The relevance of the Gulf of Guinea in global energy politics

Africa and for that matter the Gulf of Guinea cannot be indifferent to the global energy politics of the 21st century. The increasing importance of the region has attracted major actors in the energy sector. The competing interests of these actors are played out in various forms. This heightened interest in the region, especially with the discovery of oil in huge commercial quantities, has brought the importance of the area into focus in global oil politics. This paper looks at the importance of the region in light of the huge energy potentials of the Gulf of Guinea and how the institution of proper governance systems could serve as an important factor in ensuring the proper management of the resource.     

‘Responsibility to protect’ and the African Union: Assessing the AU’s capacity to respond to regional complex humanitarian and political emergencies

Despite its many institutional and political weaknesses and limitations, the African Union (AU) has been developing a variety of tools and mechanisms to respond effectively to complex disasters and emergencies (both natural and manmade) by building up a comprehensive regional security architecture. Furthermore, it has become the first and only regional or international organisation to enshrine the principle of ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P) in its Constitutive Act. This regional approach to and formal endorsement of the R2P principle allowed it to assume a particular place in the promotion of peace and security in its area. This article aims to critically assess the effectiveness of the AU on the African continent by exploring its real capacity in preventing and responding to emergencies and violent conflicts, and therefore in rendering the principle of R2P operational. The article argues that the formalisation of principles does not necessarily mean their effective implementation. The organisation's use of the R2P principle is also greatly conditioned by internal and external factors.     

National security,military spending and the business cycle

This paper develops a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium model where national security is an argument in the agent’s utility function and the government chooses optimally the level of military spending to maximize social welfare. National defense depends on military expenditure and on the strategic environment reflecting a potential hostile external threat. We use aggregate data on consumption, investment, and military spending for the US economy to estimate the parameters of the model. Estimation results suggest that consumption and national defense are complements and that military spending variability is mainly explained by external threat shocks although it also depends on the macroeconomic conditions. We compute impulse response functions of the main macroeconomic variables to several shocks: a total factor productivity shock, a defense technology shock, and a strategic environment shock. Surprisingly, we find that the optimal response to an increase in the external threat (a worsening in the strategic environment) will rise output by reducing consumption and increasing investment.     

The lobbies’ network at the EU policy level: the case of security and defense

Lobbyists may not share the same interests, but they usually agree to form a link in a network which could eventually be used to spread information, to search for potential partners, to speak with one voice to decision makers. In other words, social links represent value for lobbyists because they may ultimately facilitate access. In this article, we explore the network of the Security and Defense lobbies in the EU and we describe its structure.     

重大自然灾害警卫任务的特点及措施——以四川抗震救灾警卫任务为例

以2008年四川“5·12”地震发生后的抗震救灾警卫任务为例,对重大自然灾害警卫任务的特点进行深入剖析,总结抗震救灾警卫工作经验。探求重大自然灾害警卫任务的方式方法,有利于更好地完成警卫任务。     

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。     

公安现役部队文化建设途径探析

加强公安现役部队文化建设,必须把握文化建设的方向,坚持社会主义核心价值体系,坚持抵制腐朽文化的影响和继承与创新的统一;必须抓住文化建设的关键环节,坚持以人为本,注重结合部队职能任务,建设学习型警营;必须筑牢文化建设的基础支撑,注重队伍建设,加大基础设施建设和制度建设。     

试析世博安保中的军事“软实力”运用

世博会的圆满召开,不仅需要强大的军事“硬实力”作后盾,也需要军事“软实力”作支撑。本文从军事“软实力”的基本概念入手,将其分解为感化认同力、形象吸引力、心理威慑力等三个子要素;从各要素出发,以完成世博安保任务为着眼点,提出加强军事“软实力”的具体思路。     

多尺度方法在强非线性系统中应用的一个注释

多尺度法在求解非线性系统时,目前所得到的结果多集中在弱非线性系统上。论文对多尺度法进行了改进。对强非线性杜芬系统进行了变换,得到了强非线性杜芬系统存在3个解的结论,其中大的和小的是稳定的,中间的是不稳定的,物理上实现哪个稳定运动取决于初始条件。     

基于fMRI的静息状态脑功能复杂网络分析

分析静息状态下人脑中不同区域之间的功能连接模式对研究静息状态下人脑正常功能活动具有重要意义。基于复杂网络理论对脑功能网络进行建模,考察静息状态脑功能网络的结构和拓扑特性。结果显示,网络具有小世界性质和无标度特性。进一步引入一种概率混合模型分析网络社团结构,得到的10个子网络中包含视觉系统、听觉系统、运动系统、默认网络以及与执行和工作记忆相关的脑区。推测出静息状态脑功能网络是由这些相对独立又彼此关联的子网络组成,其中楔前叶和扣带回作为网络的关键节点,在信息调度和传递中占据重要地位。