The Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1996–2001): ‘War-Making and State-Making’ as an Insurgency Strategy

This paper examines the institutional and functional aspects of the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA). The Taliban’s coercive approach and its entire reliance on “war-making” to “state-making” shows the difficulty of the transformation of an insurgent group into a state structure. The Taliban was primarily capable of establishing a two-track system of governance. However, the assessment of the IEA’s institutional and functional capabilities shows that the military–political organization formed by the Taliban lacked statehood in all three areas of legitimacy, authority and capacity.     

The Rationality of Serb Leaders in the Bosnian War

This paper asks whether Bosnian Serb leaders’ choice to carry out a secession war in 1992–1995 was rational from the point of view of their stated goal of ethnic cleansing. We construct two indexes, one of ethnic purity and another of ethnic Serb concentration, and apply them to a counterfactual estimate of the outcome of ‘peaceful’ ethnic cleansing – what could have been achieved by population exchange based on pre-war territorial Serb power without war – in comparison to the actual outcome of the war. We find that the gross benefits of the chosen strategy of secession and war far exceed anything that could be achieved by the peaceful alternative. A conjectural assessment of perceived costs suggests that also net benefits were maximized by the war strategy. The implication for international deterrence policy is that credible judicial prosecution and punishment is the best way to alter the prospective perpetrators’ calculus.     

高技术条件下的装备保障

通过分析研究高技术条件下装备保障的特点,概要阐述了外军装备保障的发展趋势,重点分析了我军装备保障的现状和发展中存在的问题,提出了装备保障发展的建设性意见.     

现代战争中电子战装备及作战特点

以科索沃战争为背景 ,叙述了电子装备的使用和战术运用情况 ,并分析了战争中电子战的作战形式及特点 ,指出了应吸取的教训     

遗传算法的预防性维修周期优化方法

考虑到预防维修可以提高系统生产效益的同时,故障率会随着维修次数的增加而上升,引入役龄回退因子对预防维修活动前后系统性能的动态变化进行描述;而且还充分考虑到系统预防维修周期随维修次数的变化情况,建立了系统预防维修周期优化模型,并将改进后的遗传算法运用于模型的优化求解.重点研究了系统总效益随预防维修次数的变化率, 从而有效地帮助决策者判定系统何时进行更新替换.     

Diversionary Tactics and the Ethiopia–Eritrea War (1998–2000)

Diversionary theories of war suggest that leaders may engage in bellicose foreign policies to divert the public’s attention from domestic problems and capitalize on a ‘rally around the flag’ type of effect. The evidence regarding diversionary theory is quite mixed. More recently, scholars have focused on situations that create opportunities for diversionary behavior, such as international rivalry and territorial disputes. This paper adds to the growing literature on diversionary conflict by considering the Ethiopia–Eritrea case and applying an opportunity-based approach. We assess whether the Ethiopia–Eritrea War (1998–2000) is consistent with diversionary explanations for the war, as many have previously claimed.     

Dissolution of an Empire: Insights from the İstanbul Bourse and the Ottoman War Bond

During the transformation period of the Ottoman Empire leading to the Republic of Turkey, many conflicts took place between 1918 and 1923. These conflicts interrupted the servicing of the Ottoman war bond. The reimbursement likelihood of this bond was related to the outcomes of First World War and the hostilities. This paper analyses the impacts of First World War and hostilities on the risk assessments regarding the Ottoman war debt, using manually collected data on the price of the Ottoman war bond traded at the ?stanbul bourse between 1918 and 1925. The empirical results imply that the defeat of the Bulgarian army and the peace offer of Austria-Hungary were associated with the increasing premium demanded by investors of the bond. The victories of the Turkish National Movement and the peace offer of the Allies to end the hostilities by 1922 positively affected the likelihood of the servicing of the debt.     

Turning the tides of war: The impact of private military and security companies on Nigeria’s counterinsurgency against Boko Haram

Since the 2003 war in Iraq, private military and security companies (PMSCs) have become increasingly legitimate actors in modern conflicts. Despite this normative shift, rumours in March 2015 regarding the use of South African mercenaries in Nigeria to combat Boko Haram insurgents caused an international outrage, while the Nigerian government remained nonchalantly silent on the matter. This article investigates the impact of mercenaries on the conflict in the last six months of the Jonathan government. Using primary and secondary qualitative research, it assesses the role that PMSCs played in Nigeria’s counterinsurgency strategy, along with the ensuing reaction of international and local media to the outsourcing of violence to foreign companies. The article concludes that – notwithstanding the improved image of PMSCs in the world, and the actual impact of the contractors on the Nigerian counterinsurgency effort – the stigma of mercenaries continues to plague the industry, particularly on the African continent.     

在建高层建筑火灾隐患及预防对策

从在建高层建筑的建筑特点、火灾特点等方面的因素入手,结合近期发生的在建高层建筑火灾情况,分析在建高层建筑存在的火灾隐患,提出笔者对在建高层建筑火灾预防扑救的一些看法。