Boko Haram’s increasingly sophisticated military threat

ABSTRACT

This paper evaluates Boko Haram’s military capabilities and details the process of how its standing army, driven by these capabilities, came to pose a phased threat between 2013 and 2015 in particular. This was a period when military fighting dominated the insurgency in north-east Nigeria. Whereas there is an abundance of literature on Boko Haram’s histories and the impact of its insurgency on north-east Nigeria, analysis of Boko Haram’s military campaigning is still deficient. Attempting to fill this gap, this paper uses field findings and battlefield case studies from north-east Nigeria to highlight how Boko Haram’s overt front – its standing army – came to supplant its guerrilla operations as the main security threat to the frontier area.

This pivot towards military fighting, for a group initially composed of a few ragtag combatants, on the surface might seem surprising. Yet, whereas Boko Haram may lack the popular support required for ‘people’s war’, classic insurgency theories nevertheless hold some explanatory power for this deliberate shift: away from guerrilla warfare as the expedient of the weaker side, and towards the use of a large standing army of locals to swarm, and sometimes successfully overrun, state forces.     

From small wars to counterinsurgency: C.W. Gwynn, ‘Imperial Policing’ and transformation of doctrine

ABSTRACT

The complicated problematic of Imperial Policing in many respects still comes down to the principle of minimum force, and much of what we consider an integral part of the modern doctrine of counterinsurgency, is perceived as by-product of post-1945 colonial experience. Charles Gwynn wrote about it in his still underestimated text-book on internal security, ‘Imperial Policing’. As a result, there is a lack of clear understanding how colonial (based on local experience) knowledge was transformed into the expert (universal, transferable) knowledge in confronting rebellions at the doctrinal level. This article examines the work of Gwynn as part of a transitional stage from the age of global empires to the age of nuclear superpowers within the context of internal security doctrine. Adaptation to the new realities during the interwar period and after the World War II – reconfiguration of the British army epistemological system in confronting insurgencies – was a hard process. In this sense, the question about transformation of colonial knowledge into expert knowledge onto the field of internal security is a part of a more general and sensitive question about transition from colonialism to the post-colonial age.     

TOT培训模式对我国警务硕士培养的几点启示

TOT培训是对培训者的培训,是欧盟开展成人教育的一种创新模式.通过浅析TOT培训模式,结合我国警务硕士培养目标和要求,从警务硕士培养理念、培养方法、管理与评估等方面提出了开展警务硕士专业学位研究生培养工作的几点思考.     

消防部队基地化模拟训练现状分析及对策研究

公安消防部队开展基地化模拟训练是适应新职能任务、提升灭火救援实战能力、研究和检验各类战术战法的需要.分析了当前公安消防部队开展基地化模拟训练“软、硬”件建设不到位、标准执行不到位、训练设施利用率不高、训练效果不明显、人员集中难,以及后勤保障难落实等问题,提出了解决影响和制约基地化模拟训练深入开展的对策与措施.     

浅析军事医学语言的现实意义

军事医学语言是军事语言学的一个分支学科。古今中外的军事医学实践表明,军事医学语言在医学工作中发挥着重要作用,有时对医疗效果起着决定性作用。我国古代十分重视运用军事医学语言保障部队提高医疗效果的作用。但是,军事医学语言学科还不成体系,严重影响着军事医学工作科学效能的发挥。加快军事医学语言学科体系建设,已经成为当前巩固和提高部队战斗力中一个不可忽视的课题。     

军事指挥类期刊对军事学术研究的透视

军事指挥类期刊主要依靠各级军事指挥员,服务于部队全面建设。在军事学术研究队伍不断发展壮大的今天,军事指挥类期刊为部队“能打仗、打胜仗”军事理论研究服务,但军事学术研究存在着研究群体优势和合成作战理论优势发挥不够的问题。因而,要高度重视军事学术研究人才培养,加大经费投入,强化军兵种之间合成作战理论研究的力度。     

基于认知实验的虚拟维修训练效果评估研究

为了客观、准确地评估虚拟维修训练系统的训练效果,从实验的角度出发,提出了基于认知实验的虚拟维修训练效果评估方法。首先,分析了虚拟维修训练的评估现状;其次,重点阐述了该方法的实施步骤,并通过对比维修人员基于传统训练手段和虚拟维修训练手段的考试成绩,评估训练系统的训练效果,为系统的改进、优化以及下一步的推广使用提供了重要的理论依据;最后,通过实例分析,验证了该方法的可行性和科学性.     

The Demand for Military Spending in Egypt

Egypt plays a pivotal role in the security of the Middle East as the doorway to Europe and its military expenditure reflects its involvement in the machinations of such an unstable region, showing considerable variation over the last 40?years. These characteristics make it a particularly interesting case study of the determinants of military spending. This paper specifies and estimates an econometric model of the Egyptian demand for military spending, taking into account important strategic and political factors. Both economic and strategic factors are found to play a role in determining military burden/spending, with clear positive effects of lagged military burden, suggesting some sort of institutional inertia, plus negative output and net exports effects. The strategic effect as a result of the impact of Israel’s military burden is mostly positive and significant, though its impact is reduced when the impact of important strategic events are taken into account. The military spending of Egypt’s allies Jordan and Syria generally seems to have had no effect on Egypt’s spending. These results are consistent over a range of econometric techniques.     

One size does not fit all: personalized incentives in military compensation

A critical element in implementing a compensation scheme including nonmonetary incentives (NMIs) is recognizing that preferences vary widely across Service members. There are at least three sources of variability: across different population classes, across individuals within a population class, and across NMI packages for a particular individual. Surveys across different military communities, ranks, and years of Service show the difficulty of identifying any NMI that has significant value for even 50% of the active duty force. At the same time, approximately 80% of the surveyed Service members expressed a significant positive value for at least one NMI. Therefore, one-size-fits-all incentive packages will not be nearly as effective as more personalized incentive packages. The authors discuss variability in Service member NMI preferences and outline an approach to implementing personalized NMI packages in military compensation through a sealed-bid reverse auction, where Service members select individual NMIs from a “cafeteria-style” menu of options.     

The United States' retreat from the Middle East and pivot to the Far East is likely to intensify

A combination of threat analysis and “subterranean forces” (such as proclivities to fight conventional wars as compared to asymmetric ones) leads the USA to prefer focusing on the threats from China rather than those emanating from the Middle East.