The long shadow of colonial cartography: Britain and the Sino-Indian war of 1962

ABSTRACT

This article examines British responses to the Sino-Indian border war of 1962. It illustrates how, in the years leading up to the war, Britain’s colonial legacy in the Indian subcontinent saw it drawn reluctantly into a territorial dispute between Asia’s two largest and most powerful nations. It analyses disagreements in Whitehall between the Foreign Office and Commonwealth Relations Office over the relative strength of India and China’s border claims, and assesses how these debates reshaped British regional policy. It argues that the border war was instrumental in transforming Britain’s post-colonial relationship with South Asia. Continuing to filter relations with India through an imperial prism proved unsatisfactory, what followed was a more pragmatic Indo-British association.     

和谐社会背景下发展西部民族教育的对策

本文根据西部民族地区教育的特殊性和共性,从创建和谐社会的基本理念出发,提出发展西部民族教育的对策:促进民族教育与全国教育发展相协调;增强少数民族的自信心,促进民族地区的社会稳定;确立教育公平和补偿性投入的理念,实现民族教育超前发展;重视民族基础教育和高层次骨干人才培养;加强师资队伍的建设;加强发达地区对西部贫困地区的教育对口支援。     

美军作战实验室的现状和发展

美军作战实验室建设走在世界的前列。从20世纪90年代初至今,美军已初步建立起从技术、战术到战役、战略,从兵种、军种到联合作战的完整实验体系。分析美军热衷于作战实验室建设的主要原因,概括介绍了美军主要的作战实验室及其主要技术手段与工作程序,分析了美军作战实验室的特点和发展趋势,在此基础上得出了组织管理与顶层设计、新技术研究与应用、需求牵引与研究成果有效应用、建设投入与重点等方面的启示,对于指导我军作战实验室建设具有重要的借鉴作用。     

Operational idealism: doctrine development of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army under Soviet threat, 1969–1989

This article analyses the doctrine development of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) coping with the Soviet military threat between 1969 and 1989. In the 1970s, the PLA applied a doctrine of ‘active defence and luring the enemy into depth’ based on its traditional operational art. In 1980, the PLA decided to focus its doctrine on positional defence. In 1986, the PLA introduced ‘integrated operations and prioritised strike’, a generalised doctrine that originated from its war history. Many organisational and intellectual challenges in peacetime doctrine development contributed to the PLA’s operational idealism, including its aging leadership, command structure, attitude towards its previous experience, limited analysis of contemporary military developments, and failure in test and validation of doctrines. In the post-Cold War decade, many of these challenges persisted in spite of military modernization efforts. The ongoing military reform has to address these challenges and improve the PLA doctrine development in peacetime.     

美军维修改革发展研究

维修保障是武器装备形成战斗力的关键要素。随着国际形势和美国国内经济、科技等方面的发展变化,美军的维修策略、维修技术以及维修保障信息化等方面也在不断变革。总结了2000年前后至今,美军在维修保障方面的重大变革,对其发展趋势进行了预测,并结合我军装备保障实际,积极探索切实可行的有效对策。     

Too much Western bias? The need for a more culturally adaptable approach to post-conflict security sector reform

The existing guidelines for security sector reform (SSR) tend to draw on theoretical work in the field of civil–military relations, which in turn has been derived from Western, liberal democratic models of governance. Although guidelines strongly advise that local culture and context need to be considered when drawing up objectives for post-conflict SSR programmes, this is not often reflected in practice. This article considers some of the reasons for this, citing both in-country challenges and donor-related issues, and suggests that one of the biggest problems is a lack of alternative, non-orthodox models of civil–military relations to draw upon. It is further suggested that elements of suitable alternative models may be found in states which possess political structures not entirely dissimilar to the Western, liberal democratic ideal, but which can offer different perspectives. Detailed research of these structures should produce a pool of sub-models which could then be employed to create bespoke, culturally appropriate objectives for use in post-conflict SSR programmes.     

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.     

美军思想教育的历史特点与启示

思想教育是加强军队全面建设、完成各项任务的中心环节,各国军队都十分重视。美军是当今世界各国军队建设中总体水平最高的一支军队。其社会制度性质的不同,决定了美军与我军在思想教育内容上有着本质的区别,但美军对军人进行思想教育的方式方法有值得我们借鉴的地方。考察美军思想教育的历史,总结其特点,得出几点启示,目的是为了不断创新发展我军思想政治教育的形式方法,增强实际效果。     

对口支援十周年:西部受援高校后发优势效应的发展分析

东西部高校对口支援实施十年来,西部受援高校实现了跨越式发展。本文运用后发优势理论,在综合分析受援高校借助对口支援充分发挥后发优势的经验基础上,对其中存在的问题作出反思,并有针对性地提出对策建议,以期为对口支援工作的持续健康快速发展提供借鉴。     

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.