Can Governments Negotiate With Insurgents? The Latin American Experience

In June 2016, the Colombian Government and the FARC insurgent movement signed a ceasefire agreement, which brings the two sides one step closer to putting an end to over five decades of war. Unfortunately, Latin America has a rich history of insurgent movements, particularly during the cold war era, some of which continue to operate today. Most of these movements disappeared due to military operations, though some did so via peace negotiations. This essay aims to discuss the various ends of Latin American insurgencies to answer whether, indeed, insurgents can be negotiated with.     

基于不可信证据源与冲突重分配的证据合成方法

针对D-S证据理论在高冲突下失效的问题,在比较修正原始证据源和重新分配冲突两种方法的基础上,提出一种新的合成规则,新方法用可信度修正证据的同时,把全局冲突分为两部分,并依据"全局冲突在全局分配、局部冲突在局部分配"的原则对冲突进行细化分配。通过仿真分析,并与其他方法比较,新的合成方法能更好地融合冲突证据,收敛速度快,具有较强的抗干扰能力。     

基于多源冲突数据聚类的态势估计方法

传统调和式态势估计方法在面对多源冲突数据时融合效果不佳。为此,提出一种基于冲突数据聚类的非调和式态势估计方法。首先利用迭代自组织数据聚类方法(ISODATA)对多源冲突数据进行聚类,然后利用频度和可信度对数据簇的重要性进行评估,最后得到态势估计结果。仿真结果表明,与传统态势估计方法相比,所提方法在融合多源冲突数据时能够得到可信度较高的态势估计结果。     

HPN基于网结构的冲突关系

混合Petri网是为了解决复杂动态系统可靠性安全性分析而提出的一种Petri网扩展模型。定义混合Petri网模型的基于结构的冲突关系 ,有助于深入理解混合Petri网模型的语义 ,对其在动态系统可靠性安全性建模与分析以及模型分析求解中的应用也具有重要意义     

浅析达尔富尔和平进程及其面临的挑战

达尔富尔危机始于2003年2月。这场危机主要是由北方的游牧民与南方的定居农民之间对生存资源的争夺而引发的国内冲突。在国际社会的斡旋下,苏丹政府已与几个反政府武装签署了和平协议,并同意部署联合国-非盟混合维和行动,达尔富尔地区的和平进程已步入正轨。由于苏丹国内的复杂形势和困难,达尔富尔地区的和平进程仍面临诸多挑战,和平与和解之路仍然漫长。     

多分辨率建模航空武器装备体系对抗效能评估

根据多分辨率建模的思想,分析航空武器装备体系对抗的特点,提出基于多分辨率建模的航空武器装备体系对抗效能评估模型框架,通过体系对抗过程物理特性的分析提炼数学描述方法,基于主动元建模技术建立从高分辨率实体仿真模型的仿真元模型,探讨了对仿真元模型进行基于马尔科夫链的串联聚合和基于元胞自动机的空间聚合方法,提出效能评估多维矢量空间指标体系,研究结果对我军航空武器装备效能评估以及作战论证都具有一定的指导意义和参考价值.     

Evaluating the Spillover Effects of the Colombian Conflict in Ecuador

The Colombian civil war lasted for nearly six decades with approximately 10 percent of its population being displaced over the same period. The implications of this conflict have transgressed international boundaries. Countries such as Ecuador experienced an exodus of victims as well as an increase in the presence of armed groups, along with the proliferation of illegal businesses. Even though the internal social and economic consequences of the Colombian conflict have been documented in the literature, there is yet to be a study addressing these issues from the perspective of impacted neighboring countries. In this work, we contribute to the literature by evaluating whether the influx of asylum seekers and the increasing presence of armed groups in the bordering provinces of Ecuador have lead to an increase in violence among these provinces. We do not find any link between the arrival of asylum seekers and the incidence of violent crimes in the Ecuadorean bordering provinces. Similarly, our results indicate that despite an increase in the presence of armed groups, these regions did not experience an increase in the homicide rates significantly different from the other provinces. The results are robust to various specifications and econometric techniques.     

Group Concentration and Violence: Does Ethnic Segregation Affect Domestic Terrorism?

This paper examines the link between ethnic segregation and domestic terrorism. The results show that ethnic segregation has a positive and significant effect on the incidence of domestic terrorism, which indicates that countries where ethnic groups are spatially concentrated face a higher risk of suffering this type of violence. This finding is not affected by the inclusion in the analysis of different covariates that may affect both ethnic segregation and domestic terrorism. The observed relationship between the degree of spatial concentration of ethnic groups and domestic terrorism is confirmed by various robustness tests. The results also suggest that the threat of secession is an important transmission channel linking ethnic segregation and domestic terrorism.     

Moving Beyond Population-Centric vs. Enemy-Centric Counterinsurgency

Historically, insurgency is one of the most prevalent forms of armed conflict and it is likely to remain common in the foreseeable future. Recent experiences with counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan offer many lessons for future counterinsurgents, but the discourse on the subject continues to be mired in a traditional dichotomy pitting population-centric approaches to counterinsurgency against enemy-centric approaches. Historical analysis suggests that this traditional dichotomy is not a sufficiently nuanced way to understand or plan for such operations. Instead, discussions of counterinsurgency should focus on two dimensions: actions (use of physical force vs. political or moral actions) and targets (active insurgents vs. insurgent support). This perspective divides the space of possible counterinsurgency efforts into four quadrants, suggesting that effective counterinsurgency campaigns find a balance of effort across the four quadrants that is well matched to the specific context.     

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.