The Bullet in the Brick: The Materiality of Conflict in Museum Objects

Tangible traces of conflict in visual artefacts can take viewers uncomfortably close to the realities of war—violence, destruction and fatalities. This article questions the evidential force of objects associated with conflict and their eventual display in exhibitions. Through a study of the display of a brick in which is embedded a bullet that is said to have passed through the body of Francis Sheehy Skeffington when he was executed by firing squad during the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916, this article explores the historical configuration of the brick and analyses its public display in the National Museum of Ireland (NMI). By examining the actions carried out by the NMI in collecting and archiving the object and analysing the narrative strategies of its display, this article considers how the visual aspects of exhibition displays can perpetuate a particular version of historic events and accredits objects with assumed authenticity.     

Learning ‘Under Fire’: Israel’s improvised military adaptation to Hamas tunnel warfare

What organisational attributes enhance a military’s ability to effectively adapt on the battlefield? Upon the outbreak of war in July 2014 between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) encountered an expansive network of tunnels from which Hamas was launching large-scale assaults into Israel. This article illustrates that the IDF’s ability to successfully adapt ‘under fire’ to this battlefield surprise was facilitated by several important attributes related to its organisational learning capacity: a dynamic, action-oriented organisational culture, a flexible leadership and command style, specialised commando units which acted as ‘incubators’ for learning and innovation, and a formal system to institutionalise and disseminate lessons learned.     

雾霭图像实时处理算法加速策略

为仿真前视红外导引头实时匹配导引过程,完成目标实时跟踪性判断,针对限制对比度自适应直方图均衡和归一化互相关算法开展加速策略研究,提出基于统一计算设备架构(Compute Unified Device Architecture, CUDA)的雾霭图像实时处理加速方案,并进行设计参数寻优,得出线程块、线程网格设计参数存在最优尺寸,需实验测定的结论。实验结果表明,引入CUDA加速优化后,较未进行CUDA加速前时间指标提高5~20倍,能够满足目标跟踪实时性要求,可为红外导引头目标实时跟踪系统设计提供参考。     

The Trump effect downunder: U.S. allies,Australian strategic culture,and the politics of path dependence

Donald Trump’s election precipitated a debate in Australia about the value of retaining close alliance ties with the United States. Similar dynamics are discernible in other U.S. allies as the negative impact of Trump administration policies becomes clearer. Yet despite this “Trump effect,” we argue Australia is unlikely to distance itself from the United States because at the core of Australia’s strategic culture is a very positive “cultural orientation” toward the United States that is highly institutionalized in treaties, formal bilateral ties, Track 2 diplomacy, and public opinion. Such institutionalized ties have powerful path dependent effects. Accordingly, we conclude that the Trump effect does not constitute a powerful enough “exogenous shock” to move Australia off its well-worn grand-strategic path. But this alliance relationship is marked by both high cultural affinity and high institutionalization: American policy-makers should seriously consider whether other U.S. allies can tolerate similar levels of “stress.”     

The struggle of a Kantian power in a Lockean world – German leadership in security and defence policy

ABSTRACT

German security and defence policy has undergone substantial transformation. This transformation requires an unprecedented level of political leadership, suggesting that Germany needs to solve the dilemma of how to supply leadership to increasingly demanding partners. What are the conditions under which German leadership can unfold in security and defence policy? To what degree do German role-conceptions of international agency and role-expectations of German leadership coincide? What kind of leadership outputs are produced? This study offers a comprehensive analysis of German security and defence policy in terms of supply (role conceptions) and demand (role expectations). We outline three leadership role conceptions present in the German strategic debate, which we then assess in the context of the Wendtian theory of cultures of anarchy. We then analyse Berlin's leadership in terms of outputs via the case study on Anchor Army and the Framework Nations Concept. We conclude that while Germany has tried to match leadership role expectations both rhetorically and in action, Berlin's leadership inputs have so far been insufficient. This has led to an imbalance in terms of role conceptions and expectations hampering effective German leadership in security and defence policy.     

机载多智能体任务系统研究

依据云架构背景下战斗机任务系统的作战需求,结合人工智能技术在航空领域的应用研究,提出了机载多智能体任务系统的概念。分析了任务系统的任务架构和功能架构,研究了多智能体任务系统的运行原理和基于OODA的并行任务管理机制,为战斗机智能化任务系统总体设计提供了参考思路,并可进一步推广至无人机领域。     

美军信息系统互操作性研究

解释了军事信息系统互操作性的内涵,对美军信息系统互操作性研究现状如信息系统互操作性等级模型、美国国防部体系结构框架及国防信息基础设施总体规划等进行了详细阐述。进一步分析了美军发展军事信息系统互操作性的内容,为实现我军各信息系统的互操作性提供参考。     

Explaining the security paradigm shift: strategic culture,epistemic communities,and Israel’s changing national security policy

The paper’s main argument is that Israel’s security policy, which traditionally focused on defending its territorial integrity against regular Arab armed forces, was, by the 2010s, transformed into one that focuses on facing a variety of state- and non-state-based threats. Neo-realist explanations could neither account for the contested nature of the security debate during this period, nor the inconsistent evolution of the policy. The present study aims to solve this conundrum by introducing an alternative approach known as 4th generation strategic culture research. The paper is comprised of four parts. First, the origins and evolution of strategic culture are reviewed, with emphasis placed on the commonly accepted weaknesses that, to date, have prevented it from being used as a testable theoretical concept, and subsequently as an explanatory factor for security policy changes. The second part presents the “modernist constructivism” approach that bridges the gap between traditional constructivism and hypothesis-driven research design. Next, the paper introduces the emerging fourth generation in strategic culture literature, followed by a conceptual framework designed to resolve the inherent weaknesses of the more traditional approaches. Finally, this conceptual framework is applied to analyse the transformation of Israel’s security policy between 1982 and 2014.     

军事仿真训练系统体系架构改进研究

现有军事仿真训练系统多基于传统C／S架构进行体系设计,在大规模战术训练仿真部署时,存在并发访问能力弱、可靠性差等问题。通过对仿真系统的体系架构进行研究,结合云计算技术提出增加访问控制服务器、仿真数据共享服务器以及仿真引擎虚拟化等改进方式,并通过对比分析,总结了三种方式对仿真训练系统的可扩展性、并发访问性以及数据可靠性等方面能力优化和提升的异同,并提出仿真训练系统传统体系向云计算体系逐步过渡的思路。     

基于多Agent的要地防空指挥决策体系结构

针对要地防空指挥决策体系结构开展研究。首先,对战术单位级指挥决策功能进行分析,并给出防空指挥决策功能结构;引入多Agent系统概念定义TCA、FCA、OA三类作战智能体,建立基于多Agent的指挥决策模型并设计给出FCA的详细结构,结合集中式和分布式指挥决策体系的优点,提出有限集中指挥下的火力单元协同决策体系结构;最后,采用NetLogo平台设计实现指挥决策体系拓扑结构,验证了所建立体系结构的可行性。