武装无人机与战争变迁：以社会-技术系统为视角

进入21世纪以来，武装无人机成为新军事技术的象征，理解其军事和战略影响成为重要的课题。在既有的讨论中，支持者沿着功能本位论证无人机让战争变成了精确的外科手术，质疑者从价值本位批评它将战争变成了暗杀。两派在争论中各执一端，但都共享了将无人机器物化和静止化的预设。这些技术预设限制了我们对无人机变革与战争关系的思考，为此，引入技术社会学的“社会-技术系统”的概念。该概念认为技术不是静止的，一直处在变革中，技术变革不是器物的变革，是与器物相关的系统变革，是技术与社会的共同演化。以此观之，无人机不是单独的器物，而是一个与社会无缝连接的系统，其演化的动力是技术利基、客观环境和社会制度三者相互作用，它经历了诞生、发展和制度化三个阶段。当前，无人机系统正处在制度化阶段，它与既有制度在资源分配、独立建制和价值观念上存在冲突和融合。如果没有技术突破和战略环境的剧变，这种冲突和融合将会长时间存在，这决定了当前无人机战争的含混性和复杂性。社会-技术系统的视角有利于思考技术变革和战争变迁的复杂性，并为应对未来的无人机战争提供新的思路和研究方向。     

日本军事工业及其对战争支援潜力初探

第二次世界大战结束后，受“和平宪法”的制约，日本军事工业走的是一条“寓军于民”的发展道路。然而，这支潜藏于民间的军事工业，为战后日本军事力量的发展起到了巨大的推动作用。其高、精、尖的军工技术水平，使日本的主要武器装备走在了世界的前列。难怪美国报刊称：“海湾战争可以没有日本人参加，但是没有日本的技术，美国的尖端武器难以奏效。”由引可见日本军事工业的水准。当人类迈入２１世纪这个和平与战争共存的时代时，对日本军事工业及其对未来战争的支援潜力应给予关注。     

俄式“混合战争”实践及其影响

“混合战争”理论最早于2005年由美国军事学界提出,西方学者后用以指称俄罗斯在乌克兰危机、叙利亚危机中的军事行动.该理论在俄亦获认可且得名为“格拉西莫夫主义”.俄罗斯将“混合战争”理论作为在乌克兰和叙利亚开展军事行动的理论指导,在实战中进行演训,打造了特色鲜明的俄式“混合战争”,并取得了良好成效.“混合战争”的登场或对未来军事发展带来一定影响.     

伊拉克战争与中国外交

中国在从对伊武器核查到伊拉克战争这场重大国际危机前后 ,始终坚持维护《联合国宪章》和国际法基本原则 ,主张在联合国框架内政治解决伊拉克问题 ,反对“先发制人”打击的单边主义行为 ;同时又在本国力量和利益所及的范围内进行有理、有利、有节的斡旋与斗争 ,采取战略明确、战术超脱的灵活策略 ,在坚持国际道义的同时 ,最大限度地维护国家利益 ;既发挥了负责任大国应有的作用 ,又成功地实现了我国外交战略的“韬光养晦”与“有所作为”方针的辨证统一。     

二十一世纪全新的武器 可怕的战场

历史学家们可以如数家珍般地罗 列出人类战争革命的历程:马镫的发明 出现了铁甲骑兵;弓箭的发明标志着人 类拥有了一种远程武器;火药、飞机、核 武器的出现都是战争发生革命性变化 的重要标志。21世纪战争革命的标志 实际上已经悄悄地来临了:微波、电子 计算机、传感器和远程武器将使得 20世纪的战争变得黯然失色。 美国国防部的思想库——“网络 评估办公室”主任安德鲁·马歇尔警 告说,美国人别自以为能在21世纪的 高技术战争中仍能保持全球的霸主地 位。马歇尔担心美国人在21世纪的战 争中将犯下致命的错误。没有哪个国家拥有像美国这样的重型装甲师、庞大的舰队和强大的空中力量,所以聪明的对手是决不会跟美国军队硬碰硬的,他们会发动一场“点穴战”,直捣美国最薄弱处！     

