war was an important guiding principle for African liberation movements, from which they drew key lessons, it never represented an immutable blueprint for victory.

In the conclusion to the series, a series of significant observations are presented. In contrast to the pre-occupations of the field with theory and concepts, the practice of strategy shows a distinct picture. When heads of state, states, empires and other social groupings engage in strategy away from the abstract in concrete and real-life situations, it is messy, chaotic and largely ad hoc. First, core conceptual categories in the field hamper a proper understanding of strategy. The binaries of war/peace, rationality/emotion and state/non-state, as largely products of the nineteenth century, obscure rather than illuminate historical practices over the past three millennia. Second, four distinct patterns present themselves: (1) strategy as a utilitarian phenomenon with an alignment of means and ends, as the dominant perspective, holds explanatory power; (2) strategy as a performance offers a strong lens to look at the historical record as war and warfare are repeatedly part of a way of life; (3) opportunity offers a significant explanatory category; (4) practising strategy as an ordering or disordering exercise offers a way to look at reality, and is enacted as a process of making life difficult for an opponent. These findings form an invitation to reconsider the dominant perspective of strategy as stable and universal, attesting to the necessity of awarding more attention to deeds than words.

This chapter considers the strategic dimension of conflict in North America between the outbreak of fighting between the French and colonial Americans in the Ohio valley in 1754 and the formal end of the War of American Independence in 1783. While this thirty-year period saw several local struggles between colonists and Native peoples, the focus here is on the two major conflicts – the Seven Years War (1754–1760 in North America, 1756–1763 in Europe) and the War of Independence (1775–1783). Both wars were global struggles, extending well beyond North America – the Seven Years War from its outset, and the War of Independence from 1778, when the French became belligerents. Even so, the chapter will concentrate on the American aspects of these struggles, and only indirectly address the Caribbean, west African, European and Asian dimensions. It will aspire to cover all the participants in the North American parts of the two wars – settlers, Native peoples and Europeans, particularly the British and the French.

The Russo-Japanese War was fought during 1904–1905 between Tsarist Russia and Imperial Japan. The war broke out due to their conflicting interests in the Korean Peninsula and the north-eastern region of China, known then as Manchuria. Both saw the conflict as a zero-sum game in which compromise was a temporary solution. Japan’s objectives were the control of Korea, the seizure of southern Manchuria and the conclusion of the conflict with a peace agreement that would ensure its own long-term presence and interests in Korea and China. Russia’s objectives were the inverse of Japan’s and included the control of Manchuria, seizure of Korea and the expansion of its political and economic sphere to play a pivotal role in the entire region. Japan had far more limited resources and manpower, but it could mobilise its armed forces more quickly and gain the upper hand in the region, at least initially. As an island country, Japan had to control the seas from the outset and limit the duration of the war. The war lasted seventeen months but demonstrated that when strategic objectives are carefully defined and meticulously executed, as was the case with Japan, then the prima facie weaker party may win.

Although the early part of the century involved the Nationalist Party (KMT) campaigns – the Northern Expedition (1926-28) – to reunify China after the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, the history of China’s military strategy in the twentieth century is largely dominated by the activities of the Chinese Communist People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Embroiled in the first civil war with the Nationalists and avoiding annihilation during the latter’s five encirclement campaigns (1927–1937), the PLA under Mao Zedong’s leadership began to develop some of the core ideas of Communist Chinese military strategy – People’s War, and Active Defense. During the anti-Japanese War of Resistance, the Communists and the Nationalists arrived at a temporary truce to fight Japanese invaders (1937–1945). This period was largely marked by stalemate, but still involved millions of casualties, the use of guerrilla warfare, and the movement of millions of troops across China. Mao’s vision of military strategy unfolded with the resumption of the Communist–Nationalist civil war: guerrilla warfare; manoeuvre warfare; a hybrid of conventional and unconventional operations; conventional warfare; and then a war of annihilation, culminating in the Nationalist retreat to Taiwan.

The chapter explores how Hume’s Essays were received in Germany during the eighteenth century, highlighting the cultural exchange and intellectual shifts of that time. Hume’s influence is analysed in the context of the growing interest in English books and culture in Germany during the eighteenth century, a trend known as ‘Anglophilia’. Hume’s political and economic writings were translated into German shortly after their original publication. His name was held in high regard and his writings were considered to be instructive. But the specifics of cameralism prevented his economic and political essays from having a major impact on German discourse. Nonetheless, new translations continued to appear. In the German reform debate of the late eighteenth century, Hume’s Essays were used to both support the status quo and to advocate for political change. In the early nineteenth century, an academic translation of Hume’s essay was published, acknowledging his contribution to the formation of political economy as a science. By exploring the reception of Hume’s Essays in eighteenth-century Germany, the chapter shows how translations not only played a big role in sharing knowledge during the Enlightenment but also reflected cultural differences.

Chapter 10, A world political problem (June 11 - June 16). This chapter recounts the endgame of the Austrian crisis, while instability spreads to Germany. Norman comes to realize that in reality there is not much the central banks can do, since the real issue is "a world political problem" going all the way back to the Versaille Peace Agreement of 1919, the German war reparations and the allied’s war debts. The International Creditors Committee negotiate in Vienna with the Credit Anstalt and the Austrian government and at the very last minute they succeed in getting guarantee for their deposits, while promising to leave them for at least two years. At the same time, on June 16, negotiations with French bankers over the Austrian bond loans fails, and the Bank of England singlehandedly steps in with a bridge credit to the government. Together, the loan and the standstill agreement stops the Austrian crisis, at least for a while.

Chapter 7 looks at the question of the spherical world picture and the lack of evidence for such an image of the heavens or of the world as a whole in cuneiform sources.

The chapter introduces the book, its main claims, and arguments. It is concerned with setting the agenda for how to take labour seriously in Gulf development discourses and the value of centring labour from the margins. The book argues that Oman’s labour market is global and that Omani labour needs to be understood globally and relationally within and beyond the segmentations that divide the labour market. The chapter situates youth and their economic dreams and experiences at the heart of the story of development, discusses how to understand labour within the rentier state, and lays out the framework and empirical analysis to follow.

The role of France in David Hume’s intellectual biography is difficult to overestimate. He visited that country three times, wrote the Treatise in La Flèche, and reached the peak of his success during the years he spent in Paris (1763–66), where he was welcomed as a highly valuable member of the Republic of Letters. He cared greatly about the circulation of his writings in France, and actually succeeded in establishing his reputation across the Channel. The History of England made him an outstanding historian, the Natural History of Religion an authoritative esprit fort, but it was the Essays that confirmed him as a subtle political thinker and, what he cared about most, as a profound philosopher in the eyes of his French readers. Before and besides being translated in the form of collections, many of Hume’s essays were translated, summarised, commented on, reviewed, and discussed individually, giving rise to a complex and divergent reception. The present chapter provides an overview of this reception, based on first-hand research on eighteenth-century French translations, reviews, commentaries and criticisms of the Essays.