加入WTO对我国高等教育的影响及对策

加入世界贸易组织既对我国高等教育提出了严峻的挑战,又提供了发展的良好机遇.我国加入世界贸易组织后,国外教育产业将进一步介入国内教育市场,在教育体制、教育思想、教育方式等方面,对我国高等教育将产生全面而深刻的影响.我们必须大力发展高等教育,积极支持中外合作办学,鼓励教育投资多元化,努力开辟国际教育市场,尽快完善教育法规,主动迎接WTO对我国高等教育的挑战.     

Was World War Two a Completely Just War?

ABSTRACT

According to Brian Orend’s binary political model, minimally just states possess a robust set of moral rights, while other states essentially exist in a moral vacuum in which they possess no moral rights. I argue that a more plausible comparative model would allow for a state to acquire (or lose) discrete moral rights as it improves (or damages) its moral record. This would generate a more accurate portrayal of both domestic policy within states and military conflict between states; including, in particular, the role of the Allied forces during World War Two.     

British Policy on Total Maritime Warfare and the Anti-Shipping Campaign in the Mediterranean, 1940–1944

During World War II, the British ran a sustained anti-shipping campaign against Axis merchant and supply traffic in the Mediterranean. Although the effects of this on the land war in North Africa have been the subject of much debate, little attention has been paid to the nature and prosecution of the campaign itself. This article analyses the changes in British attitudes and policy towards attacking merchant shipping prior to and throughout the campaign. It then goes on to examine the conduct of the campaign itself and compare it with other British efforts elsewhere during the war. It concludes that the anti-shipping campaign in the Mediterranean was a unique combined arms offensive for the British, and a major evolution in their attitudes and policy towards maritime total war.     

French war plans, 1914: The ‘Balance of Power Paradox’

Historians have noted that both German and French war preparation in 1914 fell victim to the inadequacies of traditional threat-based planning: vulnerability to ‘threat deception’ which caused each to underestimate or mischaracterize the threat; a tendency to ‘mirror-image’ by fitting intelligence into preconceived notions of how the enemy was expected to behave; and ‘group think’ that discouraged a serious consideration of alternative scenarios. This article applies the ‘Balance of Power Paradox’ to explain why, at the dawn of the twentieth century, war planning in both Germany and France was driven by an acute sense of weakness which encouraged each side to fashion highly ‘risk acceptant’ strategies. In particular, he examines why and how French commander-in-chief General Joseph Joffre evolved and rationalized his audacious, and disastrous, Plan XVII to leverage French weaknesses and prevent the stronger German Army from bringing the full weight of its military strength to bear against France. The potential implication of this historical vignette is that leaders, and by extension military planners, of both strong and weak states focus on the constraints faced by their opponents, and assume that they can avoid the limitations of their position, while their opponent cannot.     

Determining a role for a military ombudsman in the South African National Defence Force

In recent years, South Africa has come to be used by international terrorists as a safe house, for paramilitary training purposes, as a base from which to plan attacks on other countries and as a conduit for financial transactions. South Africa's own counter-terrorism initiatives have been labelled ‘reactive’ by analysts. Indeed, the existing counter-terrorism regime suffers from a lack of political will to issues of corruption and ineptitude bedevilling the security apparatus of the state. However, using lessons learned from other countries, Pretoria can yet turn the tide against international terrorism by adopting more pro-active measures and by undertaking steps aimed at the depoliticisation and decriminalisation of the security forces.     

The Race that wasn't

ABSTRACT

Graham Farmelo's new book on the early British nuclear weapon program assembles a fascinating cast of characters in a gripping narrative. It particularly succeeds at illustrating the importance of “atomic energy” imagery in the United Kingdom well before the discovery of fission, and provides nuanced insights into Churchill's handling of issues relating to the atomic bomb and scientific expertise. However, in arguing that the British had a “lead” on the manufacture of atomic bombs that was “lost” to the United States during the early Manhattan Project, the book overstates its case, and in the process misunderstands what it took to make the bomb.     

Dissolution of an Empire: Insights from the İstanbul Bourse and the Ottoman War Bond

During the transformation period of the Ottoman Empire leading to the Republic of Turkey, many conflicts took place between 1918 and 1923. These conflicts interrupted the servicing of the Ottoman war bond. The reimbursement likelihood of this bond was related to the outcomes of First World War and the hostilities. This paper analyses the impacts of First World War and hostilities on the risk assessments regarding the Ottoman war debt, using manually collected data on the price of the Ottoman war bond traded at the ?stanbul bourse between 1918 and 1925. The empirical results imply that the defeat of the Bulgarian army and the peace offer of Austria-Hungary were associated with the increasing premium demanded by investors of the bond. The victories of the Turkish National Movement and the peace offer of the Allies to end the hostilities by 1922 positively affected the likelihood of the servicing of the debt.     

Morts pour la France: Demographic or Economic Factors?

This article offers a comprehensive analysis of the database ‘Mémoire des hommes’, which is a record of more than 1 million French soldiers officially recognized as dead during the World War I (WWI). Integrating this source with the 1911 census, we evaluate the potential numbers of recruits by French regional department. From this, a model identifies the factors affecting the number of deaths. While demographic factors are the principal determinants, adding significant economic, political and spatial factors reduces the unexplained variance between regions and significantly improves the explanation of the disparity in the number of deaths by region.     

How do wars end? A multidisciplinary enquiry

ABSTRACT

The cessation of military confrontations rarely coincides with the end of war. Legal and political matters continue after the last shot has been fired, civilians driven from their homes try to rebuild their houses and their lives, veterans need to adapt to their new role in civil society, and the struggle to define the history and the significance of past events only begins. In recent years, in particular, the changes in the character of contemporary warfare have created uncertainties across different disciplines about how to identify and conceptualise the end of war. It is therefore an opportune moment to examine how wars end from a multidisciplinary perspective that combines enquiries into the politics of war, the laws of war and the military and intellectual history of war. This approach enables both an understanding of how ‘the end’ as a concept informs the understanding of war in international relations, in international law and in history and a reconsideration of the nature of scientific method in the field of war studies as such.     

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.