The People’s Liberation Army and China’s Smart Power Quandary in Southeast Asia

Abstract

China has a strong interest in pursuing a smart power strategy towards Southeast Asia and has worked laboriously to engage with regional countries economically, socially, and politically. But China has been only partially successful in achieving its goals in the region. This paper argues that China’s security policy towards Southeast Asia significantly contradicts many other objectives that Beijing wishes to accomplish. Given the deep-seated, narrowly-defined national interests of the Chinese military in the South China Sea disputes, it is likely that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will continue to pose the main obstacle to the effective implementation of a Chinese smart strategy in Southeast Asia.     

Just How Important Are ‘Hearts and Minds’ Anyway? Counterinsurgency Goes to the Polls

Despite all the talk of ‘hearts and minds’ being the key to counterinsurgency, local public opinion is rarely studied and when it is, it often yields surprising conclusions. Through analyzing polling data from Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, this article shows that public opinion is less malleable, more of an effect rather than a cause of tactical success, and a poor predictor of strategic victory. As a result, modern counterinsurgency doctrine’s focus on winning popular support may need to be rethought.     

Operation ‘Serval’: A Strategic Analysis of the French Intervention in Mali, 2013–2014

In 2013, France launched Operation ‘Serval’ to halt the southwards advance of Islamist insurgents in Mali. Using a Clausewitzian analytical framework, this article provides an assessment of France’s political and military aims in Mali and the degree to which they have been attained. Clear political goals, coordinated international diplomacy, an effective use of military force and blunders by the rebel forces turned ‘Serval’ into a short-term success. Strategically, however, the mission has proven unable to address the conflict’s underlying causes. Serval’s long-term effect is probably better measured by what it prevented than what it contributed.     

看汉代京都赋与长安地域文化的交融——以《西都赋》和《西京赋》为例

汉代长安地理位置优越,得天独厚,在吸收多元文化的基础上形成自己独特的地域文化。汉武帝时期,政治统一,经济繁荣,勃兴的长安文化催生了汉代的京都赋,同样,京都赋又以其独特的文体内涵集中展现了汉代长安丰富多样的地域文化,二者在历史的长河中交融在一起。     

一类二次微分系统在三次多项式扰动下的极限环估计

计算了一类二次Hamilton微分系统的一阶Mel’nikov函数,通过此方法对该系统在三次多项式扰动下分岔的极限环个数进行了估计。     

一种新的保持分形特征的分形变形方法

针对IFS吸引子变形过程中间出现的分形特征退化的问题,提出基于局部吸引子的近似凸包及旋转匹配的特征对应方法.IFS吸引子的局部吸引子可由独立的IFS生成,IFS中每个压缩仿射映射存在不动点,构造所有不动点的凸包,即得到局部近似凸包;证明了局部近似凸包间的相似对应等价于局部吸引子间的相似对应,并提出了通过旋转匹配的特征对应方法实现局部近似凸包的配对,最后计算所有配对下相似度最高的一组局部近似凸包匹配,确定局部吸引子间的特征对应,即IFS特征对应.对两个IFS进行线性插值可实现保持分形特征的分形变形.     

Terrorism as Method in Nepali Maoist Insurgency, 1996–2016

During the period 1996–2006, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) waged overt people’s war to seize state power and institute a new order that realized the party’s understanding of ‘New Democracy’ as posited by Mao Tse-tung. Contextual shifts led to a crucial strategic turning point in September 2005, when the Maoists agreed to a united front with estranged legal parties to oust the monarchy and establish a republic. Though touted as acceptance of political reintegration, the move was tactical rather than strategic. The party had no intention of supporting a parliamentary version of democracy and thus, 2006–2016, engaged in a covert effort to seize power. Central to this effort was the paramilitary Young Communist League (YCL), the members of which responded to inflammatory party verbiage and exhortations with attacks upon rival political actors. These attacks, academically and legally, were terrorism and offered a salient illustration of intra-state unrestricted warfare. Ultimately, organizational, national, and regional circumstances caused the main Maoist movement to move decisively away from its covert approach. By that time, however, radical splinters had embraced the use of terrorism against rival political actors, creating a situation whereby local politics is yet a dangerous endeavor in certain areas and at certain times.     

The fateful phoenix: the revival of Al-Qa’ida in Iraq

Although the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) is seen as a novel manifestation of Islamic extremism, it is in fact the latest, albeit perhaps the most effective, of a long line of revivalist movements in the Islamic and the Arab worlds. Its motivations – hisba and jihad – differ little from its predecessors and its ambitions – to create a state organised in accordance with the precepts of the Islamic caliphate – reflect a long-standing Islamic ambition. It differs, of course, in terms of the sophistication of its political and military strategies, which mirror the contemporary complexities of the world in which it operates, but its objectives recall long-standing Islamic ideals, even if articulated in radically brutal and extremist ways. More importantly, perhaps, ISIS or Da’ish, to give it its Arabic sobriquet, reflects the enormous degree of resentment inside the Middle East at the ways in which Western powers have intervened in regional affairs over recent years, particularly their support for regimes and economic systems there that have betrayed, in the popular imaginary, the essential principles of social justice that lie at the root of Islamic vision of ideal social order. Indeed, in many respects, its analysis of the world in which it operates and of the objectives it seeks differ little in essence from those any other resistance and rejectionist movement, whether religious or sectarian. More specifically, it has been the sectarian conflict that resulted from the reversal of political order in Iraq as a result of the 2003 American-led invasion that has driven the success of the movement in capturing widespread Sunni support. Whether it can manage the complexities of the administration of a state remains open to question.     

The Peninsular War guerrilla and its antecedents: humiliation forgotten,disaster prefigured: the guerra fantástica of 1762

ABSTRACT

The brief war that took place between Spain and Portugal in 1762 is one of the least known episodes in the latter’s military history, whereas, thanks to Wellington’s construction of the Lines of Torres Vedras, the French invasion of 1810–11 is right at the other end of the spectrum. Yet the two episodes are closely linked to one another. At the very least, they are uncannily reminiscent in terms of their details – in both cases substantial foreign armies were vanquished through a combination of irregular resistance, scorched-earth tactics and the clever use of field fortifications – and the article therefore argues that Wellington based the plan that defeated the forces of Marshal Massena on the strategy used by the Portuguese half a century earlier.