From the people's army to the Jewish people's army: the IDF's force structure between professionalization and militarization

The article discusses processes of “religionization” within the institutional identity and ethos of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the connection of these processes with the significant structural changes the IDF has undergone in recent decades. The main argument presented is that since the late 1980s, the IDF has been in a culture conflict, torn between soldiers and civilians who advocate turning the IDF into a professional army “military professionalization,” and others who wish to preserve, and even strengthen, the “people's army” model. The present article shows that the meaning of the term “people” in this phrase has shifted to refer strictly to the Jewish people, and that a national-ethnic perception strongly influenced by religious-national ideology has been adopted.     

The Just Warrior Ethos: A Response to Colonel Riza

In 2014, Colonel M. Shane Riza published an article in this journal arguing that remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) and robotic weapons threaten the US Air Force’s warrior ethos. Riza has clearly articulated the sentiments of one side of a vibrant debate within our service. This paper presents an alternative view; a view held by some who have experienced these new forms and tools of war, and who have wrestled with their implications first-hand. In this paper, we address some methodological concerns with Riza’s approach and then engage some misunderstandings about RPA’s relationship to military history and to risk. The second part of this paper takes a close look at some of the early Just War thinkers to determine what implications the tradition may have on the warrior ethos. We propose, as an alternative to Riza’s position, a return to an ethos grounded in humility, charity, and a conception of war as a last resort; in short, a return to the Just Warrior Ethos.     

The continuing resonance of the war as risk management perspective for understanding military interventions

In the late 1990s and 2000s, a slew of books and journal articles proposed that a nexus between risk management and warfare was emerging. This article argues that risk management ideas continue to shape recent campaigns against Libya, Islamic State, Syria, and the war on terror from Niger, Yemen to Somalia. It uses existing literature on risk and warfare to examine four key aspects of contemporary interventions. First, the article evaluates the overall strategic context as security concerns shift from terrorism toward renewed great power competition. Second, it re-assesses the risk calculus for military action through the language and grammar of risk invoked by politicians. Third and fourth, it addresses the continuing reliance on air power and the managerial ethos of military operations as important features of war as risk management.     

Who Really Dictates What an Existential Threat Is? The Israeli Experience

National security conception or securitization theory frames threats and conceptualizes the responses towards them. But in many cases, and especially in the Israeli context, there is a tendency to blur the nature and essence of different threats; security threats become strategic threats and then existential threats. In the Israeli context, because the broad concept of security is perceived, in most cases, as equivalent to military security, the meaning of the strategic threat will be framed, mostly, militarily, derived from military thought.

The article examines the nature of existential threats in the Israeli context and seeks to find the implications of securitization theory in this regard by analyzing the unique role of the military establishment and the influence of the military thought on strategic thought in Israel. The article also deals with the centrality of ‘military wisdom’ in the Israeli ethos and the sense of insecurity embedded in the Israeli narrative that leads to an ‘intellectual symbiosis’ between the political and the military echelons and finds this phenomenon as one of the major explanations for the influence of the military establishment on defining the nature of security threats as well as on the crucial decision to launch wars.     

英语阅读中如何猜词解义

在阅读英语时,首先遇到的问题是生词。如果时时停下来查词典,就会影响思维的连续性、阅读速度甚至丧失阅读兴趣。外语教学中常常提到根据上下文了解词义,即在碰到难以理解的词语时,可以引导学生根据词汇语境线索和已知信息及构词法来进行推测。掌握猜词解义的方法,有助于提高阅读能力。     

Attacking the Atom: Does Bombing Nuclear Facilities Affect Proliferation?

Abstract

What are the consequences of military strikes against nuclear facilities? In particular, do they ‘work’ by delaying the target states ability to build the bomb? This article addresses these questions by conducting an analysis of 16 attacks against nuclear facilities from 1942 to 2007. We analyze strikes that occurred during peacetime and raids that took place in the context of an ongoing interstate war. The findings indicate that strikes are neither as uniformly fruitless as the skeptics would suggest, nor as productive as advocates have claimed. There is evidence that the peacetime attacks delayed the target's nuclear program, although the size of this effect is rather modest. The wartime cases were less successful, as attacks often missed their targets either due to operational failure or limited intelligence on the location of critical targets. In our concluding section we show that many of the conditions that were conducive to past success are not present in the contemporary Iran case. Overall, our findings reveal an interesting paradox. The historical cases that have successfully delayed proliferation are those when the attacking state struck well before a nuclear threat was imminent. Yet, this also happens to be when strikes are the least legitimate under international law, meaning that attacking under these conditions is most likely to elicit international censure.     

