An Investigation of the Weights of Pattern 1907 Bayonets made in the UK around the First World War Period

The standard issue bayonet of the British Army immediately preceding and during the First World War was the Pattern 1907. This was manufactured at different times and in varying numbers during that period by one official body, the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield, and by five private contractors. These bayonets were made according to published official specifications issued by the War Department and based on a ‘pattern example’ provided by the Royal Small Arms Factory. The specifications indicate, inter alia, the quality of metal used in making the bayonets, methods of inspection and proofing, and the required maximum and minimum weight range of the completed bayonet. However, examination of a series of these bayonets in a private collection suggested that their weights varied considerably from the mid-point values of the allowed weight ranges in the original and amended specifications (16.5 oz. and 17 oz., respectively). To establish if this was a common feature among this class of bayonet as opposed to a chance factor, the weights of other surviving Pattern 1907 bayonets were determined and compared to establish the degree of variance from the official specifications as originally set out by the Royal Small Arms Factory. Seventy-six percent of the 142 bayonets surveyed were found to be above the mid-point of the allowed weight range given in the amended manufacturing specifications, with many being at the upper end of the allowed range. This is a statistically unusual result. It is speculated that the target weight may have been deliberately set higher by the individual manufacturers to eliminate the possibility of rejection of any underweight bayonets by the Royal Small Arms Factory inspectors and so a refusal of acceptance and payment for the work.     

‘A Sledgehammer to Crack a Nut’? Naval Gunfire Support During the Malayan Emergency

The utility of naval gunfire support (NGS) during the Malayan Emergency has been the subject of significant scrutiny. While the limitations of NGS were demonstrated in Malaya, it also has proven to be extremely useful under certain circumstances. The circumstances in which NGS has proven effective during earlier and later insurgencies have generally reflected those of the Malayan Emergency. Recent operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have been less conducive to the application of maritime power, but they did not denote the end of the naval role or the potential usefulness of NGS in counterinsurgency operations. NGS is an unheralded capability, but, aside from the historical significance, it remains relevant in the contemporary era under the right conditions.     

War,vagueness and hybrid war

It has frequently been observed in the literature on hybrid wars that there is a grey zone between peace and war, and that hybrid wars are conflicts which are not clear cases of war. In this paper, I attempt to illuminate this grey zone and the concept and nature of war from the philosophical discussions of vagueness and institutional facts. Vague terms are characterized by the fact that there is no non-arbitrary boundary between entities which lie in their extension, and entities which do not lie in their extension. I apply a theory of vagueness to notions such as “war” and “peace” and go on to suggest that the exact boundary for what counts as a war or not is arbitrary. However, the context in which the conflict occurs determines a range of possible locations for this boundary. The most important contextual parameter is in this respect how the parties to the conflict themselves conceptualize the conflict. I suggest that this can in various ways help us understand grey-zone conflicts.     

US-American Intervention in Europe: Morality,Justice, and Freedom in World War II Cinema

This article analyzes the American intervention in Nazi-oppressed Europe during World War II and the way in which this intervention is represented in film. Examining the visual and cinematic aesthetics of Saving Private Ryan and the mini-series Band of Brothers, the article seeks to demonstrate how film has responded to US intervention overseas. It is argued that the need to liberate Europe from the evil Other stands forth as the main, heavily moralized purpose of US military intrusion in the film and the mini-series being analyzed. To shore up this speculation, the author considers other films on the topic, namely, The Longest Day (1962) and Shutter Island (2009). The author claims that the scenes in the concentration camps that are crucial in Band of Brothers and Shutter Island have an ethical function, i.e. they justify US intervention in the foreign territory. Additionally, the article provides a brief overview of Playing for Time (1980), Schindler’s List (1993), The Devil’s Arithmetic (1999), The Grey Zone (2001), as well as the mini-series Holocaust (1978).     

Noncombatant Immunity and the Ethics of Blockade

This article counters Michael Walzer's argument against tight blockades. It shows that the interdiction of food shipments need not violate the principle of noncombatant immunity. Whether it is morally permissible to impose a strict blockade depends on the circumstances of the target state. The more self-sufficient a country is, the more acceptable it should be for a belligerent to cut the enemy's external lines of supply. The Allied blockade of Germany during the First World War illustrates the argument. Fault in this case should be assigned to the German government for the loss of civilian lives.     

Graveyard of Analogies: The Use and Abuse of History for the War in Afghanistan

Decades of scholarship have warned against using historical analogies for policymaking. But the Taliban insurgency appears, on the surface, to confirm the usefulness of historical analogies to the British and Soviet wars in Afghanistan. I review the use of analogies for the war in Afghanistan and argue the analogies were historically unsound and strategically unhelpful. In fact, their effect on policy helped create the conditions for the very insurgency policymakers most hoped to avoid. The Taliban insurgency did not occur because of the presence of too many foreign troops and aid workers, but because there were too few.     

Conflict and fiscal capacity

We examine the role of war in retarding state fiscal capacity in developing countries, measured by tax revenue ratios to GDP. We build a simple theoretical model of a factionalized state, where patronage substitutes for common interest public goods, along with violent contestation over a rent or prize. Our dynamic panel empirical analysis applied to 79 developing countries, during 1980–2010, indicates that war, especially civil war, retards fiscal capacity, along with imperfect democracy, political repression, poor governance, and dependence on oil and macroeconomic mismanagement. High intensity conflict is particularly destructive of state capacity. In countries experiencing low intensity wars, other institutional factors may matter more than war. The diminution of fiscal capacity due to war appears less pronounced after the end of the cold war.     

War Size Distribution: Empirical Regularities Behind Conflicts

This paper analyses the statistical distribution of war sizes. Using a new methodology we find moderate support for a Pareto-type distribution (power law), considering data from different sources (COW and UCDP) and periods. A power law is a plausible model for the size distribution of a pool of all wars and a sample of wars in many years, although the log-normal distribution is a plausible alternative model that we cannot reject. The random growth of conflicts could generate both types of distribution. We study the growth rates of battle deaths and random growth cannot be rejected for most of the distribution, although the results also reveal a clear decreasing pattern; the growth of deaths declines faster if the number of initial deaths is greater.     

视景仿真技术与战争实验室

视景仿真技术是新一代仿真技术。介绍了其系统构成及在军事领域的应用,并给出了一个应用实例--战争实验室。     

The State of UN Peacekeeping: Lessons from Congo

The article considers the state of UN peacekeeping through the prism of its long-running operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Focusing in particular on the challenges raised by use of force and the protection of civilians in conditions of ongoing armed conflict, it argues that UN field operations must be aligned much more closely than they have been over the past 15 years to political and diplomatic efforts aimed at securing viable political settlements to internal conflict. The issues raised by the history of the UN’s troubled mission in the DRC are deeply relevant to the wider discussion of the organisation’s role in the field of peace and security.