Colonial violence and its ‘Small Wars’: fighting the Kuki ‘guerillas’ during the Great War in Northeast India, 1917–1919

ABSTRACT

This paper concerns the lesser known British counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in Northeast frontier of India during the First World War. Officially known as the ‘Kuki Operations’, it was considered as part of the Great War. Carried out in isolation from press and public, and shelved in colonial archives, the event remained invisible until today. Yet, it registers a critical case of colonial COIN doctrine where the ‘moral effect’ doctrine was employed without being questioned. It unleashed enormous amount of organized violence, ranging from shoot at sight to indiscriminate burning of villages, wholesale destruction of property and livestock, prevention of cultivation and rebuilding of villages, forced mass displacement in jungles or in ‘concentration camps’, and collective punishment (communal penal labour and payment of compensation) after the war. This paper argues that the theory of ‘minimum force’ and the practicability of the ‘moral effect’ doctrine as applied by the Empire, sit oddly with each other at the frontier, where violence was seen both as a natural and moral orders. Violence as an ‘imperatively necessary’ method to bring order in a disorderly frontier, in the opinion of colonial state, informs and registers Northeast India as geography of violence.     

中国维和警察防暴队开展群众工作之我见

中国维和警察防暴队在维和任务区开展群众工作,是维护当地局势稳定和执行联合国宪章的需要。应本着尊重当地民风民俗的原则,从做好宣传工作入手,传播进步、文明的生活方式,严格遵守群众纪律,爱护当地民众的财产,维护当地民众的利益。     

地缘缺陷是制约大国崛起的重要因素：以印度为例

历史上，地缘因素对大国崛起起过重要的作用。地缘优势有利于大国的崛起，而地缘缺陷则制约着大国的崛起，导致其崛起失败或难以崛起。印度是正在崛起的新兴大国。然而，印度所处的地缘环境存在明显缺陷，这是制约印度崛起的重要因素。印度只有对自身的地缘缺陷进行合理改造，扬长避短，才能顺利实现崛起目标。     

谈国人视野中的中国崛起

随着中国的快速发展,中国正在崛起已成为国内外有目共睹的事实。一些西方学者把中国崛起看成是对世界和平与发展的"威胁",中国人民则根据中国崛起所带来的巨大变化,把中国崛起看成是对人类文明的重大贡献。对中华民族而言,中国崛起造福13亿中国人,使中国人民基本过上了幸福的小康生活;对全人类来说,中国崛起惠及全世界,推动了世界经济的发展乃至人类文明的进步。     

Shifting power,preventive logic,and the response of the target: Germany,Russia, and the First World War

If a declining state has incentives for preventive war, the rising state should have incentives to delay a confrontation until it is stronger. We develop the theoretical paradox and examine the July 1914 crisis. Why did Russia, rising relative to Germany, not adopt a buying-time strategy? We argue that although most Russian leaders hoped to avoid a confrontation, they feared that the failure to support Serbia would lead to a loss of Russian credibility and a significant setback to Russia’s position in the Balkans, one that could not easily be reversed, even with Russia’s expected increase in relative military power.     

It Takes Two to Tango: Autocratic underbalancing,regime legitimacy and China’s responses to India’s rise

What factors do autocracies evaluate when responding to perceived threats and why might they fail to balance appropriately? I posit that autocratic leaders may choose greater exposure to an external threat if, by doing so, it preserves regime legitimacy. Specifically, the desire to promote a positive image to one’s domestic public creates incentives to publicly downplay a rival’s military progress, which then affects the state’s ability to mobilize resources to respond to the growing threat. I test this theory in the case of China’s response to India’s military rise. This research contributes to balancing theory and empirical work on East Asian security.     

温升热源条件油气热着火关键因素探究

通过对影响油气受热着火的关键因素进行研究,为发展主动防护技术提供理论依据。基于系统的实验和分析,探究了快速氧化现象、热源加热速度、热源面积与爆燃空间比例对热着火发生时临界浓度、着火概率和着火延迟期的影响,提出了温升热源条件受限空间能否发生热着火的综合判据。该判据认为：如果油气体积分数低于2.4％,受限空间体积与热源面积比值小于0．64m,那么即使温度达到873K,湿度降低到18％～21％,着火也不会发生。