Xunzi on the Role of the Military in a Well-Ordered State

Chapter 15 of the Xunzi stands as the most comprehensive account of the early Confucian analysis of warfare. Unlike a range of other early, non-Confucian discussions on warfare, particular strategies and tactics are taken to be of secondary importance. Thus, Xunzi refuses to discuss practical military strategy without framing it within a much broader ethical, social, and political context. On his account, a well-ordered, flourishing state necessarily rests upon a particular set of rituals and social norms in which people can cultivate themselves morally. Such a state has nothing to fear from any enemy, no matter how tactically sophisticated or militarily skilled. To many, such a view seems overly optimistic. However, given that Xunzi is anything but Pollyannaish in other parts of the text and is quite pessimistic about human nature in general, it behooves us to dig a bit more deeply into his ideas about military affairs and examine whether they can be understood in a more plausible light. This article provides a reading of Xunzi’s views on military affairs that is internally consistent and corresponds with Xunzi’s broader ethical and political views, while also showing why someone of Xunzi’s obvious intellectual acumen might hold such a view.     

学前教育专业钢琴技能教育思考

本文在总结学前教育专业实际钢琴技能课教学的基础上,通过对钢琴技能课的教学反思,从提高对钢琴技能课学习的认识,加强学前教育专业钢琴技能学习的角度出发,提倡立足传统教学,勇于教学创新,开拓思路,探索灵活多样的授课形式,整合教学资源,研究新教材、探索新教法,立足于学前教育的专业特点,注重学前教育专业键盘技能的实际运用,并建立科学、可行的学前专业技能考核标准,从而促进学前专业音乐技能课的发展。     

Fighting a Just War in the Midst of an Unreasonable International Strife: World War I and the Collapse of the Central European System of the Triple Imperial Dominion

ABSTRACT

This article constitutes an attempt to demonstrate the complexity of factors affecting the legitimate acquisition and reasonable exercise by a political community of the right to war as specified in the just war criteria of jus ad bellum. To achieve this purpose, a brief analysis is presented of the intentional participation in World War I of thousands of Polish volunteers forming military units deployed by the Central Powers on the Austrian-Russian front. Considered in light of the standard principles of just war, the military enterprise of the Polish Legions, as they were called, turns out to be a paradoxical instance of warfare which, while being part of a state-to-state aggression, must be deemed compliant with all the principles in question. As a means of explaining this paradox, a modification of the concept of justified intervention is proposed, embracing military efforts aimed at the ultimate defeat of all the (unjustly) warring parties operating within a given territory. In consonance with the classic just war approach, it is also argued that the justification for such an intervention is essentially dependent on its being initiated by, or attributable to, an unquestionable state agent acting in defence of the state’s basic prerogatives.     

谈英语词汇学习的语义因素

词汇学习和记忆是学习语言的最基本的手段,也是运用语言的先决条件。学习英语词汇除了从词汇的语音、拼写和一般定义入手外,还应特别注意词汇的语义。本文尝试从词汇的语义关系这个角度论述语义在英语词汇学习中的重要性。     

Intelligence and military doctrine: paradox or oxymoron?

This article examines the evolution of the current British military joint intelligence doctrine. We argue that military intelligence doctrine is dogged by an intrinsic tension between the ethos and expectations of military doctrine and those of the professional practice of intelligence. We further argue not only that prior iterations of UK joint intelligence doctrine failed to effectively deal with this intelligence doctrine dilemma, but also that measures in the current doctrine to address this problem directly created their own problems. Moreover, as a result, otherwise sound innovations in the current UK intelligence doctrine have proven unsuitable to wider diffusion in more recent intelligence doctrine such as the new NATO intelligence doctrine which, otherwise, draws extensively on its British precursor.     

Swedish–Finnish naval cooperation in the Baltic Sea: motives,prospects and challenges

Recently, Finland and Sweden decided to substantially deepen their defence cooperation and this project involves creating a bilateral standing Naval Task Group (SFNTG). The present article aims at examining the deepening naval cooperation between Finland and Sweden from a regional integration perspective, focusing on its motives, current challenges and future prospects. Driven by perceptions of common challenges and desires for cost-effectiveness, and strengthened by recent successes on sea surveillance and a combined Amphibious Task Unit, the bilateral project has considerable potential to achieve success. To fulfil its objectives, substantial legal changes in both countries are required to allow the use of force on each other’s territorial waters. To cater for the requirement of not conflicting with EU, NORDEFCO or NATO cooperations, the bilateral Task Group must operate according to NATO standards and by using English as the language in command and control. The costs of adjusting the naval units to NATO’s technical requirements are far from negligible and this issue still remains to be solved. If Finland and Sweden manage to incorporate new policies, common structures and common organisational norms among their navies, an even deeper integration, as in Belgium and the Netherlands, are conceivable.     

‘Trusty Bess’: the Definitive Origins and History of the term 'Brown Bess'

The aim of this article is to settle once and for all the question of the term ‘Brown Bess’, as applied to the British soldier’s musket. The specific origin and meaning of this obviously affectionate nickname has long confounded arms and armour scholars, re-enactors, and collectors alike. As a result, various possible solutions have been offered. The article outlines the historical usage of the name, including earlier written references not widely known in the field. The scope of the term is also addressed, using period sources to demonstrate what ‘Brown Bess’ meant to those who actually used the name historically. The many false etymologies of the name are assessed and found wanting or ‘debunked’ outright. Finally, drawing upon existing research from the field of linguistics, the article details the real meaning behind ‘Brown Bess’ the firearm and places ‘her’ in a wider sociohistorical context.     

