Disrupt and restraint: The evolution of cyber conflict and the implications for collective security

In the last decade, cyber conflict has become a main feature of international politics and a growing concern for strategic stability and collective security. Unfortunately, cyber conflict suffers from a lack of conceptual clarity about its impact on collective security and a lack of consensus among international actors on how to interpret it. This article proposes to understand cyber conflict as an evolving process driven by two factors: the way in which digital space is configured and the way in which tactical, organizational, strategic, and doctrinal characteristics related to cyber have been included in the field of national and international security. Both tend to encourage offensive behavior but also demonstrate features pointing to restraint.     

Sharing the load: factors in supporting local armed groups in insurgencies

Most counterinsurgency campaigns have featured the use of some form of local defense forces. Such forces have had a somewhat mixed record, both in their usefulness in actually countering insurgents and in their longer-term impact on internal security. This article focuses on historical cases that provide lessons for the best operational and strategic uses of local defense forces and measures to control their activities.     

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.     

From the ESS to the EU Global Strategy: external policy,internal purpose

Security strategies are important sites for narrating the EU into existence as a security actor. The unveiling of a new global strategy on foreign and security policy for the EU immediately post-Brexit could be conceived as a pledge to remain together as a Union for the purposes of contributing to global security in a particular way. This paper offers a brief stock-taking of the EU’s way of writing security from the European Security Strategy (2003) to the EU Global Strategy (2016). A concise exegesis of these documents exposes an interesting dynamic: as exercises in ordering the world, both strategic guidelines have turned out to be major exercises in ordering the self. The comparative snapshot shows the EU as increasingly anxious to prove its relevance for its own citizens, yet notably less confident about its actual convincingness as an ontological security framework for the EU’s constituent members over time.     

Western drones and African security

While unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become a standard element of modern armed forces, African countries have been reluctant to acquire remotely piloted aircraft for military purposes until recently. This is mainly due to a lack of industrial capabilities and, for military purposes so far, procurement policies that have concentrated on small arms and light weapons, more prestigious armoured vehicles and combat aircraft. Moreover, counter-insurgency strategies in Africa tend to focus on manoeuvre warfare, co-opting rebels or fighting them using armed proxies. As a consequence, international counterterrorism operations against fanatical and reckless groups like al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Boko Haram in sub-Saharan Africa are characterised by a strong dependence on Western forces providing UAV-based reconnaissance and, in some cases for the United States, military strikes by drones. This essay reviews some of the incentives and problems of the use of UAVs in the African context. Given the geographical and military conditions of asymmetric warfare in Africa, and potential problems concerning international law, ethical aspects of the use of arms, and civil–military relations notwithstanding, it is argued that African security forces should develop their own UAV capabilities by intensifying their cooperation with Western armed forces.     

人机环境工程的空管安全性模糊综合评判

针对人机环复杂因素的空管安全性评价难题,基于非对称贴近度,提出一种的多级模糊综合评判方法。首先构建了基于人机环境工程的空管安全影响因素集,包括人的因素、人机关系和环境条件这三大类因素集,然后依据因素评判的等级和标准,建立了基于非对称贴近度的空管安全性的多级模糊综合评判模型,最后以专家系统评价数据为基础,对某实际空管部门的安全性进行了模糊综合评判。研究方法和研究结论为科学评价空管系统的安全性提供了借鉴。     

低慢小无人机对军事区域的安全威胁及其应对方法

低慢小无人机具有小型化、红外与雷达暴露征候小、飞行高度低、飞行轨迹不定以及购买使用几乎无门槛等特征,给当前全球军事区域和军事行动安全带来了新的挑战.本文首先分析了世界主要国家对低慢小无人机的界定、国内外管控情况和相关威胁事件;然后,从低慢小无人机的侦察袭击能力、军事区域现有安防措施和低慢小无人机对军事区域进行侦察的相关...     

金融危机对我国社会稳定的影响及对策

金融危机的爆发和蔓延对我国实体经济造成了严重冲击,境内外敌对势力趁机发难,人民内部矛盾被“催化”,经济领域的违法活动凸显,公安机关作为我国的重要维稳力量,应增强维稳意识,提高执法素养;深入推进社区和农村警务战略;强化情报建设、舆论引导和群众工作;坚持科技强警,完善各项维稳预案。以积极的策略应对金融危机对我国社会稳定的影响。     

公安现役院校推广案例教学的现状与思考

案例教学符合现代教育思想,满足公安现役部队的教育训练需要,适应公安现役院校的办学模式。应通过规范和加强案例库教学,完善案例库建设,加强资金、器材、技术等保障,进一步在公安现役院校推广使用案例教学。     

公安警卫部队青年警官心理压力的社会学分析

由于职业性质的特殊性,公安警卫部队青年警官在工作中都承受着一定的心理压力。过度的心理压力不仅影响青年警官个人身心健康,同时也直接影响公安警卫部队的各项建设及警卫任务的圆满完成。分析公安警卫部队青年警官承受的心理压力,研究缓解其压力的途径与对策,对发挥公安警卫部队青年警官工作积极性与创造性,提高部队战斗力具有重要的现实意义。