Iraq,Afghanistan and the future of British military doctrine: from counterinsurgency to Stabilization

The campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan have had profound effects on both the British and US militaries. Among the most important is the way in which they have challenged traditional assumptions about the character of unconventional conflict and the role of the military within comprehensive strategies for encouraging sustainable peace. In the UK, the most important doctrinal response has been JDP 3–40 Security and Stabilisation: the military contribution. Security and Stabilisation is an ambitious attempt to synthesize elements of counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, peace support and state‐building within a single doctrine that reflects the lessons learned from recent British operational experience. This article examines the purpose, impact and potential value of this important innovation in British doctrine. To do so, the article explores the genesis of Stabilization; analyses its impact upon extant British doctrine for counterinsurgency and peace support; discusses its relationship with the most important related US doctrines, FM 3–24: the counterinsurgency field manual and FM 3–07: the stability operations field manual; and debates the function of doctrine more broadly. It concludes by summarizing the primary challenges Security and Stabilisation must overcome if it is to make a serious contribution to the theory and practice of such complex interventions.     

Roman military copper‐alloy artefacts from Israel: questions of organization and ethnicity*

The published analyses of Roman military copper‐alloy metalwork from Masada are complimented by additional ICP‐AES analyses of material from Gamla enabling further discussion of alloying trends and presenting new insights into the organization of the Roman military and the cultural specificity of brass technology.     

Bringing the study of warfare into theories of nationalism

This article argues that warfare has been marginalised in theories of nationalism but that in conjunction with nationalism is vital for understanding the rise of nation‐states, the formation of nations and the nature of the international system. It offers a critique of statist approaches, suggests mechanisms through which warfare may sacralise nations and explores different patterns of nation‐state formation as they affect the interstate system. In particular, it emphasises tensions between state and nation‐formation as activated by the fortunes of war and the destabilising effects of waves of imperial dissolution, which are accompanied by patterns of re‐imperialization. It suggests that it is simplistic both to claim that war has led to a transition from empires to nation‐states and that contemporary practices of war‐making have led to a postnational era.     

军事志如何突出地方军事特色

突出军事志的地方军事特色,是由地方志的地域性、军事活动的共同性决定的,同时也是军事志编写的质量要求和军事志的功能、价值所在。地方军事特色不是抽象的,它由区域位置、驻区部队、担负任务、组织实施等诸多要素构成。记述这些特色应把握好全局与局部的关系、共性与个性的关系、专志与通志的关系、本区与邻区的关系,具体而言是要熟悉地理环境,了解时代特征,合理谋篇布局,明确记述重点。     

Evolutionary theory and group selection: the question of warfare

Evolutionary anthropology has focused on the origins of war, or rather ethnocentricity, because it epitomizes the problem of group selection, and because war may itself have been the main agent of group selection. The neo-Darwinian synthesis in biology has explained how ethnocentricity might evolve by group selection, and the distinction between evoked culture and adopted culture, suggested by the emerging synthesis in evolutionary psychology, has explained how it might be transmitted. Ethnocentric mechanisms could have evolved by genetic selection in ancestral hominids, or through the interaction of genetic and cultural selection in modern humans, or both. The existence of similar behaviors in chimpanzees and the parallel development of early human societies around the globe are arguments for such inherited mechanisms. There may have been some adaptive breakthroughs in purely cultural evolution, but this process does not seem likely to produce long-term Darwinian adaptations because of the prolificity of cultural traits. Warfare may once have been a major agent of group selection, but the rates of extinction among human groups are so slow as to render this improbable since the rise of state-level societies, whose warfare tends to become a cyclical balance-of-power situation. Perhaps the most serious implication of current evolutionary thought is that the individualistic model of culture common in the social sciences and humanities is outmoded, and should be replaced by a new model that recognizes the organismic nature of human societies.     

The costs and consequences of drone warfare

One of the distinctive elements of President Barack Obama's approach to counterterrorism has been his embrace of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or drones, to target terrorist operatives abroad. The Obama administration has used drones in active theatres of war, such as Afghanistan, but it has also dramatically increased the number of drone attacks launched by the CIA in other countries, such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. The conventional wisdom on drone warfare holds that these weapons are highly effective in killing terrorist operatives and disabling terrorist organizations, while killing fewer civilians than other means of attack. This article argues that much of the existing debate on drones operates with an attenuated notion of effectiveness that discounts the political and strategic dynamics—such as the corrosion of the perceptions of competence and legitimacy of governments where drone strikes take place, growing anti‐Americanism and fresh recruitment of militant networks—that reveal the costs of drone warfare. Focusing particularly on drone use in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, the article suggests that the Obama administration's counterterrorism policy operates at cross‐purposes because it provides a steady flow of arms and financial resources to build up governments whose legitimacy it systematically undermines by conducting unilateral strikes on their territory. It concludes that the US embrace of drone technology is a losing proposition over the long term as it will usher in a new arms race and lay the foundations for an international system that is increasingly violent, destabilized and polarized between those who have drones and those who are victims of them.     

