NUCLEAR BOMB SQUAD

Defusing Armageddon: Inside NEST, America's Secret Nuclear Bomb Squad, by Jeffrey T. Richelson. W.W. Norton & Company, 2009. 318 pages, $27.95.     

Livelihood systems of enlisted Ugandan Army soldiers: honour and reform of the UPDF

This article explores the livelihood pathways of serving Ugandan Army soldiers and traces their methods and motivations for enlistment. All were from areas of northern Uganda affected by nearly two decades of violent instability. With the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) increasing recruitment eligibility requirements and taking other measures to improve professionalism, some soldiers enlisted using false credentials and names, travelled to skirt unofficial ethnic quotas, and joined against their family's wishes. The Army's defence reform process was intended to preclude such problems. The article concludes with reflections on what strategic deception (by both recruits and the Army) may imply for warriors' honour.     

Privatizing the struggle against Somali piracy

Pirate attacks against commercial vessels in the Western Indian Ocean and nearby seas reached an unprecedented level in 2011. Despite concerted efforts by the international community and shipping companies to address this threat by conducting naval patrols and equipping commercial vessels with non-lethal defenses, the frequency of pirate attacks continues to increase. The general ineffectiveness of existing anti-piracy measures has sparked interest in expanding the use of armed private security contractors to protect commercial vessels from pirate attacks. This article argues that armed private security contractors can, indeed, enhance the security of commercial vessels because these actors can provide onsite protection for commercial vessels, which should allow them to respond very quickly to pirate attacks, and because these actors are willing to use deadly force against pirates. However, this article also argues that expanding the use of these actors may increase the degree of violence used during pirate attacks, pose threats to the safety of innocent civilians, and violate a number of domestic and international laws.     

Expeditionary police advising: some causes of failure

ABSTRACT

The practice of dispatching teams of police advisors to other states to build or train foreign security forces began at the end of the nineteenth century, yet there exists no definitive history of the practice, or any definitive theoretical approach underpinning why such missions succeed or fail. Drawing upon their recent edited book on expeditionary police advising, and by examining the donor or sending states, the host nations, and the use of police in counterinsurgency situations, the authors present some key reasons why such missions fail, and lay some groundwork for additional study of this important subject.     

Democracy index for Africa, 2010

ABSTRACT

Natural resource-based conflicts continue to occur in different parts of Nigeria with negative implications. This study investigated the phenomena of natural resource conflicts vis-à-vis their propensities to impact political economy and national security negatively. Data for the study were sourced from theoretical and empirical evidence. Empirical data were sourced from existing studies selected on the basis on their relevance to the study and analysed based on their content. The limitation to this approach is the obsolete and subjective nature of some the literature. This limitation was, however, addressed among others through the author’s knowledge of the issues under study. The study found that Nigeria is enmeshed in conflict over ownership, distribution, access to or competition over natural resources such as petroleum resources and agricultural land and these conflicts have undermined democracy, human rights, the economy and the nation’s security. The paper identified poor resource governance, environmental factors and poor political leadership as the causes and drivers of these conflicts. It recommends natural resource governance among others, as a way out of the problem.     

Warning whom,for which response?

In June 2000, the Conference of Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) adopted the Protocol on the establishment of the Peace and Security Council for Central Africa (COPAX), with its two technical structures, namely the Central African Multinational Force (FOMAC) and the Central African Early Warning Mechanism (MARAC). MARAC is tasked with collecting and analysing data for the early detection and prevention of conflicts and crises. It currently consists of the Central Structure located at the ECCAS Executive Secretariat in Libreville (Gabon) and 31 Decentralised Correspondents spread throughout the ten member states of ECCAS. This article assesses the performance of MARAC in the light of its assigned objectives. Bearing in mind the peace and security challenges facing the central African sub-region, the central argument of this article is that while the establishment of MARAC is commendable, it flowed more from the logic and context of the establishment of similar mechanisms on the African continent during the same period than from any displayed capacity and/or readiness on the part of ECCAS to implement the recommendations due to emanate from such a structure.     

美国退出《中导条约》与俄美关系发展走向

2018年10月,美国宣布单方面退出《中导条约》。《中导条约》是美苏两国在冷战后期达成的,并得到了切实执行的条约,对于维护冷战后全球战略平衡发挥了至关重要的作用。冷战后,俄美曾经企图将《中导条约》多边化,构建俄美新型战略关系,但最终反目成仇,使得俄美关系严重倒退,并迈入新的相互战略遏制的时代。     

【专题】装备大数据安全保护研究

本文通过梳理大数据技术发展及数据资源建设现状,可视化呈现了数据资源建设使用中出现的数据泄露现状及趋势,剖析了数据泄露的根本原因。在分析军队装备大数据建设及规划情况的基础上,建立了装备大数据安全问题分析方法,即在数据采集阶段、数据传输阶段、数据存储阶段和数据使用阶段,分别构建装备大数据不同维度安全要素,包括安全威胁、安全主体和安全保障,并应用于分析装备大数据安全问题。此外,本研究还深入分析了装备大数据建设应用过程中四个阶段存在的安全风险,构建了装备大数据全周期、立体化、协同化的安全防护体系,研究了装备大数据安全保护技术框架,包括以大数据访问控制技术、安全检索技术和安全计算技术为支撑的大数据安全技术和以匿名隐私保护技术和差分隐私保护技术为支撑的大数据保护技术。希翼研究结果能够为装备大数据全寿命周期内的安全防护提供一定借鉴。     

Factional politics in the Iran–Iraq war

This article examines the domestic causes of the Iran–Iraq War. It delves into secret discussions among Iranian political and military elites during the conflict, their analyses of their own performance on the battlefield, and their revealing public disputes and blame game decades later. It contends that an underexplored and yet critical driving force behind Iran’s prosecution of the war was factional politics. Along with state-level geo-strategic, regime-level security and individual-level ideological concerns, factional factors must also be examined to understand Tehran's war-time decisions. Iran’s factional rivalries began between the Islamists and the nationalists; and between the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the army at war’s outbreak, and eventually penetrated into the heart of the Islamist camp between the militant clerics and the IRGC.     

Military Expenditure as a Proxy for State Power. The Case of France

This paper attempts to build a simple indicator of state power. Military expenditure is the paper’s point of departure, with the definitions given by NATO, SIPRI and others. This definition is discussed and a power version is build, using French budgetary data. Then a defence of the result against traditional or non-traditional critics is presented under an imperative of action. Finally, this concept is enlarged and a new concept of power expenditures is given, one more time using French budgetary data. The conclusion is that this large expenditure concept is an unbiased but imperfect indicator of the will to act, and has to be completed by GDP to indicate the capability to act in the long-run.