shock and awe
Shock and awe Reference library
Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase & Fable (2 ed.)
... and awe . A US military strategy, an update of Blitzkrieg , aimed at the rapid physical and psychological destruction of the enemy's will to resist by using over-whelming force and technological superiority, for example by deploying Smart bombs and cruise missiles. Collateral damage (a euphemism for civilian casualties) cannot be ruled out, but is not intended. The strategy was first enunciated at the National Defense University in 1996 and employed in Iraq in 2003 . See also Decapitation strategy...
shock and awe Quick reference
The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (2 ed.)
... and awe term for a military strategy based on achieving rapid dominance over an adversary by the initial imposition of overwhelming force and firepower. The concept was formulated by the American strategic analysts Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade in a Pentagon briefing document of 1996 , and came to wider prominence during the campaign in Iraq in 2003 . In a briefing in Qatar in March 2003 , the American general Tommy Franks said, ‘This will be a campaign unlike any other in history. A campaign characterized by shock, by surprise, by flexibility,...
shock and awe
Job Reference library
James L. Crenshaw and James L. Crenshaw
The Oxford Bible Commentary
...ignores his cries for help and tosses him about on the wind ( vv. 20–3 ). Job concludes this section with observations about his psychic distress. Together, chs. 29 and 30 effectively describe Job at the pinnacle of success and the nadir of his isolation from society. At one time the aged and nobles stood in awe of him; now children of a no-name mock him ( cf. 30:8 , ‘senseless’, lit. children of a fool, ‘disreputable’, lit. children of a no-name). In previous days he presided over the judicial assembly; now he calls jackals and ostriches his companions....
Jeremiah Reference library
Kathleen M. O'Connor and Kathleen M. O'Connor
The Oxford Bible Commentary
...text a ‘litany of contrasts’ between true and false gods (1988: 98). Commands not to learn from the nations nor to be afraid of their idols surround the first stanza ( vv. 2–5 ). The people should not become like the nations among whom they live nor adopt their idolatrous customs. Those peoples and their deities are foolish and powerless ( vv. 3–5 b ). The second stanza ( vv. 6–10 ) begins and ends with praise and awe of the one true God. In direct address to YHWH, v. 6 declares the greatness of the divine name and the fear owed to the true King of the...
Introduction to the New Testament Reference library
Leslie Houlden
The Oxford Bible Commentary
...details of Jesus' family, birth, and childhood drawn from the Protevangelium of James (2 cent.) figure alongside those drawn from the gospels. 14. At the same time, in whole or in substantial parts, ‘the NT’ played a recognized part in Christian life. The NT as a volume came in medieval times to carry the sacred weight of an icon, as did the gospels, bound separately—to be reverenced, viewed with awe, even feared, as charged with numinous power. The ceremonial carrying of the book of the gospels in Eastern Orthodoxy and (much less often now) in the Western...
Judges Reference library
Susan Niditch and Susan Niditch
The Oxford Bible Commentary
...that what follows is the birth story of a hero. So with Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Hannah. vv. 3–23 , the annunciation, a special theophany of which women are the primary recipients. Traditional motifs of this form include the appearance of the deity or his emissary, and the announcement of the birth ( v. 3 ); special instructions or information for the mother and son ( vv. 4–6 ); expression of fear or awe ( v. 22 ). Cf. Rebekah ( Gen 25:22–3 ); Hagar ( Gen 16:11–12 ); Sarah and Abraham ( Gen 18 ). Note how the language used in the annunciation concerning...
Luke Reference library
Eric Franklin and Eric Franklin
The Oxford Bible Commentary
...suffering, vindicated, and exalted to heaven from where he will return in glory. Luke emphasizes the amazement of the bystanders, their ‘glorifying God’, and their awe. For him, the story makes a true witness to the person of Jesus. ( 5:27–32 ) Jesus and Levi Jesus now calls Levi to join his inner group of disciples. He is ‘a tax-collector’, that is, one of a group of minor officials who were employed to collect indirect taxes, mainly tolls. Working for an alien power and widely extortionate, they were regarded with hostility and were marginalized. Luke has...
Ezekiel Reference library
J. Galambush and J. Galambush
The Oxford Bible Commentary
...repetitions, sentence fragments, and even changes in the creatures' gender. While the uncertain prose creates translational difficulties, and may well reflect a corrupt text, the result is a strangely enhanced sense of awe and bedazzlement built up over the course of the vision. The creatures have four faces—each face having the likeness of a different animal, with a human face in the front—and four wings. The effect is that the creatures face in all directions simultaneously, and are thus able both to move in any direction and to guard the blazing substance...
awe Quick reference
Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins (3 ed.)
...awe [OE] The battle plan for the 2003 invasion of Iraq by US-led forces was dubbed shock and awe . The phrase was not invented by President George W. Bush or Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, but came from Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance (1996), by the US strategic analysts Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade. The Old English word awe originally meant ‘terror or dread’. Gradually people started to use it to express their feelings for God, thereby introducing the senses of great respect and wonder. Both awful [OE] and awesome [L16th] have...
shock Quick reference
The Oxford Dictionary of Idioms (4 ed.)
... shock future shock : see future . shock and awe a name given to a US military strategy, developed in the 1990s, that relies on rapidly deployed overwhelming force to cow an enemy. shock horror used as an ironically exaggerated reaction to...
thunder and lightning Quick reference
The Diner’s Dictionary (2 ed.)
