Humanitarians at sea: Selective emulation across migrant rescue NGOs in the Mediterranean sea

Between 2014 and 2017, no less than 10 different non-governmental organizations (NGOs) conducted maritime Search and Rescue (SAR) operations off the coast of Libya. By rescuing over 100,000 migrants in three years, these NGOs became the largest provider of SAR in the Mediterranean. The theory of institutionalism suggests that organizations conducting similar activities are likely to converge in a process of mimetic isomorphism, deliberately imitating one another to increase their effectiveness and cope with uncertainty. These 10 SAR NGOs, however, developed two different rescue models: While some rescued migrants and disembarked them in Italian ports, others only simply assisted those in distress until the arrival of another ship transporting them to land. They also cooperated with Italian and European authorities to different degrees. Why did SAR NGOs imitated many elements of existing non-governmental rescue models, but discarded some others? This article argues that differences in material capabilities and organizational role conceptions are crucial to explain why newer SAR NGOs have imitated most but not all of their predecessors’ policies, engaging in a process of “selective emulation.”     

The Damoclean sword of offensive cyber: Policy uncertainty and collective insecurity

Cyberspace is a new domain of operation, with its own characteristics. Cyber weapons differ qualitatively from kinetic ones: They generate effects by non-kinetic means through information, technology, and networks. Their properties, opportunities, and constraints are comparable to the qualitative difference between conventional and nuclear weapons. New weapons and their target sets in a new domain raise a series of unresolved policy challenges at the domestic, bilateral, and international levels about deterrence, attribution, and response. They also introduce new risks: uncertainty about unintended consequences, expectations of efficacy, and uncertainty about both the target’s and the international community’s response. Cyber operations offer considerable benefits for states to achieve strategic objectives both covertly and overtly. However, without a strategic framework to contain and possibly deter their use, make state and non-state behavior more predictable in the absence of reciprocal norms, and limit their impact, an environment where states face persistent attacks that nonetheless fall below the threshold of armed conflict presents a policy dilemma that reinforces collective insecurity.     

降维状态观测器的两种设计方法及算例

降维状态观测器是非常重要的一类观测器,它使采用状态反馈构成闭环系统的物理实现成为可能。降维状态观测器的设计方法很多,笔者在一种常用设计方法的基础上,推导出对应的另一种设计方法,这将使降维观测器设计考虑的情况更全面,为使用方便,针对这两种方法给出了算例。     

基于IP层的保密通信技术研究及实现

针对W indows2000下自带的IPSec与L inux的IPSec相互通讯比较困难的问题,对L inux IPSec、ND IS网络驱动程序以及WDM设备驱动程序进行了研究,在W indows平台下设计并实现了一个基于中间层驱动程序的IP-Sec,它能与L inux IPSec通讯。中间层驱动程序对过往的数据包进行加密或者解密操作是通过WDM设备驱动程序与上层应用程序的通讯机制,以此来实现应用层与内核的双向通讯,即应用层向内核传递密钥及其他配置信息,内核向上层应用程序提供底层的配置信息。此外,在L inux IPSec源代码的基础上增加了安全审计功能,具体测试结果表明,这个系统可以与L inux IPSec通信。     

军用嵌入式操作系统安全性增强措施

操作系统是紧靠硬件的基础软件,它既是应用软件安全的坚实基础,又是硬件不安全因素的屏蔽器.在操作系统安全隐患和嵌入式操作系统技术特点的基础上,提出信息保护、空间域保护和时间域保护等增强操作系统安全性的几种方法,以提高嵌入式系统抗击系统本身缺陷或敌方恶意攻击等安全威胁的能力.上述几种安全保护技术已在嵌入式Linux中进行验证,并取得满意的结果.     

经济视野的新时期军事安全战略

经济全球化深刻影响和改变了世界经济、政治、军事安全形势,促使我们探索新时期的国家军事安全战略。本文试图由经济视角透视新时期军事安全战略,简要分析了经济全球化背景下我国军事安全面临的挑战,强调经济安全是新时期军事安全战略的立足点和重要战略目标,并探讨了经济软实力作为非战争军事斗争方式的运用及经济全球化影响下的新时期军事安全战略的特征。     

改进警卫形式的挑战与对策

改进警卫形式,落实“内紧外松”警卫原则,是保持我们党同人民群众血肉联系的需要,是践行“三个代表”重要思想和贯彻既保证安全又方便群众方针的需要,是改革开放和经济建设的需要。警卫工作要想得到人民群众的理解和支持,首先要从改进警卫形式入手,克服草木皆兵、岗哨林立、警笛长鸣的人海战术;坚持内(宾)外(宾)有别的原则,树立群众观念,尽可能做到不扰民或少扰民,采取措施,在保证安全的前提下,维护人民群众正常的生活、工作秩序。     

论信息化条件下战场空间的嬗变

随着信息技术在战争中的广泛应用,战场空间正在由传统的陆、海、空三维空间向自然空间、非自然空间和认知空间拓展,并且已经初步形成了七维一体作战空间的雏形,战场空间也呈现出与以往不同的宏观化、微观化、虚拟化和无序化的新特点;在分析各作战空间辩证关系的基础上,提出了对未来我军现代化建设的几点启示.     

Is strategic studies narrow? Critical security and the misunderstood scope of strategy

Critical security advocates commonly portray strategic studies as crippled by its narrow focus on Cold War-era military issues, as state-centric and as Western-centric. I argue that this conception of the scope of strategy is flawed and I offer a comprehensive rebuttal by working out the logic of the theories advanced by Carl von Clausewitz and Thomas Schelling. The proponents of critical security overlook the striking expansion of strategy during the Cold War, its longstanding inclusion of competing political actors not just states, as well as its capacity to put Western and non-Western actors in a common analytic frame. By breaking out of the conceptual jails in which strategy has been incarcerated, I seek to reconnect International Relations to strategic thought from which it has become increasingly estranged.