The Chinese and Asian impact on Russian nuclear policy

Asia, where nuclear powers already interact (including North Korea), exerts a growing influence on the thinking and policy underlying Russia's current and future nuclear (and overall defense) posture. China's rise is forcing Russia into a greater reliance on strategic offensive weapons and tactical nuclear weapons. These in turn will reinforce its opposition to US missile defenses, not only in Europe but also in Asia. Russia must now entertain the possibility of nuclear use in regional conflicts that would otherwise remain purely conventional. It cannot be postulated blindly that nuclear weapons serve no discernible purpose other than to deter nuclear attacks by other nuclear powers. The strategic equation in Asia and in the Russian Far East convincingly demonstrates the falsity of this approach. Nuclear weapons will be the essential component of Russia's regional defense policy if not of its overall policies – and this also includes contingencies in Europe.     

Hard Balancing in the Age of American Unipolarity: The Russian Response to US Ballistic Missile Defense during the Bush Administration (2001–2008)

One of the central debates in contemporary international relations scholarship concerns the issue of whether balancing has occurred in response to US-based unipolarity, and if it has, how this should be characterised. Existing research has seen analysts argue that major power responses to unipolarity can be placed in one of either three categories: an absence of balancing, soft balancing, and hard balancing. This article contributes to the scholarly literature by providing a case study of hard internal Russian balancing against the US’s development and deployment of Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) systems during the Bush Administration (2001–08). Russian hard balancing against the US has involved: (1) fielding new strategic nuclear and conventional weapons equipped with BMD countermeasures, and, relatedly, (2) making changes in military doctrine. As a result, security dilemma dynamics are increasingly in evidence in US relations with Russia.     

On the roles of free play in army exercises and the Russians

The article outlines the essential role of free play elements in various types of exercises for the development of in-depth and practical military professionalism. It thereafter argues why such use of free play contradicts the military science founded Russian Way of War.     

U.S.–RUSSIAN NUCLEAR COOPERATION AND THE CTBT

Post-Cold War “lab-to-lab” collaborations on unclassified scientific issues between U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons laboratories set the stage for bilateral cooperation in materials control and other nuclear areas. They also became the major element in a cooperative process initiated by a Presidential Decision Directive to ensure Russia's compliance with the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. These collaborations have always been highly favored by leaders of the Russian nuclear weapons complex—the same leaders who oversee Russia's participation in various government-to-government programs. This article reviews these collaborations and examines the possibility that U.S. rebuffs of Russian proposals and the U.S. failure to keep promises of expanded collaboration could contribute to Russia's reluctance in major programs and even lead to a return to nuclear testing by Russia. The author argues that a renewed U.S. commitment to the process should be an immediate goal of the Obama administration and is an essential step in re-engaging Russia to solve the nuclear problems remaining from the Cold War. Steps for doing so are recommended.     

基于EATI的多分辨率联邦可组合性判定研究

联邦可组合性判定是在组建联邦之前,在语义层面分析邦员之间是否存在一种或多种交互方式能够满足联邦的仿真需求和目的。多分辨率联邦执行的有效性是判定联邦可组合性的主要标准。基于EATI方法,提出了多分辨率组合性的形式化理论,给出多分辨率联邦概念模型与多分辨率联邦组合模型的形式化描述。通过比较这两个模型得出联邦有效性的形式化定义,并在此基础上得到联邦可组合性判定方法。该判定方法从实践中总结并在实践中验证,对于构建军用仿真联邦的可行性分析具有一定的借鉴价值。     

聚焦俄军防空指挥自动化系统

探讨了俄军防空指挥自动化系统的发展状况,介绍了俄军防空指挥自动化系统的分类、组成、结构特点及各系统采用的技术。指出了目前旧有的两种分类,提出了新的分类方式。也介绍了俄军战略、战役和战术三个层次防空指挥自动化系统组成及其结构特性。最后举例介绍了俄军无线电技术兵所装备的指挥自动化系统。     

Exploring the subsidiarity principle in policing and the operations of the Nigeria Police Force

The provisions of the 1999 Constitution, which recognises the existence of a single police force and forbids parallel police organisations, have oftentimes generated controversies among actors in the Nigerian federal polity. Rising insecurity precipitates lingering questions on the utility and adequacy of a single, highly centralised and centrally controlled police force given Nigeria’s geographic vastness and demographic diversity. Conversely, arguments have also dwelt on the dangers of fragmentation considering Nigeria’s psychosocial, economic and political nature. This article attempts to balance these arguments by analysing policing and the operations of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) through the lens of the subsidiarity principle. Subsidiarity is a governance principle in federations, captured in the founding documents of the European Union (EU), which prescribes that governmental powers, authorities and duties should be held by the tier that can best perform them equitably, efficiently, effectively, suitably and based on interest and need. Drawing largely on interviews with purposively selected police scholars, political actors, civil society organisations and police personnel, the paper contends that this principle offers a pragmatic solution to the perennial problems of intergovernmental frictions on the use of the police within the context of governance in the Nigerian federation.     

‘Calmly critical’: Evolving Russian views of US hegemony

Russia has consistently opposed US hegemony since the early 1990s. Moscow has sought to create a world overseen by the UN Security Council and several power centres supporting an anti-hegemonic axis. Until recently, Russia's resources have been very limited. Russian opposition therefore was largely conceptual or a work in progress. Russian policy was largely reactive – and non-confrontational. However, the failure of the Russia-US relationship to develop practically has highlighted negative views of US hegemony, and the greater wealth generated through high energy prices is supporting an increasingly active Russian policy.     

Political opposition,external threats,and elite responses: analyzing domestic security policy in post-Rose Revolution Georgia

In the years since the 2003 Rose Revolution, the popularly elected leadership of the Republic of Georgia has responded to organized protests with a variety of repressive tactics. These reactions suggest that former challengers to authoritarian elites may utilize similar methods of retaining power during crisis periods. Yet, the alleged involvement of agencies of the Russian Federation in fomenting domestic instability has also occupied a central position in the national security policies of the outgoing Saakashvili government. These conditions both preceded and were reinforced by the South Ossetia War of August 2008. This article proposes a theoretical model that represents the intervening effect of interstate conflicts on state–society relations in Georgia from 2003 to present. It presents several hypotheses and possible indicators, data sources, and techniques for analyzing the interaction between characteristics of opposition groups, external threats, and the domestic security practices of contemporary Georgian political elites.     

俄海军舰空导弹武器设计和试验一体化仿真平台

目前在舰空导弹系统研制领域,俄罗斯海军处于世界先进水平。介绍了俄罗斯在舰空导弹武器设计和试验仿真领域的研究成果,对构建设计和试验一体化仿真平台具有重要的借鉴意义。