论战后初期日本战争责任意识的淡化与皇国史观的回潮

由美国主导的旧金山条约生效后，日本的战争责任及战争遗留问题被搁置下来，本来没有进行彻底改造的旧的日本国家机器，在“惯性运转”中不断出台一系列逆潮流而动的法规、政策或举措，使皇国史观重新抬头和复苏，冲击了战争责任意识，甚至出现为战争翻案的逆流。在这样的政治氛围下，右翼势力开始呈现泛滥和猖獗之势。     

阿富汗战争曙光难现

阿富汗战争进入第10个年头，这场美国历史上持续时间最长的战争，已成为奥巴马总统的“烫手山芋”，美国及其北约盟友对赢得阿战的信心和耐力逐渐减弱。奥巴马政府不断调整对阿战略，在加强军事打击塔利班的同时，加重了政治解决阿富汗问题的战略考量，希望通过军事打击、民事支持和外交努力“三管齐下”，尽快摆脱阿战。然而，阿富汗乱局依旧，美国的新战略成效有限，地区形势更趋复杂，各国对阿未来局势发展的担忧增加，阿富汗战争依然看不到尽共．     

十年战争对美国陆军的影响

“9·11事件”以来的十多年间,美陆军参与了美国历史上持续时间最长的两场战争——阿富汗和伊拉克战争,并发挥了不可替代的作用,投入兵力累计达到110万,阵亡超过4500人,负伤多达3.3万人.①在战争初期的主要作战阶段,美陆军进展顺利,相继推翻阿富汗塔利班和伊拉克萨达姆政权,既走出了越战失败的阴影,也有力回击了美国新军事革命中、特别是海湾战争和科索沃战争后出现的陆军无用论等观点.     

俄罗斯与非洲的军事合作：混合战争的视角

自2012年普京开启新一届总统任期以来，尤其是克里米亚事件后，俄罗斯加速重返非洲的步伐。俄罗斯采用混合战争策略，以军事合作为突破口，综合考虑其国家战略利益、致胜联盟利益、国家相对实力和机会空间等因素，重视成本控制和经济实效，将与西方国家的竞争控制在灰色地带。在实践中，俄罗斯争夺非洲的武器市场，引导非洲的反西方舆论斗争，选择支点国家，借力私营军事公司，增强了俄罗斯在非洲的政治影响，获得了一些经济利益。俄罗斯对非军事合作日益被西方国家视为重要威胁并遭到反制，这也使非洲国家陷入“选边站队”的困境。同时，经济实力不济、意识形态吸引力不足制约着俄罗斯对非战略的实施和国家利益的实现。随着乌克兰危机的升级，其混合战争策略将面临更多挑战，但仍会是俄罗斯对非军事合作的主要手段。     

俄罗斯武器出口面临的挑战及应对措施

武器贸易是一种特殊的国际贸易形式,是世界大国追逐政治、经济、军事、外交利益的重要途径。作为世界第二大武器出口国,俄罗斯的武器出口呈现出贸易规模大、比较优势强、交易种类多、地区分布广泛以及贸易方式灵活等特征。在俄乌对抗和西方制裁发生后,俄罗斯国内外呈现新的发展形势,俄罗斯武器生产和贸易面临零部件封锁、进口替代困难、实际投入下降、外部市场变化、开拓市场能力不足以及技术创新、质量管理和专利保护等多方面的挑战。俄罗斯通过采取灵活的政治外交战略、实施进口替代和国家军备计划、采取多元化市场战略、提升对外军事技术合作和加大武器营销力度等措施,促进了俄罗斯武器出口贸易。俄罗斯仍将在一定时期内保持武器出口的优势地位。     