White hull or white elephant? Soft power and the Chinese hospital ship,the Peace Ark

Although soft power is now seen as an indispensable foreign policy tool, its efficacy has rarely been put to a rigorous empirical test. Using data from HARMONIOUS MISSIONs 2010, 2011 and 2013, this article seeks to examine the degree to which the soft power engagement missions of the Chinese hospital ship, the Peace Ark, has advanced Chinese interests. Although any conclusions drawn must be considered preliminary, as so little time has passed between the ship's visits and the current analysis, this research indicates that these missions’ impact on advancing Chinese interests was at best limited. Although observations from a single set of cases are unlikely to settle the debate between soft power advocates and detractors, it is hoped that this research will serve as a catalyst to further empirically based research on this topic.     

Remembering and forgetting Mirambo: Histories of war in modern Africa

ABSTRACT

While the study of organised violence is considered essential to understanding the history of the West, and accordingly imbued with various layers of meaning and remembrance, war is widely regarded as inimical to the modern nation in Africa and stable development more broadly. Using examples drawn from primarily from East Africa, this paper considers the ways in which warfare in the deeper (‘precolonial’) past has been framed and envisioned in recent decades, in particular by governments whose own roots lie in revolutionary armed struggle and who began life as guerrilla movements. While in some cases particular elements of the deeper past were indeed mobilised in pursuit of contemporary political goals, in many other scenarios histories of precolonial violence were beheld as problematic and unworthy of remembrance. This paper highlights the paradox and ambiguity which has attended the memory of key aspects of Africa’s deeper past.     

新疆中小学双语教师专业标准的实然性建构

自新疆推行双语教育以来,先后有14余万人跻身新疆双语教师行列,但始终没有一个统一的标准和基本规范来保障这一支庞大队伍的发展和进步。在经济快速发展和社会转型时期,构建科学而实用的双语教师标准对于新疆双语教育事业发展和进步有着重要的意义。在新教师专业标准的要求下,应基于自身教育身份的双重性和特殊性制定出满足国家和自身需要的行业规范和准则。在此,依据新疆中小学双语教师专业发展的实际情况并结合相关理论,提出建立中小学双语教师专业标准的方法和框架,为新疆双语教师专业标准的出台架构专业标准体系指标和拟案。     

军事新闻标题中的词汇运用特点刍议——以《解放军报》为例

军事新闻的报道对象与普通新闻相比有着很大的不同,其报道对象为与军事相关的事件,这类事件具有很强的专业性和特殊的敏感性。在军事新闻传播过程中,新闻标题起着关键作用。为了准确地反映和提示新闻的内容,吸引读者阅读,军事新闻标题中的词汇运用必然呈现出与普通新闻不同的特点。以中央军委机关报——《解放军报》为例,分析归纳军事新闻标题中的词汇运用特点有四个方面：大量使用军事术语,恰当使用略语,准确使用数字和谨慎使用新词、流行语。     

New results on rendezvous search on the interval

In a rendezvous search problem, two players are placed in a network and must try to meet each other in the least possible expected time. We look at rendezvous search on a discrete interval in which the players are initially placed using independent draws (usually assumed to be from the same distribution). Some optimal solutions are known if this distribution is uniform, and also for certain other special types of distribution. In this article, we present two new results. First, we characterize the complete set of solutions for the uniform case, showing that all optimal strategies must have two specific properties (namely, of being swept and strictly geodesic). Second, we relate search strategies on the interval to proper binary trees, and use this correspondence to derive a recurrence relation for solutions to the symmetric rendezvous problem for any initial distribution. This relation allows us to solve any such problem computationally by dynamic programming. Finally, some ideas for future research are discussed. © Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 60: 454–467, 2013     

Lost through non-translation: bringing Clausewitz's writings on ‘new wars’ back in

While Carl von Clausewitz has generally been respected as one of the most profound philosophers of war, his expertise has been regarded as somewhat limited if not even irrelevant to the so-called ‘new wars’ of the post-Cold War world. Many scholars in international relations have claimed that ‘new wars’ are essentially ‘post-Clausewitzian’ and ‘post-trinitarian’ in nature, meaning that they are no longer fathomable through a Clausewitzian framework. However Clausewitz's earlier writings were nearly exclusively dedicated to guerrilla warfare, or what he called ‘small wars’. These writings have been largely overlooked by many analysts of contemporary conflicts. By drawing on his rare and untranslated writings, the article uncovers a critical part of Clausewitz's expertise in asymmetric warfare and shows that, far from being irrelevant in an age where interstate warfare is increasingly being replaced by conflicts between states and semi-/non-state actors, Clausewitz's philosophical writings actually shed new light into the particular interactive dynamics generated during wars waged under conditions of asymmetry.