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Norwich University, the oldest private military college in the United States, aims to prepare future military and civilian leaders to navigate leadership and educational challenges successfully. One method of preparing leaders is through academic centres. Drawing on seven years of data from the John and Mary Frances Patton Peace and War Center and six years at the Center for Global Resilience and Security at Norwich University, this article shows how this task is accomplished by formally establishing research centres that exist outside of regular academic programming. The centres are uniquely positioned to understand the priorities of the US Reserve Officer Training Corps Cadet Command and the US Department of Defense to prepare future junior military leaders to be prepared for twenty-first-century security challenges. Particular attention is given to how experiential learning, leadership laboratories, and research have prepared cadets to be effective junior military leaders. For each core area, we apply Bloom's hierarchical models to maximise cognitive, affective, and sensory learning objectives. Examples are provided to elucidate the paradigm and outlined objectives further. The article concludes by highlighting the impact of centres across the Norwich community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a synthesized model with system- and individual-level variables, this article explains how policy makers in the Park Geun-hye administration produced a series of abrupt foreign policy decisions on the issues of comfort women, the Kaesong Industrial Complex, and THAAD deployment. The article finds that President Park and her aides were confronted with external challenges that encompassed increased DPRK's provocations, China's lukewarm responses to those provocative actions, and US pressure to strengthen the US-ROK-Japan security triangle. In responding to such challenges, the ROK's decision makers abruptly made foreign policy decisions which had many negative consequences due to the lack of institutionalized discussions among policy makers, their insensitivity to public opinion, and the influence of a secret advisory group led by Choi Soon-sil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the framework of centripetal and centrifugal force, this article analyzes alternating periods of peace and conflict in South Korea-Japan mutual perceptions since 1998 when the two nations took unprecedented conciliatory actions. Centripetal force is comprised of political leaders' reconciliation initiatives, restrained historical/territorial disputes, and common security threats. Centrifugal force incorporates heated historical/territorial disputes, political leaders' use of those disputes for their political purposes, and divergent security priorities. This article suggests that top political leaders in both nations can play a significant role in improving or aggravating mutual perceptions between the two neighbors. However, political leaders' conciliatory initiatives are a necessary but insufficient condition in reconciling the two former adversary states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When and why does a perpetrator state take a contrite stance on its past wrongs? More specifically, why do Japanese behaviors differ over time in addressing apology and compensation with regard to the comfort women issue? In this article I address these questions by testing two hypotheses, utilizing an instrumentalist approach and a transnational political activism model. The former posits a perpetrator state is more likely to take a contrite stance on its past misdeeds when it calculates such action is in its security and/or economic interests. The latter hypothesizes that when transnational activism is powerful and a perpetrator state is led by a progressive ruling coalition, the state is more likely to adopt conciliatory policies toward historical issues. I find that the transnational-political activism model possesses more explanatory power than instrumentalism for within-case variations in Japanese behavior toward the comfort women issue. The two approaches are not, however, mutually exclusive and are complementary in some regards. The effect of transnational activism is heightened when the target state is faced with other geopolitical incentives and/or when the target state is led by a progressive ruling coalition and has weak conservative reaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior to the late 1960s, German history textbooks lacked coverage of Poland and depicted Germany's eastern neighbor with negative images. The 1970s and 1980s, however, witnessed positive changes to the contents of German school textbooks-particularly with respect to their descriptions of Poland and German-Polish relations. How and why did Germany promote a more reflective view of history and correct negative descriptions of the Poles in German history textbooks between the 1970s and 1980s? This article addresses this question by focusing on the influence of Brandt's Ostpolitik and on the activities of the German-Polish History Textbook Commission. The article also shows how contemporary conservative reaction was not powerful enough to reverse these positive changes to German history textbooks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]