The Location and Purpose of Wars Around the World: A New Global Dataset, 1816–2001

A critical question in the quantitative study of war is how to choose appropriate units of analysis. While most studies link wars to the sovereign states that fight them, several authors have recently offered alternative perspectives, focusing on the the properties of rebel organizations and armies or tracking events in fine-grained geographic spaces. We contribute to these developments by introducing a new dataset of wars fought from 1816–2001 on fixed territorial units of observation that conform to the grid of states in 2001. Compared to standard datasets, we expand the geographic purview to include states not recognized by the international system. We provide location codes that identify the territories on which conflicts are fought, which is especially important for the analysis of imperial wars and colonial rebellions. We also introduce a new typology of wars based upon the aims of warring parties rather than their status in the state system. This dataset is uniquely suited to explore new questions that cannot be addressed with other datasets. To illustrate, we test an institutionalist theory of war and show empirically that the types of wars fought in a territory depend on whether it is governed as a modern nation-state, an imperial dependency, or the center of an empire.     

Absolute and limited war: The possibility of foreign‐imposed regime change

This paper examines the relationship between foreign imposed regime change and war participation. The oppertunity and willingness of an opponent to impose a new regime on a war participant affects the likelihood that such a change will occur. Results from a logistic regression model suggest that (1) winning or losing the war, (2) the amount of war costs the participant endures, (3) the power of the participant relative to its opponent, (4) the amount of war costs the opponent endures, (5) the occurrence of a domestic regime change during the war, and (6) the difference between the authority structures of the war participant and its opponent all have a significant and sizable impact on the probability that a war participant endures a foreign imposed regime change. The first three variables measure the opponent's opportunity to force a regime change, while the last three measure its willingness. I suggest that these results increase our ability to evaluate the likely consequences of a war, and may have important implications for our understanding of the decision to enter and terminate a war.     

TerrorWars: Boston,Iraq

This article queries the difference between experiencing an urban terror attack and experiencing war in an urban war zone. The case considered is the Boston marathon bombings of April 2013 and the lockdown that followed, a first in the USA. Official responses to the bombings exceeded militarised urban policing strategies in ways that arguably turned Boston into an urban war zone. To consider that proposition, I juxtapose events in Boston with US war operations around Al Tafar Iraq in 2004, as described by Kevin Powers in The Yellow Birds. I also consider responses to the lockdown by people in the area of the bombings, people waiting for delayed transportation during the lockdown and experts on anti-terrorism.     

Communication frightens me: Derrida on communication

ABSTRACT

In this tribute to Jacques Derrida my main aim is to emphasise the radical nature of his questioning of the assumptions of the Western philosophical tradition without ever turning his back on this very tradition. The focus is only on one aspect of his thinking, namely his views on the notion of communication. These views are interpreted as representative of his general approach, and certainly provide an excellent illustration of his broader intellectual work. Attention is given to his articulation of the traditionally accepted views on communication and his alternative to this tradition is explored in terms of his deconstructive approach. Reference is made to terms that feature in a prominent way in communication, namely idealisation, intentionality, context, meaning, reading and writing, among other things. This enquiry leads in a spontaneous way, and as a natural consequence of his style of thinking, to an ethic of communication made very briefly explicit in the areas of thinking, theorising, reading and writing.     

Religious zionism and the state: Political accommodation and religious radicalism in Israel

In its earlier years Israel was spared the impact of religious radicalism. In the last two decades, however, religious doctrines have begun to claim a role in foreign policy, culminating in the 4 November 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The primary aim of this study is to explore the systemic political processes and contextual factors that in the past have subdued national religious radicalism in Israel. The general argument of this essay is that the tradition of political accommodation with the religious parties fostered their participation in government coalitions, and by doing so, mobilized a large portion of the religious sector to support the state. Equally important in suppressing religious radicalism in Israel were the two main doctrines of religious Zionism, the instrumental and the redemptionist, which applauded cooperation with secular Zionism and the state, hence enabling political accommodation and avoiding a comprehensive violent confrontation. The absence of a religious party in the Rabin government brought the country's political discourse to an unprecedented level of intensity, strengthening a new blend of religious nationalism that posed a potential for deligitimization of the state.     

