Slow failure: Understanding America’s quagmire in Afghanistan

ABSTRACT

The United States government has no organised way of thinking about war termination other than seeking decisive military victory. This implicit assumption is inducing three major errors. First, the United States tends to select military-centric strategies that have low probabilities of success. Second, the United States is slow to modify losing or ineffective strategies due to cognitive obstacles, internal frictions, and patron-client challenges with the host nation government. Finally, as the U.S. government tires of the war and elects to withdraw, bargaining asymmetries prevent successful transitions (building the host nation to win on its own) or negotiations.     

战区防空雷达组网系统体系结构及通信链路研究

针对优化现役战区防空雷达系统的部署结构,提高其战时稳定性、提升其整体作战效能的问题,提出了一种“雷达组网系统”实用研发对策,并对其具体的系统体系结构、雷达群站系统构成、信息链路等问题进行了探讨和研究。     

一般民用建筑火灾特点与起火部位认定

从建筑火灾特点出发,阐述了建筑火灾发展阶段的蔓延特点、烟气流动特性与起火部位的内在联系,说明这些建筑火灾特点对起火部位的认定作用。     

高层民用建筑消防安全隐患及对策

随着高层民用建筑的不断增多,其消防安全问题受到社会各界广泛关注。从消防安全隐患的产生、消防管理、建筑地下部分的火灾危害、消防部队装备几个方面分析了高层民用建筑的消防安全隐患。从把好建筑设计、审核、验收关,强化消防安全管理,强化消防宣传教育,加强消防产品与消防工程施工的监管,完善灭火救援体系等方面提出了提高高层民用建筑消防安全的对策。     

毛泽东军事思想对古代兵学文化的传承与发展

毛泽东军事思想植根于中国古代兵学文化的土壤,它的战争观、军事伦理价值观、战争谋略法等思想,与中国古代社会"仁战"、"义战"、"以民为本"、"以奇制胜"、"以礼治军"等战略方法、战略思想一脉相承,同时也是对古代兵学文化的创造性发展,是中国革命战争实践、马列主义军事思想和古代兵学文化相结合的产物。     

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.     

Bernard Fall and Vietnamese Revolutionary Warfare in Indochina

This article assesses Bernard Fall’s concept of Vietnamese Revolutionary Warfare in Indochina between 1953 and 1958. It also investigates differences in the conceptualization of Revolutionary Warfare between Fall and proponents of French military doctrine known as la guerre révolutionnaire. The last component of the article considers limits of Fall’s influence on counterinsurgency doctrine.     

Subcontracting State-Building

Abstract

Contemporary development assistance often takes the form of subcontracted state-building. Foreign donors hire for-profit firms to provide services and to improve or create institutions in developing countries, particularly those experiencing internal conflict. This arrangement creates two counterproductive dynamics: first, it introduces agency problems between donors, recipient states, subcontractors, and citizens; and second, it undermines the long-run development of domestic bureaucratic capacity by creating disincentives for the host government to invest. These dynamics hinder, rather than foster, the legitimacy of state institutions. This paper summarizes trends in external support to state-building since the 1970s and illustrates subcontracted state-building with examples from Colombia.     

Jacques Maritain: Christian Theorist of Non-Violence and Just War

Jacques Maritain (1882–1973) is widely recognized as one of the foremost Catholic philosophers of modern times. He wrote groundbreaking works in all branches of philosophy. For a period of about 10 years, beginning in 1933, he discussed matters relating to war and ethics. Writing initially about Gandhi, whose strategy of non-violence he sought to incorporate within a Christian conception of political action, Maritain proceeded to comment more specifically on the religious aspects of armed force in “On Holy War,” an essay about the civil war then ongoing in Spain (1936–1939). After the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, Maritain penned a series of essays that sought to explain why the Anglo–French declarations of war were warranted on Christian just war principles. While the secondary literature on Maritain’s thought is extensive, thus far there has been little systematic exploration of his writings on war. In what follows I seek to remedy this lacuna, by examining how he conceptualized just war in the three phases outlined above.     

The fertile ground of Hell’s carnival: Charles T. R. Bohannan and the US Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps’ investigations of war criminals,collaborators, and the Huk,in the Philippines 1945–1947

Insurgencies thrive in regions where government legitimacy is absent. In the post-war Philippines, Captain Charles T. R. Bohannan of the Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps became actively aware of this dynamic. Bohannan is best known for his later work with Edward Lansdale and Ramon Magsaysay in defeating the Huk Rebellion (1950–1954). Here the author examines Bohannan’s early investigative work against Japanese war criminals, wartime Filipino collaborators, and the rising threat of communist subversion most associated with the Huk. All of these experiences fed into what would be the successful campaign against the Huk, chronicled in his seminal work, Counter Guerrilla Operations: The Philippines Experience, and offers lessons on the investigative (as opposed to tactical or psychological) nature of effective counter-insurgency work, as it relates to both legitimacy in governance and the rise of insurgencies.