Effective? Locally owned? Beyond the technocratic perspective on the European Union Police Mission for the Palestinian Territories

ABSTRACT

The European Union Police Mission for the Palestinian Territories (EUPOL COPPS) was established in 2006 to contribute to the establishment of effective policing in support of an independent and democratic Palestinian state. EUPOL COPPS is often commended for its contribution to the professionalization of the Palestinian security sector under local ownership. Drawing on 40 interviews, we argue that the mission can be considered effective and locally owned only from a narrow technocratic perspective, which denies the political reality of continued occupation and absence of democracy. A broader analysis, which includes the voices of ordinary Palestinians, reveals that EUPOL COPPS contributed to the professionalization of authoritarian policing under continued Israeli occupation. Our findings show the limits of technocratic approaches to peacebuilding interventions and call for a stronger engagement with the ultimate beneficiaries of peacebuilding missions.     

Glimpse into an army at its peak: notes on the Somali National Army in the 1960–80s

ABSTRACT

Bagayoko, Hutchful, and Luckham correctly argue that the structures, characteristics, and operating methods of official security institutions in Africa have been somewhat neglected, with a lack of much recent research. The Somali National Army (SNA) sits among these lacunae. Its formal structures can be used as a skeletal starting point and springboard to start to draw the network diagrams that chart informal linkages. This is why recent declassification decisions by U.S. intelligence bodies, coupled with period documents released to the UK National Archives, hold significance in helping us understand early hierarchical SNA arrangements. They show the steady build-up in size of the force, to 1987, to about the time the civil war began to fragment the state.     

Western drones and African security

While unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become a standard element of modern armed forces, African countries have been reluctant to acquire remotely piloted aircraft for military purposes until recently. This is mainly due to a lack of industrial capabilities and, for military purposes so far, procurement policies that have concentrated on small arms and light weapons, more prestigious armoured vehicles and combat aircraft. Moreover, counter-insurgency strategies in Africa tend to focus on manoeuvre warfare, co-opting rebels or fighting them using armed proxies. As a consequence, international counterterrorism operations against fanatical and reckless groups like al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Boko Haram in sub-Saharan Africa are characterised by a strong dependence on Western forces providing UAV-based reconnaissance and, in some cases for the United States, military strikes by drones. This essay reviews some of the incentives and problems of the use of UAVs in the African context. Given the geographical and military conditions of asymmetric warfare in Africa, and potential problems concerning international law, ethical aspects of the use of arms, and civil–military relations notwithstanding, it is argued that African security forces should develop their own UAV capabilities by intensifying their cooperation with Western armed forces.     

Sharing the load: factors in supporting local armed groups in insurgencies

Most counterinsurgency campaigns have featured the use of some form of local defense forces. Such forces have had a somewhat mixed record, both in their usefulness in actually countering insurgents and in their longer-term impact on internal security. This article focuses on historical cases that provide lessons for the best operational and strategic uses of local defense forces and measures to control their activities.     

Turning the tides of war: The impact of private military and security companies on Nigeria’s counterinsurgency against Boko Haram

Since the 2003 war in Iraq, private military and security companies (PMSCs) have become increasingly legitimate actors in modern conflicts. Despite this normative shift, rumours in March 2015 regarding the use of South African mercenaries in Nigeria to combat Boko Haram insurgents caused an international outrage, while the Nigerian government remained nonchalantly silent on the matter. This article investigates the impact of mercenaries on the conflict in the last six months of the Jonathan government. Using primary and secondary qualitative research, it assesses the role that PMSCs played in Nigeria’s counterinsurgency strategy, along with the ensuing reaction of international and local media to the outsourcing of violence to foreign companies. The article concludes that – notwithstanding the improved image of PMSCs in the world, and the actual impact of the contractors on the Nigerian counterinsurgency effort – the stigma of mercenaries continues to plague the industry, particularly on the African continent.     

虚拟化技术研究与探索

近年来虚拟化技术在商业应用上的优势日益体现,不仅降低了IT成本,而且还增强了系统安全性和可靠性。主要针对服务器虚拟化技术的出现、发展,对目前x86平台主流虚拟化技术类别进行了总结,重点阐述了纯软件虚拟化技术的原理及面临的挑战。     

军用软件测试现状及对策

随着我军信息化建设深入发展,军用软件的规模和数量空前增长,军用软件的质量建设成为极端重要而紧迫的任务。软件测试是保证软件质量、提高软件可靠性的重要途径和必备手段,但当前无论是在软件测试的认识层面,还是对软件测试的管理和技术支撑等方面,仍然存在着许多问题,软件测试工作形势依然严峻,急需得到改进和加强。在深入分析军用软件测试现状、存在的问题和原因的基础上,综合设计体系结构,研究提出对策措施,为整体推进软件测试工作提供了可行的解决方案。     

EU security sector reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Reform or resist?

ABSTRACT

Attempts to explain the failure to reform the security sectors in post-conflict countries have often resorted to two sets of explanatory factors: international and local factors. This article seeks to move from that unhelpful dichotomy to an explanation linking both factors. Drawing on a Foucauldian approach and the concept of “counter-conduct,” it examines the rationality and practices of European Union (EU) governmentality and how governing technologies are resisted and reversed by local elites involved in security sector reform (SSR). Instead of understanding power and resistance as binary opposites, this article argues that counter-conduct can be conceived as implicated in the very relations of power that it seeks to resist. To tease out these relations, the article analyzes the EU's efforts in SSR in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where it identifies four forms of counter-conduct: upholding European standards, using the local ownership trap, simulating reforms, and lowering the bar.     

A nuclear-armed North Korea without ICBMs: the best achievable objective

This article analyzes the North Korean nuclear crisis from a balance-of-power perspective. It is in the long-term interests of international peace for a secure and independent North Korea to serve as a buffer between US and Chinese ground forces. However, the conventional military advantage of the South Korean-American alliance over North Korea has grown drastically since the end of the Cold War, threatening North Korea’s survival. Since North Korea lacks any reliable ally, nuclear weapons represent its most cost-effective way to restore a balance of power and thus secure itself. Accepting security guarantees in exchange for its nuclear arsenal is rhetorically appealing but not a viable approach. North Korea’s development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), however, has overcompensated for the post-Cold War imbalance, inviting talk in Washington of waging a preventive war. Persuading North Korea to give up its ICBM capability, not its nuclear arsenal, should therefore be the primary objective of US diplomacy.     

国家安全与公共卫生安全应急话语构建【专题】

近期发生的新冠病毒疫情引发公众对公共卫生安全话语的极大关注。现阶段自媒体话语滥觞对主流意识形态话语的消解，凸显了构建应急话语体系的必要性。国家安全话语构建离不开语言学话语理论支撑，语言学与大数据分析的融合可为健全国家应急话语体系提供操作思路。本文梳理疫情发生以来人民网、央视新闻等主流媒体网站及微信、微博等自媒体平台涌现的大量疫情多语类相关话语，通过弥补大数据在分析话语整体意义层面的不足，提出应急话语构建和分析的七个维度。本文认为，国防科技应发挥大数据统计分析优势的同时，结合话语分析方法构筑质化的语言学模型，走跨学科之路，构建国家安全话语公共卫生应急话语体系。