The security sector and the plunder of Zimbabwe’s Chiadzwa alluvial diamonds: the ‘goat mentality’ in practice

While the human rights impact of the deployment of state security agencies in the Chiadzwa diamond fields has been explored, it is important to continue to expose the increasing tendency within the sector to take public resources that should be protected by the state and used for the benefit of the people and channel them for personal gain. The security sector stranglehold of President Robert Mugabe and the ruling political party, the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), has facilitated the siphoning of Chiadzwa diamond revenue into the pockets of individual security personnel. The unfolding sociopolitical crisis in Zimbabwe has also meant that these security personnel have been deployed beyond conflict zones and into traditionally civilian domains, with dire consequences for the public purse. With this in mind, it is asserted that these issues have driven state security agencies to enrich themselves through what is termed in this article as a ‘goat mentality’. The article thus explores the ways in which state security agencies have been deployed and gone on to promote personal enrichment in the Chiadzwa diamond fields.     

Quantitative monitoring of military transformation in the period 1992–2010: Do the protagonists of transformation really change more than other countries?

Military transformation is a complex, slow, asymmetric, changeable, political, and not necessarily completely rational process that clearly needs an effective monitoring mechanism. This paper fills a gap in current literature by creating and testing a model for multi-dimensional and multi-level quantitative monitoring of military transformation applicable in any country. The model is based on 10 transformation indicators that reflect changes in organizational structure, personnel structure, weapon systems, and defense spending. Its application on a sample of seven countries (USA, United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, and China) in the period from 1992 to 2010 unexpectedly shows that the USA – a protagonist in the transformation process among allies as well as globally – has carried out the smallest relative change. The non-directed transformation index indicates that Russia carried out 51.8% more change (or 34.1 index units), and the directed index indicates that Poland carried out 157.2% (or 40.8 index units) more change than the USA.     

New sources of military change – armed forces as normal organizations

The literature on how European states have adapted to the post-cold war security environment ffocuses invariably on different understandings of military transformation, a process which is seen as inherently different from other forms of organizational change. However, as this paper argues, new management practices, going back to the introduction of so-called New Public Management (NPM) reforms throughout Europe in the 1980s, have eventually penetrated also the last bastion of the old state – the defense sector. Taking a critical approach to the idea of military transformation and existing theories of military change, the paper demonstrates how other international developments have pushed towards what may be seen as a “normalization” of Europe’s defense sectors. This has important implications for how we approach and understand change in contemporary defense organizations.     

Soldiering the terrain of war: Zimbabwean soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (1998–2002)

The paper reveals how Zimbabwean soldiers who fought in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (1998–2002) were challenged by the terrain of war. While soldiers are trained to live and fight in dreadful wars, I argue that immersing oneself in the war terrain is neither mathematical nor calculative; rather, war tactics to be employed are defined by the context in which soldiers operate in. When soldiers reflect on and about the war, they unconsciously produce accounts that are often not completely heroic, but a life lived in fear as well an issue that they had never anticipated when they set out to war. A main finding of this study is that while these soldiers were deployed to fight against the rebels, they find difficulties in locating physical features from map reading to the ground, distinguishing the enemy from civilian people and deployed for days without eating a proper meal as well as seeing their fellow soldiers dying in the context of war. The paper provides a vantage point in which we can also understand that trained soldiers do not exert total power over war terrains, they are sometimes challenged by the war situation itself.     

Rethinking military behavior during the Arab Spring

Why did some Arab militaries remain loyal to authoritarian rulers amid mass uprisings during the Arab Spring while others defected to the opposition? One popular explanation shows this variation with reference to the degree of military institutionalization: institutionalized militaries defected, while patrimonial militaries remained loyal. This article argues that the institutionalization hypothesis does not provide a complete account of the mechanisms through which the degree of military institutionalization leads to either defection or continued loyalty. This shortcoming stems from the fact that scholars have treated military institutionalization as a catch-all concept for three distinct variables: ethnic stacking of the military, patronage distribution, and organizational factionalization. Examining the interaction between these variables highlights the mechanisms through which military defection occurs, and therefore that disaggregating institutionalization into its component parts provides a more complete explanation of military behavior during the Arab Spring.     

Revisiting the rise and fall of the Somali Armed Forces, 1960–2012

The history of the Somali Armed Forces, principally the army, forms an important part of studying the Somali civil war. Two key themes are evident from 1960: the pursuit of an irredentist agenda beyond reasonable limits, which led to the downfall of Siad Barre’s regime, and the clan divisions and agendas that Barre used to shore up his rule in the 1980s and that have bedeviled the rebirth of the Somali Army in the twenty-first century. With the twentieth-century context covered, and in some places reinterpreted, this article then focuses on the uncertain rebirth of the Somali Armed Forces since 2008, using a host of primary and United Nations official sources. Assistance efforts have been focused on Mogadishu, but limited success has been made in forming truly national armed forces. Future prospects are uncertain, but there are some signs of hope.     

无人舰艇技术及军事应用研究

随着无人飞机的大量研发和广泛应用,无人化智能武器越来越受到世界各国的重视。在海洋争端愈演愈烈的今天,世界军事强国又纷纷把目光投向海上无人作战舰艇,无人舰艇技术得到突飞猛进的发展。近期,美国高调宣布将在中国南海打造以"无人飞机"和"无人舰艇"为骨干的"无人军团",以期全面遏制我海军的行动,加强无人舰艇技术研究已迫在眉睫。从世界无人舰艇发展历程出发,详细阐述了无人舰艇的技术特点和应用前景,重点分析了我军无人舰艇发展应用对策。研究表明,无人舰艇作为未来海航作战中不可忽视的力量,必将走俏未来战场,深度改变战争格局。     

军队科研机构推进国防知识产权转化运用

军队科研机构作为国家科技创新体系的重要组成部分,承担了大量科技创新任务,产生了许多具有自主知识产权的高水平科技成果,推动军队科研机构国防知识产权转化运用,是贯彻军民融合发展战略的必要途径。分析了军队科研机构国防知识产权转化的现状及制约转化的现实障碍,并结合实际探讨了推进军队科研机构国防知识产权转化的建议举措。     

用于混合动力汽车的球形发动机热力学过程分析

作为混合动力汽车增程系统的一种新型动力源,球形发动机有着功率密度高,结构紧凑等优点。在介绍球形发动机工作原理及基本结构的基础之上,研究了发动机气缸容积变化规律,分析发动机燃烧过程,建立了发动机热力学理论模型。利用FLUENT开展了仿真研究,验证了模型的正确性,进而对于发动机燃油喷射过程进行了分析。结果表明：计算得到的气缸内部温度与压力曲线与仿真得到的结果基本一致,验证了理论模型的正确性。在燃油喷射的过程中,可能会出现涡团状的燃油喷射轨迹,使得局部富油发生,燃烧性能变差。     

军用航空机务维修人员安全知识结构评价研究

随着军用航空装备复杂性、安全性的提升,对广大机务维修人员安全知识结构提出了更高的要求。以某机务部队现状为依据,研究航空机务维修人员安全知识结构评价问题。利用工作分析法对航空机务维修人员的工作进行了深入分析,建立了航空机务维修人员安全知识结构指标体系,通过构建基于熵权的改进BP神经网络模型对建立的知识体系结构进行评价。以某单位实际调研数据为基础,利用MATLAB仿真实现了模型的训练和测试,对机务维修人员的安全知识结构进行量化分析,为机务人员的安全知识能力培养提供决策依据和参考。