A case study in bio-inspired engineering design: defense applications of exoskeletal sensors

As part of a bio-inspired design process, the authors examine exoskeletal sensors found in insects and their potential application to armor and hardened buildings. In this way, the outer hardening of a structure or vehicle would not limit the ability of occupants to arrive at an actionable picture of the outer environment. To this end, various sensor modalities employed by insects are compared and contrasted with their current human-engineered equivalents. In several sensing modalities, biosensors perform better, are smaller, and more energy efficient than human-engineered equivalents. They note that biological designs tend to employ non-linear response to signal amplitude and respond with heightened sensitivity over a greater dynamic range of signals than human-engineered sensors. The insect biological sensors have structural and mechanical innovations that preserve the protective capacity of the exoskeleton.     

基于WSR方法论的军事环境安全策略研究

为了克服新形势下军事发展面临的一系列环境安全问题,不断加强军事环境管理工作,拓展并解析了军事环境安全的概念,建立了基于WSR方法论的军事环境安全三维分析模型.结合模型的“物理”、“事理”、“人理”分析,提出了一套相互关联的军事环境安全策略,为进一步深入研究并制定军事环境安全战略规划提供了重要参考.     

Proliferation Optimism and Pessimism Revisited

Policies to counter the threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) have, for the most part, been modeled on strategies originally devised to counter the danger of nuclear proliferation. While useful in countering a traditional CBN (chemical/biological/nuclear)/WMD threat, current counter-proliferation and non-proliferation regimes are insufficient to meet the challenge of maritime terrorism. Maritime terrorism represents a new category of threat; one that partially overlaps with conventional WMD, but for which – due to the scope and nature of the maritime industry – traditional counter-proliferation policies may be inadequate and even inappropriate. This article outlines the means by which maritime shipping can be used as WMD and discusses the policies implemented to deal with these threats, in light of the challenges presented to traditional conceptualizations of WMD and counter-proliferation strategies.     

‘What Kind of War is This?’

This article explores the nature of the American war in Vietnam in an effort to determine whether it was a response to an indigenous uprising or an external effort by the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) to use a wide array of policies and programs to unite North Vietnam and South Vietnam under the party’s leadership. It argues that, although there initially were elements of the South Vietnamese population that rose against the southern leadership, the CPV gained control of their resistance and relegated it to a secondary role in the CPV war effort.     

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.     

Covert Canucks: Intelligence Gathering and the 1924 Voyage of HMCS Thiepval in the North Pacific Ocean

In 1924, HMCS Thiepval provided logistical support to a British attempt to circumnavigate the world by air. But the ship had another secret mission. Concerned America and Japan were fortifying their north Pacific possessions in violation of the 1922 Washington Treaty, and fearing war might be inevitable, the Canadian navy sent the Thiepval to covertly spy upon American and Japanese facilities. No cheating was discovered, but in the longer run, Canadian concerns about hostilities in the north Pacific were ‘on the mark’ correct.     

The unnecessary uprising: Jeju Island rebellion and South Korean counterinsurgency experience 1947–48

This paper systematically analyzes the causes of the escalation of violence during the initial stages of the Jeju Island Rebellion and the failure of South Korean counterinsurgency operations. It is argued that four interrelated factors provided the conditions for armed insurgency in the small island of Jeju: inter-agency tension between the Korean National Police (KNP) and the Korean Constabulary; the mainlanders' misinterpretation of the insurgency; the effect of systematic police brutality; and the role of youth groups. Consequently, two counterinsurgency lessons will be drawn from this study: that inter-agency cooperation and coordination at the tactical level between security branches and the incorporation of local population at the micro-level is essential in conducting efficient and effective counterinsurgency operations.     

Security sector stabilisation in counterinsurgency operations: the case of Afghanistan

This article argues that the debate on security sector reform (SSR) needs to be taken further by taking into consideration the fact that, even though the SSR concept was not originally developed as an element in stabilising states undergoing an insurgency, it is very much being used for exactly that. When conducting counterinsurgency with a focus on the creation of stability, the baseline will ultimately have to be security sector stabilisation (SSS) as a precondition for complete SSR implementation. However, the two must be connected to avoid them undermining each other. This is important if a comprehensive approach to programme implementation and especially sustainability is to guide the programme, and not just isolated ‘train and equip’ stand-alone projects that do not solve either the initial need for stabilisation or the long-term need for accountable security forces. Currently, in Afghanistan the surge for security by the international military is in danger of overtaking the other elements of the SSR, thereby undermining the primary end state and thus risking laying the wrong foundation for the long-term process of SSR.     

Croatia's bitter harvest: Total National Defence's role in the Croatian War of Independence

Croatia's successful bid for independence was one of the defining moments of the immediate post-Cold War period. Nevertheless, the means that Croatia used to obtain independence remains relatively unexamined by academics. This article focuses on the early period of Croatia's bid for secession, and specifically the role that Yugoslavia's policy of Total National Defence played in facilitating its independence. Unlike in Slovenia, where the legacies of Total National Defence facilitated Slovenia's bid for secession, in Croatia the decision of its political leaders meant that the country largely neglected its positive legacies, resulting in a protracted four-year struggle.     

Unraveling the violence in Kazakhstan

There were several high-profile violent incidents in 2011 in Kazakhstan, including several bombings, shootings that targeted police, and a protest turned clash that resulted in a number of deaths. Some of the perpetrators reportedly had links with radical religious groups. An overlooked aspect of the violence is how it is reported in Kazakhstan. There are active, competent media in Kazakhstan, which are largely unknown in the West. An examination of these incidents using the media in Kazakhstan can provide a unique insight into what took place. While Western sources quickly blamed radical religious groups with international connections, media in Kazakhstan have found that there are other reasons for the violence.