Boko Haram’s increasingly sophisticated military threat

ABSTRACT

This paper evaluates Boko Haram’s military capabilities and details the process of how its standing army, driven by these capabilities, came to pose a phased threat between 2013 and 2015 in particular. This was a period when military fighting dominated the insurgency in north-east Nigeria. Whereas there is an abundance of literature on Boko Haram’s histories and the impact of its insurgency on north-east Nigeria, analysis of Boko Haram’s military campaigning is still deficient. Attempting to fill this gap, this paper uses field findings and battlefield case studies from north-east Nigeria to highlight how Boko Haram’s overt front – its standing army – came to supplant its guerrilla operations as the main security threat to the frontier area.

This pivot towards military fighting, for a group initially composed of a few ragtag combatants, on the surface might seem surprising. Yet, whereas Boko Haram may lack the popular support required for ‘people’s war’, classic insurgency theories nevertheless hold some explanatory power for this deliberate shift: away from guerrilla warfare as the expedient of the weaker side, and towards the use of a large standing army of locals to swarm, and sometimes successfully overrun, state forces.     

Colonial violence and its ‘Small Wars’: fighting the Kuki ‘guerillas’ during the Great War in Northeast India, 1917–1919

ABSTRACT

This paper concerns the lesser known British counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in Northeast frontier of India during the First World War. Officially known as the ‘Kuki Operations’, it was considered as part of the Great War. Carried out in isolation from press and public, and shelved in colonial archives, the event remained invisible until today. Yet, it registers a critical case of colonial COIN doctrine where the ‘moral effect’ doctrine was employed without being questioned. It unleashed enormous amount of organized violence, ranging from shoot at sight to indiscriminate burning of villages, wholesale destruction of property and livestock, prevention of cultivation and rebuilding of villages, forced mass displacement in jungles or in ‘concentration camps’, and collective punishment (communal penal labour and payment of compensation) after the war. This paper argues that the theory of ‘minimum force’ and the practicability of the ‘moral effect’ doctrine as applied by the Empire, sit oddly with each other at the frontier, where violence was seen both as a natural and moral orders. Violence as an ‘imperatively necessary’ method to bring order in a disorderly frontier, in the opinion of colonial state, informs and registers Northeast India as geography of violence.     

One size does not fit all: personalized incentives in military compensation

A critical element in implementing a compensation scheme including nonmonetary incentives (NMIs) is recognizing that preferences vary widely across Service members. There are at least three sources of variability: across different population classes, across individuals within a population class, and across NMI packages for a particular individual. Surveys across different military communities, ranks, and years of Service show the difficulty of identifying any NMI that has significant value for even 50% of the active duty force. At the same time, approximately 80% of the surveyed Service members expressed a significant positive value for at least one NMI. Therefore, one-size-fits-all incentive packages will not be nearly as effective as more personalized incentive packages. The authors discuss variability in Service member NMI preferences and outline an approach to implementing personalized NMI packages in military compensation through a sealed-bid reverse auction, where Service members select individual NMIs from a “cafeteria-style” menu of options.     

The United States' retreat from the Middle East and pivot to the Far East is likely to intensify

A combination of threat analysis and “subterranean forces” (such as proclivities to fight conventional wars as compared to asymmetric ones) leads the USA to prefer focusing on the threats from China rather than those emanating from the Middle East.     

外军无人水面艇发展现状与趋势

文章介绍了美、以等国军用无人水面艇的发展现状,探讨了无人水面艇的典型作战应用,在此基础之上分析了外军无人水面艇的发展特点和趋势。     

网络战对作战的影响及对策

网络战作为一种新的作战形式引入作战领域,越来越受到各国重视,并已成为世界各国争相研究和重点建设的作战样式。文章从网络战的特点入手,针对网络战对作战影响进行了探讨,并从构建网络体系、研发武器装备、重视人才培养和加强训练演练四个方面阐述了强化军队网络战的对策措施。     

依据信息加工原理 提升舆论战作战功能

舆论战是通过舆论传播平台传递信息,作用于受众的思想或心理,争取人心,实现小战大胜或不战而胜。依据信息加工原理,分析研究信息源、信息、媒介和受众这四个要素,是提升舆论战作战功能的必由之路。     

和平时期网络舆论战的特点及对策刍议

作为一种软杀伤性的政治攻心战,网络舆论战已成为信息化条件下体系作战的一种重要作战样式。和平时期网络舆论战具有其鲜明的特点,即舆论传播的隐秘性和受众的广泛性,信息传递的迅速性和受众的自组织性,信息的海量性和受众注意的易转移性。对此,应积极利用互联网争夺意识形态领域的主导权,积极参与网上讨论并注意引导网络舆论风向,加强网络舆论战技术装备和人才队伍建设,为打赢信息化条件下的网络舆论战打下良好基础。     

心理战中信息二次传播效果仿真研究

对心理战中宣传信息在敌军士兵中二次传播的问题进行研究,对单个士兵进行仿真建模,使用蒙特卡洛法模拟计算其状态及行为。从统计的角度,研究士兵集合在整体上呈现出的规律状态,对结果进行分析。实验结果证明该方法可以有效地对信息二次传播问题进行模拟仿真,仿真结果具有一定的真实性和可信度,可从中得出一些对部队心理战建设具有一定指导意义的结论。     

Analysis on the resistive force in penetration of a rigid projectile

According to the dimensionless formulae of DOP (depth of penetration) of a rigid projectile into different targets, the resistive force which a target exerts on the projectile during the penetration of rigid projectile is theoretically analyzed. In particular, the threshold V_c of impact velocity applicable for the assumption of constant resistive force is formulated through impulse analysis. The various values of V_c corresponding to different pairs of projectile-target are calculated, and the consistency of the relative test data and numerical results is observed.