No war,no peace

The armed conflict over crude petroleum oil in the Niger Delta has raged for several decades. A host of peace initiatives have been adopted by the Nigerian state to address it, but with minimal impact. The amnesty offer to repentant militias in 2009 by President Umaru Yar'Adua's administration is one of the most recent and broadest peace initiatives by the Nigerian government intended to end the general tendency to warfare and the absence of peace in the Niger Delta. This article, based on secondary sources of data, examines the components of the amnesty, its critical problems and their implications for peacebuilding in the Niger Delta. It finds that though the programme has engendered relative peace, the issues and grievances that occasioned the general tendency to warfare and absence of peace in the region – such as inequitable distribution of oil revenue, environmental degradation, and underdevelopment – are not properly articulated in the disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration components of the programme. Thus, it holds that the prevailing situation in the region largely approximates a swinging pendulum of no war, no peace.     

Nothing fails like success: The London Ambassadors’ Conference and the coming of the First World War

During the July Crisis Britain’s foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, focused on organising a conference through which differences could be reconciled. After the war, he maintained that Germany’s unwillingness to join this conference was one of the immediate causes of war. This essay disputes Grey’s contention, arguing that his plans for a conference, based on a misleading analogy to the previous Balkan Crises, actually helped facilitate the outbreak of war in 1914 by sanctioning inaction in the first phase of the crisis (28 June–22 July) and by tacitly encouraging Russian mobilisation in the second phase (23 July–4 August).     

一种作战实验仿真平台的实现方案

介绍了一种基于DirectX套件和MapInfo的作战实验仿真平台实现方案。该方案使用DirectGraphics实现战场环境的图形仿真,DirectInput实现装备操控数据接口,DirectSound构造战场声音环境,DirectPlay用于实现各节点的互联,战场态势显示则使用MapInfo开发。该实验平台具有低成本、通用性和可扩展性强的特点,可以有效地将基地化训练模式延伸到末端。     

边防部队反恐怖作战心理训练问题初探

反恐作战心理训练是现代反恐怖作战行动中需要特别研究和解决的问题。阐述公安边防部队实施反恐作战心理训练的意义,分析公安边防部队反恐作战心理训练的基本方式方法,说明实施反恐心理训练必须注意把握的几个关键性问题。     

论体育新闻中军事语言使用应该把握的尺度

从体育比赛的角度,以“体育比赛是战争”这一概念出发,浅谈体育新闻报道军事化倾向及其产生的文化渊源,同时就英汉体育用语军事化程度进行比较,进一步探讨军事化用语应该把握的尺度。     

面向未来作战需求的装备保障训练问题研究

未来作战对新时期装备保障训练提出了新要求。以信息化战争为参照系,探讨了适应未来作战需要的装备保障训练思路、内容体系、方式方法、效果评估、训练保障等关键环节问题,为促进装备保障训练发展提供理论支持,增强装备保障训练工作实践的有效性和针对性。     

战时装备调配保障决策模型构建研究

分析了战时装备调配保障决策的特点,运用模糊聚类分析法对装备调配保障对象进行了分组和优先级排序,以此为基础,运用目标规划法构建了战时装备调配保障决策模型,最后,通过实例验证了模型的可行性和有效性．     

Of war plans and war guilt: The debate surrounding the Schlieffen Plan

This article outlines the controversy surrounding the thesis advanced by Terence Zuber that there never was a Schlieffen Plan and that German war planning in 1914, far from having the aggressive edge that historians have attributed to it for decades, was in fact designed to deal with a Franco-Russian attack on Germany. In addition to reviewing the debate precipitated by Zuber's thesis, this article also takes a closer look at how Germany prepared for war in the years 1906–14, and particularly how it ended up embarking on that war in August 1914. Such an investigation of German war planning, with particular emphasis on the war plans of the younger Moltke, will serve as a critique of Zuber's controversial thesis, and it will be shown that while Zuber maintains that there never was a Schlieffen Plan, Schlieffen, Moltke and their contemporaries were certain that such a plan existed. In 1914, Moltke did not shrink from implementing his own version of Schlieffen's strategic thinking when war broke out.     

On the roles of free play in army exercises and the Russians

The article outlines the essential role of free play elements in various types of exercises for the development of in-depth and practical military professionalism. It thereafter argues why such use of free play contradicts the military science founded Russian Way of War.     

孙子“慎战”思想对武警部队履行职能的启示

“慎战”是孙子军事思想中层次最高的战争决策思想,其理论主要包括不战思想、重战思想、善战思想和善后思想。在以和平与发展为主题的时代,孙子的“慎战”思想启示我们：要牢固树立“兵者,国之大事”的观念,加强部队现代化建设步伐,制定正确决策,“先为不可胜”;要以“非危不战”为原则,遏制犯罪,维护稳定,努力创造和平稳定的社会环境;要依据“胜于无形”,认真处理国内民族及其他矛盾,保持和谐稳定的社会环境。