Precision cyber weapon systems: An important component of a responsible national security strategy?

Given the advances made in conventional weapon capabilities, precision should by now be the accepted and expected norm in cyberspace as well. In this article I argue that developing precision cyber weapon systems, to be used during a lawful conflict, can be an important part of a responsible national security strategy to reduce the amount of violence and physical destruction in conflicts. I first describe a precision cyber weapon system in a military context. I then present three compelling rationales for the development of precision cyber weapon systems based on ethical, operational, and financial considerations. To support the position, I address several arguments that have been levied against their development. Thereafter I present several recommendations for a way ahead.     

基于云模型的导弹信息作战指挥效能评估

针对导弹信息作战指挥效能评估中既包含定量指标,又包含定性指标,而对这些指标进行科学合理地统一评价尚存在很多困难的问题,运用云模型对其进行了研究。分析了导弹信息作战指挥能力的指标体系,介绍了云模型的相关理论,并给出了运用云模型进行效能评估的详细算法,利用云发生器得到了最终的评估结果。最后给出了一个评估实例,结果证明该方法有效可行,能很好地解决效能评估中定性语言到定量值之间的转化问题。     

The Bush War to Save the Rhino: Improving Counter-poaching Through Intelligence

The rhino is going extinct due to poaching at a rate which far outstrips current law enforcement or conservation efforts to halt their decline. A critical aspect of counter-poaching failures to date is an inaccurate view of the nature of poaching as a crime. Rather than demand-side efforts, attacking elusive smuggling networks or expensive technical solutions like drones, this article notes how a quasi-military tactical approach of ‘combat tracking’ offers the best way to protect the species. Based on wide ranging interviews and fieldwork across dozens of parks in southern Africa, it demonstrates how the current restricted range of the rhino, and the rarity of skilled poachers, makes a tactical solution the most effective to date.     

Anarchy’s anatomy: Two-tiered security systems and Libya’s civil wars

ABSTRACT

No issue deserves more scrutiny than the mechanisms whereby popular unrest unleashes civil wars. We argue that one institution – two-tiered security systems – is particularly pernicious in terms of the accompanying civil war risk. These systems’ defining characteristic is the juxtaposition of small communally stacked units that protect regimes from internal adversaries with larger regular armed forces that deter external opponents. These systems aggravate civil war risks because stacked security units lack the size to repress widespread dissent, but inhibit rapid regime change through coup d’état. Regular militaries, meanwhile, fracture when ordered to employ force against populations from which they were recruited.