Measuring Military Effectiveness: Calculating Casualty Loss-Exchange Ratios for Multilateral Wars, 1816–1990

In this article, we introduce and utilize a new dataset that provides battle- and war- level Loss Exchange Ratios (LERs) for combatant states involved in multilateral wars between 1816 and 1990.The battle-level data provide an alternative to the widely used, but problematic, HERO/CDB-90 data set on battle outcomes. To demonstrate the utility of the new data, we weigh in on the debate over democratic military effectiveness arguments by replicating models by Reiter and Stam (2002, 2009) and Downes (2009), finding that, when effectiveness is measured using LERs, democracies do not have an edge over their non-democratic counterparts.     

Post-conflict elections and the process of demilitarizing politics: the role of electoral administration

Post-conflict elections are called upon to advance the distinct processes of both war termination and democratization. This article examines the patterns in seven cases where elections served as the final step to implement a peace agreement following a period of civil war. Such elections are shaped in part by the legacy of fear and insecurity that persists in the immediate aftermath of a protracted internal conflict. Comparative analysis suggests that interim regimes in general, and electoral administration in particular, based on joint problem solving and consultation may ‘demilitarize politics’ and help transform the institutions of war into institutions capable of sustaining peace and democratization. In Mozambique, El Salvador and, to an extent, Cambodia, processes to demilitarize politics prior to elections created a context that allowed the elections to advance both peace and democratization. In the other cases, politics remained highly militarized at the time of the vote, leading either to renewed conflict (Angola) or the electoral ratification of the militarized institutions of the civil war (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Liberia, Tajikistan). Interim electoral commissions provide an important opportunity to demilitarize politics by building consultative mechanisms and norms that increase confidence in the peace process and the legitimacy of the post-conflict elections.     

Passenger or Driver? A Cross-National Examination of Media Coverage and Civil War Interventions

Existing research on civil war interventions provides contradicting evidence about the role that the media plays in affecting the likelihood of intervention. To date, studies often focus on specific cases (frequently by the United States) leaving it unclear whether the media's influence extends more broadly. In this article we examine this question cross-nationally and argue that we need to account for the possibility that interventions also lead to increases in media coverage. We test our hypotheses using cross-national data on civil war interventions and media coverage. These data include a new measure of media coverage of 73 countries experiencing civil wars between 1982 and 1999. These data allow us to determine whether media coverage is more likely to drive leaders’ decisions or follow them. Toward this end we employ a two-stage conditional maximum likelihood model to control for potential endogeneity between media attention and interventions. The results suggest a reciprocal positive relationship between media attention and civil conflict interventions. Specifically, an increase of one standard deviation in media coverage raises the probability of intervention 68%.     

Rebel Behavior in the Context of Interstate Competition: Exploring Day-to-Day Patterns of Political Violence in Africa

This study develops a day-to-day theory of political violence that predicts that rebels respond strategically to the onset of interstate conflict that is directly related to a civil war. Government-initiated interstate conflict is theorized to incentivize rebels to signal their resolve, willingness to bear costs, and vulnerability of government forces. In addition, this form of interstate conflict is predicted to decrease violence against civilian populations, as it makes it more likely that rebels will need to rely on civilians for resources in the future. This is contrary to interstate conflict initiated by an external state, as this signal of third-party support makes civilian support more dispensable from the perspective of a rebel movement. Using a country-day data set constructed from event data, evidence is presented that is consistent with this theoretical logic. Interstate conflict, therefore, is shown to play a significant role in explaining the variation of violent events that occur on a day-to-day basis during a civil conflict.