Saudi Arabia,Wahhabism, and the Taliban of Afghanistan: ‘Puritanical reform’ as a ‘revolutionary war’ program

This article argues that the Taliban's revolutionary war (RW) program is puritanical reform informed by the Islamic legal duty of al-amr bi'l-ma‘ruf wa'l-nahy ‘an al-munkar (‘commanding what is good and forbidding what is reprehensible’). It also examines the history of this duty with examples of puritanical reform movements emerging from Berber tribes in North Africa and tribes in Arabia. Furthermore, the importance of this duty in Wahhabi Saudi Arabia, and its exportation to Pakistan where Taliban leaders imbibed this ideology, are discussed. Finally the article shows that corruption and abuses by the Afghan regime have given impetus to puritanical reformers: the condition precedent for puritanical reform is pervasive wrongdoing in an Islamic society.     

Reassessing private military and security company (PMSC) ‘competition‘ in civil war: lessons from Sierra Leone

ABSTRACT

This paper challenges recent claims that competitive market dynamics incentivize Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) to fully commit to providing effective services, thereby reducing the duration of civil war. Our assessment of a most-likely case scenario for this argument – Sierra Leone – reveals four critical problems. First, there is rarely direct competition, even if numerous companies are present. Second, the presence of multiple PMSCs usually represents a collaboration among subsidiaries providing distinct services, often under the same corporate umbrella. Third, data aggregation obfuscates the overlap of PMSC presence, inflating the amount of perceived competition. Finally, we raise concerns regarding how quantitative analyses can conflate conflict intensity with conflict termination.     

基于IGSO卫星的多普勒定位单向授时方法研究

针对导航战、城市或者室内环境中,可见卫星数目小于3颗,用户位置未知时,接收机无法完成授时等问题,并结合我国已有卫星导航系统(北斗和CAPS系统)现状,提出了一种基于IGSO卫星的多普勒定位单向授时方法。该方法通过测量卫星信号的多普勒频移,采用积分多普勒计数计算用户位置,完成单向授时功能。分析结果表明,使用3颗IGSO卫星搭载透明转发器载荷,可使我国领土范围内的定位授时可用性基本达到100%;静态观测用户,长期测量定位精度可达3m以内,授时精度误差小于100ns。由于该方法最少只需观测1颗IGSO卫星信号,这为导航战背景及微弱信号环境下的定位授时服务,提供了新的解决方法。     

Trading coups for civil war

This paper investigates civil conflict as a product of the survival strategies of African leaders. Specifically, the paper offers a theory of risk substitution that predicts coup-fearing leaders will undermine the military effectiveness of the state when making an effort to extend their own tenure. While ‘coup-proofing’ practices have often been noted as contributors to political survival, considerably less attention has been paid to the influence of these strategies on other forms of conflict. Utilising data from a number of cross-national datasets, the analyses show that having a higher number of ‘coup-proofing’ counterweights significantly worsens a state's civil conflict prospects. A brief consideration of multiple episodes of conflict further suggests that in addition to coup-proofing undermining the counterinsurgency capacity of the state, some leaders are simply indifferent to – or can even potentially benefit from – the existence of an insurgency.     

现代战争计划的设计

现代战争的战争形态和作战样式发生了巨大改变,传统战争计划的制定难以适应新的作战指挥方式。为提高作战指挥的时效性和作战决策的正确性,对现代战争的战争计划的设计要求和设计流程进行了分析,总结了需要解决的关键技术,对深入开展战争计划的设计研究具有一定的启示。     

现代战争制胜机理的理论探讨

现代战争是信息化条件下的高技术常规局部战争。现代战争制胜机理必须适应战斗力生成新要求,突出战斗力标准。从军队作战能力的视角,可将现代战争的制胜机理分为:信息力制胜、杀伤力制胜、防护力制胜、机动力制胜和保障力制胜五个方面,即所谓的"五力制胜",它们相互融合成一个有机整体,共同构成现代战争中克敌制胜的法宝。     

一种可扩展的Cyber空间作战体系描述模型

研究了Cyber空间作战体系模型构建技术,提出一种面向Cyber空间作战模拟的战争系统建模新思路,并以此为基础提出了Cyber空间作战体系一体化逻辑网络模型。将Cyber空间作战涉及到的敌我双方作战实体视为一个整体系统的组分,抽象为网络模型的实体节点,实体间的各种合作、协同、对抗等不同类型交互行为统一抽象为网络模型的逻辑边。针对网络模型的节点和边分别建立了基于本体的实体描述模型和基于OO-LAMBDA语言的行为描述模型。通过一个真实战例的仿真实验验证了本文提出的方法的有效性和正确性。     

Syria and the perils of proxy warfare

The ongoing civil war in Syria is evolving into a ‘proxy war’, in which both the Baathist regime and its insurgent adversaries are becoming increasingly reliant upon support from external powers. Proxy warfare has a superficial appeal for sponsoring states, as it appears to offer a convenient and risk-free means of fulfilling foreign policy goals, which will not incur the financial and human costs of direct military intervention. Using Syria as a case study, this article shows that the conduct of proxy warfare has several potential political, strategic, and ethical consequences, which any democratic government in particular is obliged to consider before it resorts to this indirect means of foreign intervention.     

Conceptual failure,the Taliban's parallel hierarchies,and America's strategic defeat in Afghanistan

ISAF exists to protect the Afghan constitutional model. This strategic objective will be defeated because the GIRoA model has a conceptual flaw that renders it incapable of delivering governance at the local level (Tier IV). This fatal flaw has enabled the Taliban, by developing parallel hierarchies, to displace GIRoA and establish itself in southern locales as the political authority. The Taliban are fighting a revolutionary war, a Maoist displacement strategy that uses guerrilla tactics to advance a political program. Petraeus and McChrystal failed to recognize the character of war, and believed the Taliban are pursuing an exhaustion strategy. They failed to devise a counter-RW strategy. The ‘Surge’ was doomed ab initio.     

The sixteenth-century antecedents of special operations ‘small war’

The first conceptual, theoretical treatises about small war (la petite guerre) as special operations appeared only from the middle of the seventeenth century. The term is not used in the eighteenth-century sense of ‘special operations’ in older sources. The supposed absence of any treatment of the subject is surprising considering the obsession with the ‘art of war’ in the Renaissance, but other authors attribute it to a supposed antinomy between chivalric ideals and irregular warfare. But the absence of explicit manuals on the subject is not evidence of absence of advanced reflection on this kind of operations in the Middle Ages and in Early Modern times. We should thus look elsewhere, in other genres, for writings that contain and pass on military knowledge. Epics, romances, educational and military treatises, and memoirs in fact contain elements of a theory of special operations, even though these genres differ from our conception of rationality inherited from the Enlightenment.