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.     

Civil–military relations in France: is there a gap?

Since President Jacques Chirac's 1996 decision to professionalise the armed forces, many political and military leader expressed concerns about its potential consequences on civil–military relations. Will the shift to an all-volunteer force create a gap in civil–military relations? The goal of the article is to provide a preliminary assessment of civil–military relations in France before the full professionalisation of the armed forces. Using the results of existing polls conducted annually, I lay out a basis of comparison to evaluate the future evolution of civil–military relations on several dimensions: image of the military, perception of civil–military relations, social and political values, and the legitimacy of the use of force. Although civil–military relations in France have never been as harmonious since the Second World War as they are today, the article argues that these relations are not as rosy as they may seem.     

Dynamic impact protective body armour: A comprehensive appraisal on panel engineering design and its prospective materials

Personal body armour is one of the most important pieces of equipment to protect human beings from various critical and fatal injuries. In today’s modern world, various organizations including law enforcement and security service have made it mandatory for their personnel to wear personal protection system while on field duty. However, the systems should comprise an improved ballistic performance, light-weighted, flexible as well as comfortable panel not only to be accepted with a wider range but also for effective performances of the consumer. Generally, the overall performances of the protective body armour could be affected by various parameters including armour design techniques, type of materials used and finishing of the panels. The current paper aims to critically review state-of-art for armour panel design techniques and the different perspective body armour materials. The paper starts by discussing the different body armour and its category. Later, the different states of technology for armour panel design (mostly for women), its problems and the possible solutions will be cited. Later, the commonly used different polymeric fibrous and the future possible advanced materials including carbon nanotube (CNT), Graphene CNT and shear thickening fluids (STFs) treated materials for developing the reinforced body armour panel will be discussed. The authors believe that this paper will enlighten useful guidelines and procedures about the different panel design techniques and current and promising future materials for researchers, designers, engineers and manufacturers working on the impact resistance body armour field.