The Weight of the Past(s): The Impact of the Bundeswehr’s Use of Historical Experience on Strategy-Making in Afghanistan

This article seeks to explain the basic dynamics of the development of the German military approach in Afghanistan between 2003 and 2010 by looking at the impact of the Bundeswehr’s established uses of historical experience. First, the German military approach in Afghanistan has slowly evolved from a peacebuilding and mediation mission towards a full-fledged combat deployment. Second, the Bundeswehr’s exclusive focus on the World War II experience has contributed to the emergence of the Balkans experience as a formative experience that shaped initial operational thinking in Afghanistan. Third, because a thorough debate on the historical foundation of counterinsurgency remained absent, the operational shift in 2009 was perceived as a return to ‘classical’ military tasks and thus led to an almost exclusive focus on training for combat.     

从三次战役看《孙子兵法》在《三国演义》中的体现

《三国演义》是中国古代军事战争小说的经典之作,它深受《孙子兵法》的影响。文章以赤壁之战、智取荆州、彝陵之战为窗口,以期窥探《三国演义》中所体现的《孙子兵法》的军事思想。     

Graveyard of Analogies: The Use and Abuse of History for the War in Afghanistan

Decades of scholarship have warned against using historical analogies for policymaking. But the Taliban insurgency appears, on the surface, to confirm the usefulness of historical analogies to the British and Soviet wars in Afghanistan. I review the use of analogies for the war in Afghanistan and argue the analogies were historically unsound and strategically unhelpful. In fact, their effect on policy helped create the conditions for the very insurgency policymakers most hoped to avoid. The Taliban insurgency did not occur because of the presence of too many foreign troops and aid workers, but because there were too few.     

楮墨实录书史事 笔锋托愤抒胸臆——《史记》实录精神与托愤精神的二重组合

文章以《史记》实录精神与托愤精神组合为突破口,阐述了实录精神、托愤精神的远源和在史文中的凸显,进一步挖掘二者之间相悖的二元性关系,从而揭示《史记》中所蕴含的这种文化悖论本身的深刻性、美感魅力以及难解的文化之谜。     

MAKING HISTORICAL SURVEYS OF STATES’ NUCLEAR AMBITIONS

In signalling its wish to participate in the Additional Protocol at an early stage, Sweden took several steps at the national level long before it actually ratified the protocol in May 2004. In 1998, the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate (SKI) initiated a project to conduct a historical survey of Swedish nuclear weapons research for the period 1945–72. Sweden thus took an important step for the sake of transparency. SKI worked out a general model of how a nationally based survey could be designed, and gradually other states approached SKI in order to learn more about the methods and goals of the historical surveys. In 2002, a cooperative project was initiated between Sweden and Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Finland joined the cooperative effort, and it thus became a dialogue and project carried out by five neighboring states to make national surveys. This article presents summaries of the national reports from Sweden and the Baltic states.     

试析危害社会主义核心价值体系的几种社会思潮

在当代社会,实用主义、新自由主义、民主社会主义、历史虚无主义等都是对社会主义核心价值体系危害较大的社会思潮,积极研究、正确对待这些社会思潮,对于巩固马克思主义在意识形态领域的指导地位,牢牢把握意识形态工作的主导权,坚持以社会主义核心价值体系引领社会思潮,具有极其重要的意义。