Drones: disembodied aerial warfare and the unarticulated threat

The Obama administration's controversial use of drones in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen has made the subject a hot topic of political and academic discourse. While most of this debate has focused so far on the legal, ethical and prudential use of large armed aerial vehicles, this article seeks to address the potential wider impact of this new technological innovation. The article argues that drones constitute a new and disruptive technology not just in the way that they have been used to enable a new form of counterterrorism. Instead, it argues that drones pose a new form of terrorist threat against the West which is at present under‐analysed, unarticulated and underestimated. Part of the reason for this underestimation is the failure to appreciate the scale and scope of drone use for commercial purposes which is about to unfold. Technological innovation now means that drones will be capable of many jobs currently performed by small planes and helicopters, but more cheaply and easily—in addition to many other new applications. The proliferation of this cheap and easily available technology will make its application for terrorist use easy to achieve and difficult to counter. The ability of drones to penetrate traditional defences and established conceptions of what constitutes a plausible threat is a challenge which so far has gone unheeded. This article seeks to challenge that complacency.     

The military covenant and the civil–military contract in Britain

Is the British civil–military contract strained to breaking point? The contemporary portrayal of British civil–military relations is bleak, with academics, politicians, the media and military charities arguing that military–societal relations are in urgent need of repair. Through assessing the extent to which the reciprocal expectations of the armed forces and the British public are realized, this article will argue that the moral contract, although under stress, is not breaking. Underlying social trends and the use of doctrinal concepts such as the military covenant have, combined with recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, altered the expectations of both sides causing tensions within military–societal relations. Yet, while the armed forces do harbour unrealized expectations of the British public who are unwilling or unable to support the use of the military in recent conflicts, neither the public nor the military is so disillusioned with the performance of the other for the relationship to be described as breaking or broken.     

Is less more … or is more less? Scaling the political ecologies of the future

Imagining progressive environmental futures, especially among critical scholars, can be a fraught enterprise. While some theorists and activists turn towards the social emancipatory power of modern technological interventions at scale, others point to the revolutionary power of degrowth, simplicity, and conviviality. These competing political geographical imaginaries are often strident in their response to one another, though they share core materialist commitments. This essay reviews these contrasting approaches in light of the tradition of political ecology, within the context of an Earth economy that is trending towards higher levels of energy and lower levels of human labor, weighing the degree to which the work and conclusions of political ecologists are congruent with either perspective, neither perspective, or both. The conclusions suggest that, while these two traditions have inverse, or at least orthogonal, views of economic scale, they may not be beyond compromise. Socialist modernism and degrowth sprouted from the same seed, share a political ecological tradition, and may indeed require one another. Eschewing both utopian and dystopian aspirations may open the door to progressive reconciliation and action.     

Human conflict and ecosystem services: finding the environmental price of warfare

Environmental degradation resulting from warfare is a growing concern, particularly with increasing recognition of humanity's dependence on healthy ecosystems. Though environmental legislation does exist that seeks to prevent or mitigate environmental harm before, during and after conflict, it has limited scope and effectiveness. This may be one reason why the environmental laws of war are so rarely applied in attempts to bring parties responsible for environmental harm to justice. Enforcement of such legal instruments also requires appropriate quantification of environmental damage, which is particularly difficult in a warfare context. A focus on the loss of environmental resources, habitats or ecosystems is only part of the story—the real cost of environmental damage is in the loss of ecosystem services that such resources provide, both now and in the future, and which regional and global human societies depend upon. The ecosystem services framework, wherein the costs of damage to ecosystem services are quantified in economic terms, may prove a more effective way of highlighting the environmental damage resulting from warfare. Moreover, quantification along monetary lines is potentially more likely to establish a solid case for justifiable reparations than criteria relating to loss of biodiversity or ecosystem health, which are more difficult for society and governmental agencies to place specific values on. This article discusses the ecosystem services framework in the context of warfare, and highlights both the potential and the challenges that may accompany adoption of such a framework by the international community.     

Ecology,warfare, and politics in the New Guinea highlands

Mervyn Meggitt. Blood Is Their Argument: Warfare Among the Mae Enga Tribesmen of the New Guinea Highlands. Palo Alto: Mayfield, 1977. xii + 223 pp. Tables, figures, glossary, and index. $4.95, paper.     

“乾隆大阅甲”的保护处理

“乾隆大阅甲”与常见的织绣品相比,在所用材料和制作工艺上有其特殊性,处理起来难度较大。作者通过反复的摸索和试验,解决了用树脂丝网加固“乾隆大阅甲”过程中所遇到的一系列问题,处理后的效果令人满意。另外,本文对今后工作的研究方向作了有益的探讨。