How Is a Man to Decide? Unjust Combatants,Duress and McMahan’s Killing in War

Jeff McMahan’s much-discussed work Killing in War is an important part of the revisionist school of just war studies. This paper avoids discussion of McMahan’s use of human rights and examines the practical consequences of his argument about duress on soldiers to fight an unjust war. These arguments are found to be wanting and to be impractical ones that do not fit battlefield realities. The importance of the Law of Armed Conflict and the legal equality of combatants that is part of it is emphasised and accepted as the most practical way of regulating battlefield behaviour and saving lives. It is concluded that attempts to tell soldiers what to do when they may be fighting an unjust war add to their burdens and are misplaced.     

【邀请论文】美军未来司令部探析——成立背景、主要职能与未来前景

新一轮科技革命的快速发展正推动战争形态从信息化向智能化演进。美军作为二战后始终位列世界第一的军事力量,正在积极设计未来战争以应对当前的“大国竞争”,2018年刚刚成立的陆军未来司令部正是在这一背景下产生的。未来司令部隶属于美国陆军,主要负责美陆军新型武器装备的研发、未来作战概念创新以及新兴军事科技的测试和应用。成立两年以来,未来司令部已经拥有了一套完善、严密的组织架构,创造了包括C5ISR作战概念在内的一系列理论成果,在空基导弹、远程精确火力系统等新型作战装备上也取得了众多进展。本文基于大量前沿文献研究,廓清了未来司令部的组织架构,总结了其主要职能,并对这一新设司令部的发展前景进行了展望和预测,期望能够为推进军队现代化和未来化建设提供有益启示。     

“三无”战争发展

随着高科技的不断发展,当前战争呈现出有别于以往机械化战争的特点,表现为"三无",即无人、无形、无声。文章介绍了"三无"战争的基本内涵和主要特征,分析了"三无"战争的实战运用,并提出了对未来"三无"战争的几点思考。     

Competing for Control over the State: The Case of Yemen

Abstract

This article argues that the current conflict in Yemen is better understood as a competition over who controls the state, rather than as a conflict between the state and a non-state actor. It traces the development of the Houthis and shows how the movement managed to seize key government institutions. However, the Houthis lack internal legitimacy and have not been able to position themselves as a nationally relevant political elite. The fragmentation of the Yemeni state has resulted in a shift to more localized struggles over access to resources and power that involve both internal and external actors.     

From Westphalian Failure to Heterarchic Governance in MENA: The Case of Syria

Abstract

The problematic export of the Westphalian system to MENA is examined, taking Syria as exemplar. The export model is juxtaposed to actual non-lineal trajectories, semi-sovereignty and hybrid or failing states. This is manifested in post-uprising Syria in failing statehood, fragmented and overlapping governance, permeable and collapsing borders, the loss of sovereignty to trans-state movements, “competitive regime-building” between the Asad regime and jihadist warlords, and “competitive interventionism” by external powers filling the governance vacuum with their own proxies. The result is heterarchic zones of limited statehood in which state sovereignty is contested by both international (supra-state) penetration and sub-state fragmentation.     

Beyond balancing? Intrastate conflict and US grand strategy

Grand strategic theorists share an historical emphasis on interstate conflict, yet in contrast to the more frequent intrastate conflicts, these represent only 7 of the some 273 US military deployments since 1900. We argue that these intrastate conflicts limit the utility of regional balances of power in mitigating forms of conflict that the US may consider inimical to its national security interests. When considering potential changes to US force posture and grand strategy, American coercive statecraft should be theorised along a broader strategic continuum encompassing the full range of conflict.     

适应低时延业务需求的分布式可穿戴单兵作战信息系统

针对云计算应用在单兵作战系统场景下业务处理时延高、服务质量无法保障的问题,提出一种基于可穿戴计算的分布式单兵作战信息系统。利用士兵身上的可穿戴智能设备构建本地计算层,在作战地点就近处理计算数据,提供给士兵本地的信息处理与融合能力,并采用广义扩散负载均衡算法平衡各设备负载,降低业务处理时延;同时利用分布式计算的容错能力增强系统的可靠性。仿真结果表明,基于可穿戴设备的分布式本地网络架构能有效地降低作战任务的处理时延,同时增强系统的可靠性。     

Reforming the bras tendus? The Congolese National Police reforms, 2003–2016

The security sector reform (SSR) programme in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has failed, according to a former high-level member of the United Nations (UN) mission in the DRC, as a large section of the country remains outside government control, and the security institutions of the state continue to constitute one of the predominant sources of insecurity for the local population in a number of ways. Based on several field studies, this article critically scrutinises the SSR of the Congolese National Police (Police nationale congolaise; PNC) and the efforts to reform it between 2004 and 2016. It further attempts to explain why so little progress was made in the SSR of the PNC, despite extensive involvement from donors. The article shows that the instrumental and traditional approach to SSR is partly to blame, because in this case it failed to address the root problems and initiate the needed fundamental reform and reconstruction of the police force. It also shows that reforming local security institutions becomes even more difficult when the local authorities do not support the effort.     

The subversion of the Bulgarian defence system – the Russian way

Russia has long been pursuing an intended and calculated policy of keeping enough influence in Bulgaria in order to have control over national decisions. Together with the economic, energy, political and information tools used by Russia in its hybrid war against Bulgaria and in its bid to achieve an enduring “state capture,” defence is also a distinct target of Russian subversion now. A list of noticeable subversive actions with tangible effects can be summarised, ranging from fuelling division and manipulating public opinion, preventing the strengthening of the NATO position in the Black Sea, sabotaging defence reform to various options of subverting the modernisation of the Bulgarian Armed Forces and seeking new ways to keep legacy Soviet military equipment in operation as long as possible. This issue must be urgently addressed both nationally and in NATO.     

Tangled up in rose? Theories of alliance entrapment and the 2008 Russo-Georgian War

Recent tensions between Russia and the United States have sparked debate over the value of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). One controversy surrounds the extent to which NATO raises the risk of war through entrapment—a concept that scholars invoke to describe how states might drag their allies into undesirable military conflicts. Yet scholars have advanced different, even conflicting arguments about how entrapment risks arise. I offer a typology that distinguishes between the mechanisms through which entrapment risks allegedly emerge on the basis of their institutional, systemic, reputational, and transnational ideological sources. I use the 2008 Russo-Georgian War to illustrate how the purported mechanisms of entrapment fare in elucidating that conflict. In analyzing why entrapment risks emerge, and thinking counterfactually about The 2008 War, I argue that scholars need to disentangle the various mechanisms that drive both alliance formation and war to make sure that entrapment risks do indeed exist.