The Rationality of Serb Leaders in the Bosnian War

This paper asks whether Bosnian Serb leaders’ choice to carry out a secession war in 1992–1995 was rational from the point of view of their stated goal of ethnic cleansing. We construct two indexes, one of ethnic purity and another of ethnic Serb concentration, and apply them to a counterfactual estimate of the outcome of ‘peaceful’ ethnic cleansing – what could have been achieved by population exchange based on pre-war territorial Serb power without war – in comparison to the actual outcome of the war. We find that the gross benefits of the chosen strategy of secession and war far exceed anything that could be achieved by the peaceful alternative. A conjectural assessment of perceived costs suggests that also net benefits were maximized by the war strategy. The implication for international deterrence policy is that credible judicial prosecution and punishment is the best way to alter the prospective perpetrators’ calculus.     

The mother of all post-mortems

The most striking finding of the Chilcot Report is that the record reveals little that was previously unknown. A key point for its authors is that diplomatic alternatives had not been exhausted when the US and UK went to war. But, short of an armed attack by the other side, it is hard to say when they would have been. Here what was crucial was the belief shared by Bush and Blair that Saddam Hussain would not and could not change. For the British the issue of whether alternatives to war remained is particularly important because of its implications for international law, something that did not trouble the Americans. It remains unclear if Blair would have gained or lost leverage over Bush had he made British participation contingent on better American policy, for example on developing a workable plan for the reconstruction of Iraq.     

Two kinds of catastrophe: nuclear escalation and protracted war in Asia

China’s expanding strength and ambition may foreshadow a violent conflict with the United States. I describe two scenarios about how such a conflict would unfold. The article begins by examining the prospects for nuclear escalation, drawing on theories about politics, psychology, and inadvertent escalation. It then examines the prospects for protracted conventional war, a scenario that has received far less attention. I present a new theory of protraction based on technology, geography, and domestic politics. After assessing the logic of both scenarios against a hypothetical US–China conflict, I discuss which is more likely. The conclusion points to a sobering trade-off: efforts to avoid nuclear catastrophe increase the chance of a long and grueling fight.     

The Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1996–2001): ‘War-Making and State-Making’ as an Insurgency Strategy

This paper examines the institutional and functional aspects of the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA). The Taliban’s coercive approach and its entire reliance on “war-making” to “state-making” shows the difficulty of the transformation of an insurgent group into a state structure. The Taliban was primarily capable of establishing a two-track system of governance. However, the assessment of the IEA’s institutional and functional capabilities shows that the military–political organization formed by the Taliban lacked statehood in all three areas of legitimacy, authority and capacity.     

战争设计工程中专家思维收敛过程的建模与分析

专家意见能否达成共识是战争设计工程中的一个关键问题.首先从复杂理论视角对专家思维过程的适应性、聚集性、非线性进行分析,接着将专家群体划分为两类并且运用马尔科夫转移矩阵对研讨过程建模,提出并证明了两类专家群体思维收敛的充分必要条件,得到群体思维收敛不仅与研讨过程中专家之间的关系影响矩阵有关,而且与专家的初始意见有关.最后通过计算机仿真进一步探索了群体思维收敛过程的影响因素.     

网络战中的安全主动防护系统构想

根据网络战的要求,提出了一种网络安全主动防护系统,该系统把一种新型防火墙和网络监测系统结合起来,做到了对黑客入侵及病毒攻击的实时监测、捕获和主动防护,克服了传统网络防护系统的不足,如能开发研制,将有利于我军在未来的网络战中取得主动地位。     

现代战争中电子战装备及作战特点

以科索沃战争为背景 ,叙述了电子装备的使用和战术运用情况 ,并分析了战争中电子战的作战形式及特点 ,指出了应吸取的教训     

高技术条件下的装备保障

通过分析研究高技术条件下装备保障的特点,概要阐述了外军装备保障的发展趋势,重点分析了我军装备保障的现状和发展中存在的问题,提出了装备保障发展的建设性意见.     

Praying for Rain? Water Scarcity and the Duration and Outcomes of Civil Wars

Recent anecdotal evidence from the civil wars in Somalia and Yemen suggest that water scarcity may shape the dynamics of civil wars. While a considerable body of research has examined the connection between water scarcity (such as low rainfall) and the onset of civil war, very little research has examined how water scarcity may shape the duration and outcomes of civil wars. Looking specifically at rainfall, this paper argues that changes in access to water play a key role in the duration of civil wars. As rainfall declines, there is a reduction in resources available to both the government and the rebel group, leading to a stalemate in fighting. Furthermore, this paper argues that declines in rainfall are felt more acutely by rebel groups who seek to challenge the government through conventional warfare. This paper tests these propositions using hazard models. The results provide robust support for the propositions.     

Soldiering the terrain of war: Zimbabwean soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (1998–2002)

The paper reveals how Zimbabwean soldiers who fought in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (1998–2002) were challenged by the terrain of war. While soldiers are trained to live and fight in dreadful wars, I argue that immersing oneself in the war terrain is neither mathematical nor calculative; rather, war tactics to be employed are defined by the context in which soldiers operate in. When soldiers reflect on and about the war, they unconsciously produce accounts that are often not completely heroic, but a life lived in fear as well an issue that they had never anticipated when they set out to war. A main finding of this study is that while these soldiers were deployed to fight against the rebels, they find difficulties in locating physical features from map reading to the ground, distinguishing the enemy from civilian people and deployed for days without eating a proper meal as well as seeing their fellow soldiers dying in the context of war. The paper provides a vantage point in which we can also understand that trained soldiers do not exert total power over war terrains, they are sometimes challenged by the war situation itself.