Two kinds of catastrophe: nuclear escalation and protracted war in Asia

China’s expanding strength and ambition may foreshadow a violent conflict with the United States. I describe two scenarios about how such a conflict would unfold. The article begins by examining the prospects for nuclear escalation, drawing on theories about politics, psychology, and inadvertent escalation. It then examines the prospects for protracted conventional war, a scenario that has received far less attention. I present a new theory of protraction based on technology, geography, and domestic politics. After assessing the logic of both scenarios against a hypothetical US–China conflict, I discuss which is more likely. The conclusion points to a sobering trade-off: efforts to avoid nuclear catastrophe increase the chance of a long and grueling fight.     

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.     

Life in the “Gray Zone”: observations for contemporary strategists

The term “Gray Zone” is gaining in popularity as a way of describing contemporary security challenges. This article describes the “short-of-war” strategies – the fait accompli, proxy warfare, and the exploitation of ambiguous deterrence situations, i.e. “salami tactics” – that are captured by the term and offers several explanations for why state and non-state actors are drawn to these strategies. The analysis highlights why defense postures based on deterrence are especially vulnerable to the short-of-war strategies that populate the “Gray Zone.” The article concludes by suggesting how defense officials might adapt defense policies to life in the “Gray Zone.”     

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     

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.