Information warfare and nuclear conflict termination

This study considers the possible implications of information warfare for efforts to terminate a nuclear war, or a war between nuclear armed states that is about to go nuclear. Information warfare could interfere with some of the requirements for nuclear conflict termination in at least five ways: by increasing the difficulty of accurate communication between heads of state; by decreasing the likelihood of military compliance with terms of ceasefire or settlement; by reinforcing mass images of the enemy that make it more difficult for leaders to negotiate; and by making battle damage assessment more complicated; and by increasing the amount of uncertainty within an already chaotic government decision‐making process and within a possibly acephalous military instrument.     

Process Matters: Conflict and Cooperation in Sequential Government-Dissident Interactions

Competing hypotheses on the relationship between government and dissident behavior emerge from both formal and empirical models. Yet, the current literature lacks a comprehensive theoretical account of such contradictory effects. This study develops a theory to account for a large number of competing hypotheses within a single framework. The theory explains various government and dissident tactical choices over the course of an internal political struggle by focusing on leaders, their motivations, and the link between their motivations and actions. The theory gives rise to a process model of sequential government-dissident interactions that is used to test several implied hypotheses. Empirical sequential time-series models of government and dissident behavior find support for most of the theory's implied hypotheses in Israel (1979–2002) and Afghanistan (1990–99).     

The Anti-Axial Age

Karl Jaspers famously characterized the period from the beginning of the eighth to the end of the third century before Christ as an “Axial Age” in which intellectual freedom and creativity blossomed as never before. This article argues that it was followed, five hundred years later, by an “Anti-Axial Age”, which devised a novel formula for intellectual and political repression. Its essence was the state’s capture of the millenial narrative, which had first been developed as religious doctrine within Zoroastrianism and Christianity. Involving the two great classical empires of Western Eurasia, Persia and Rome, and then empowering the expansion of Islam, the Anti-Axial Age left an ideological legacy that continues to haunt the contemporary world.