...and lightning A term of diverse gastronomic application over the years. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the name was given, with shock and awe in mind, to a drink of gin and bitters, and its later use for ignited brandy sauce was similarly motivated. Its main connotation, though, has been the contrast of dark and light—specifically, dark treacle against a pale background. In the West Country it denotes treacle (or golden syrup) and clotted cream, piled generously on to splits, and it has also been applied to a dessert of rice over which golden...
sense of wonder n Reference library
The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction
...of wonder n a feeling of awakening or awe triggered by an expansion of one's awareness of what is possible or by confrontation with the vastness of space and time, as brought on by reading science fiction. 1935 H. P. Lovecraft Some Notes on Interplanetary Fiction Miscellaneous Writings (1995) 119 The important factors being here, as elsewhere, an adequate sense of wonder, adequate emotions in the characters, […] and a studious avoidance of the hackneyed artificial characters and stupid conventional events. 1956 D. Knight Future SF (May) 126/2 ...
de Kooning, Willem Reference library
The Oxford Dictionary of Art (3 ed.)
...the controversial British critic Brian Sewell ( 1931– ) wrote, ‘Wandering round the Tate…I wonder at the awe and adulation expended on this man, most of whose paintings reveal not the slightest merit.’ His wife Elaine de Kooning ( 1919–89 ) was also a painter, notably of Expressionist portraits, and a writer on art. The couple married in 1943 , separated amicably in 1957 , and reunited in 1975 . A collection of her writings, The Spirit of Abstract Expressionism , was published in 1994 . Sewell maintains that Willem’s reputation was founded by ‘her...
Struwwelpeter Reference library
The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (2 ed.)
...in 1845 , and in an anonymous and immensely successful English translation first printed in Leipzig in 1848 . Some of its characters have become almost proverbial for the generations brought up on the verses, notably foolish Harriet, who plays with matches, and, most graphically gruesome of all, ‘The great, long, red-legg’d scissorman’, who visits little thumb-suckers ‘And cuts their thumbs clean off,—and then, | You know, they never grow again.’ Harvey Darton described the collection as ‘the Awful Warning carried to the point where Awe topples over...
scalping Reference library
The Oxford Companion to the Body
...times, as did the Naga peoples in the Indian state of Assam and various groups in the interior of Celebes. In 1845 , the British traveller John Duncan watched the Apadomey regiment of the legendary black Amazonian army pass in parade before the king of Dahomey — bearing 700 scalps as trophies. Duncan's awe-struck description of the sight has been adapted many times, most recently in Richard Fleischer's Conan the Destroyer , where Grace Jones plays a warrior woman armed with a knife and draped, as it appears, with scalps. In the Caribbean, scalp hunts...
psychological warfare Reference library
The Oxford Companion to Military History
...precursor, to combat and casualties, while its application to allies or domestic populations will strive to reinforce public support. It will grow in importance, and the omnipresence of the media gives enormous scope for its use. The 2003 invasion of Iraq saw the use of ‘Shock and Awe’ tactics by the Americans. By demonstrating with overwhelming technological, material, and numerical superiority, the doctrine aimed to paralyse and overwhelm the Iraqi militaries' will to fight. The campaign saw the use of over 1,700 air sorties, and a rapid mechanized...
baptism Reference library
Oliver Nicholson and Martin Connell
The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity
...managed in such a way as to induce shock and awe; making the commitment of baptism, rather than any initial illumination or ‘ conversion ’, the part of becoming a Christian in Late Antiquity which is most often associated in the sources with profound emotion. Although candidates for baptism were given very elaborate instruction in the Christian faith they do not seem to have been significantly briefed or rehearsed in the details of the ceremony. In the dark chill of a spring night they turned west and renounced Satan and were then plunged completely naked...
Cai Guo-Qiang (8 Dec 1957) Reference library
The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art
... (exh. cat., ed. M. Chiu , New York, Asia Soc. Gals, 2004) X. Lin : “ Globalism or Nationalism? Cai Guo-Qiang, Zhang Huan, and Xu Bing in New York, ” Third Text , 69 (July 2004), 279–95 D. Carrier : “ Cai Guo-Qiang, ” Artforum , 43/6 (Feb 2005), pp. 176–7 S. Tanguy : “ A Conversation with Cai Guo-Qiang, ” Sculpture , 24/4 (May 2005), pp. 32–7 M. Chiu : Breakout: Chinese Art Outside China (Milan, 2006) J. K. Grande : “ Shock and Awe: An Interview with Cai Guo-Qiang, ” Yishu , 6/1 (Spring 2007), pp. 39–44 M. B. Wiseman : “ Submersive Strategies in Chinese...
Experiential Peacebuilding Reference library
The Oxford International Encyclopedia of Peace
...environment does not discriminate, it is nonjudgmental, and it acts as a common denominator. Lisa Schirch notes that participants gain knowledge through interaction with their environment. Thus, peacebuilders need to create a space that can symbolically support the work of bringing people together. The physical context in which peacebuilding takes place should convey a message about what can and should take place within that space. (2005) The awe-inspiring places in nature serve as symbolic and ritualized space where the peacebuilding processes can be...
