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The goal of this study is to understand how Ukrainian cultural policy has developed in the context of Russian aggression against Ukraine. It examines new conceptualizations of cultural policy that appeared in Ukrainian public discourse after 2014 and the new legal solutions introduced under their influence. Reformers associated with the 'independent cultural scene' attempted to introduce a cultural policy model for managing cultural institutions based on liberal values and transparent, inclusive, and competitive principles. However, those in power, who were operating in the face of both an internal crisis and external threat, began to implement a cultural policy that was based on conservative values and subordinated to ensuring national security. The study's principal thesis is that the resulting hybrid model facilitated dismantling of the Soviet cultural management model, strengthening local cultural industries and communities and actively countering hostile Russian activities in the field of culture. The activities of the the newly created and radically reformed institutions, such as the National State Film Agency, Ukrainian Institute, and Ukrainian Cultural Foundation have facilitated forming a greater self-awareness of Ukrainians as a political community, and mobilized them to fight for the integrity of the Ukrainian state. They have also had a tangible impact on international recognition of Ukrainian culture as independent of Russian culture, which was crucial in gaining international support in the conditions of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After two decades of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US military has shifted to preparing for large-scale combat operations. However, it would be a mistake to discard hard-earned lessons from these conflicts. Despite contemporary advances in technology and important differences between current US competitors and the Soviet Union, irregular warfare will play a prominent role in the new era of strategic competition. It was a prominent form of US-Soviet competition during the Cold War, is already used extensively by the United States and its competitors and remains attractive given concerns about escalation between nuclear-armed powers. Given the continued relevance of irregular warfare, we focus on two main lessons from the US experience. First, since irregular warfare is about influencing populations and achieving political goals without large-scale combat operations, influencing and working alongside the partner is the primary mission. The second lesson follows directly from the first; if irregular warfare is ultimately about achieving policy goals with an economy of military force, IW is a team sport requiring joint and interagency collaboration to be effectively implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by the case of a jaguar raised as a pet by some paramilitary warlords, this article discusses how armed conflict encompasses more‐than‐human realities, becoming a hybrid experience capable of dislocating the borders between environmental and social processes, predation and warfare, human and nonhuman agency, and subjects and objects. It draws attention to a pervasive form of damage—afterlives—that stays with people in ways that compel us to reconsider wartime and the delivery of justice in places, such as traditional Afro‐Colombian territories, that are palpably made of entangled relationships between the human and nonhuman. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although concepts related to conventional warfare and irregular warfare have been used in academic literature for a long time, the latter concept is intertwined closely with concepts such as asymmetric warfare, hybrid warfare, special warfare, unconventional warfare, guerrilla warfare, insurgency, anarchism, psychological warfare, and terrorism, all of which have nearsynonymous meanings. The irregularity in the usage of many concepts within the scope of irregular war can be eliminated, at least to some extent, via inferences from concepts on which a consensus has been reached. On the other hand, it is similar to the contents of new definitions such as hybrid warfare, non-linear warfare, and fourth-generation warfare in terms of the methods used. This complex situation regarding the definition brings about deep debates on the meaning attributed to the concept. The main claim of this research is that the concepts of conventional, asymmetric, and hybrid warfare are not synonymous concepts that can replace each other but concepts that can be used in coordination in the universe of irregular wars. In this context, this research examines the relationship between these substitutional concepts within the framework of battlefield functional areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thousands of Ethiopians served with the irregular forces which fought alongside the British Empire in East Africa. According to some sources, they were more of a hindrance than a help. To others they were the critical factor that led to the liberation of the country. Understanding what the Ethiopian irregular forces did and whether they were effective is critical for the historiography of the East Africa campaign. If they were as widespread and effective as some sources suggest, then any study of the campaign which neglects them is not only incomplete, but also inaccurate. This article explores the activities of the Ethiopian irregulars and evaluates their effectiveness. By doing so, it not only provides an important historiographic intervention for other studies, but through its use of interviews conducted with Ethiopian veterans it helps to restore the lost voices and experiences of the Ethiopians themselves to the historical narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The counterinsurgency era that dominated American military discussion post-9/11 has passed. The desire to move on, particularly since the loss of Afghanistan in August 2021, has left unsettled a conversation on counterinsurgency that, both among supporters and detractors, was often dangerously narrow. Too hastily embraced and too rapidly abandoned, counterinsurgency generated false promises and then became the scapegoat for poor strategy. This article examines the counterinsurgency era that was and demonstrates how fad-like engagement with the topic in both military and academic circles subverted the supposed learning process taking place. It argues that the lessons from this engagement are mostly misleading or at least incomplete, but it also notes that there is minimal appetite to look deeper into a topic now deemed toxic. Therein lies significant danger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamics of warfare have undergone significant transformations, necessitating a comprehensive reevaluation of the study of wars. It is no longer sufficient to solely focus on analyzing military operations; instead, a broader perspective is required. Postcolonial research has shed light on the changing forms of warfare that emerged after the era of military colonialism. This shift in the nature of conflicts demands the development and application of new research methods to effectively comprehend and address contemporary warfare. Of particular significance is the emergence of informational and hybrid warfare, which blurs the traditional boundaries between states of war and peace. Consequently, the concept of peace, as the desired state of coexistence, warrants closer examination from multidimensional angles. While peace has historically been considered from moral and religious viewpoints, it is imperative to critically evaluate the applicability of these perspectives and explore alternative approaches. This article seeks to unravel the complex nature of peace by integrating insights from diverse disciplines. By adopting a multidisciplinary approach, encompassing moral, religious, and other disciplinary lenses, a more comprehensive understanding of peace can be achieved. Moreover, this interdisciplinary exploration enables a nuanced analysis of the intricate dynamics between war and peace, facilitating the development of effective strategies for conflict resolution. By critically examining the concept of peace and reevaluating the nature of war from this perspective, this article aims to contribute to the existing body of knowledge on conflicts and their potential resolutions. By combining theoretical reflections with empirical evidence, it offers a valuable resource for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners interested in comprehending the complexities of contemporary conflicts and working towards the attainment and sustenance of lasting peace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alfred J. Rieber's book, "Storms over the Balkans during the Second World War," provides a new perspective on the complex developments in the Balkans in the 1940s. Rieber emphasizes four factors: geography, the tradition of irregular warfare, ethnic and religious tensions, and great-power rivalries. The book is divided into two parts, with the first focusing on the motivations and decisions of leaders such as Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, and Tito. The second part explores the relationship between Yugoslav Communists and the USSR. Rieber argues that these factors continue to influence the region today, leading to unresolved ethnic conflict and political authoritarianism. However, the book's focus on individual leaders may overshadow the broader historical analysis. [Extracted from the article]

The 1932 Battle of Shanghai was the first instance of a modern war waged in a large city. This paper examines how the conflict unfolded from one urban district--Zhabei--to a large area north of the city, all the way to Wusong, from a densely populated and built-up urban area to the countryside; and how the conflict's nature and the balance of power shifted drastically. The Japanese army was not prepared to wage a war that, in its first phase, amounted to an urban guerrilla campaign by the Chinese, while the displacement into rural areas played to the advantage of the Chinese troops. This paper looks at the crucial role spatial factors played in the successes and failures of the contending armies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses how the Tet Offensive of the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong in 1968, the turning point of the Vietnam War, achieved political victory despite a military defeat. War, in general, and guerrilla struggle, in particular, is a process of violent events involving political goals. In this sense, one of the most important goals of the armed struggle is to impose the superiority of the will on the opponent with the least loss of life. Psychology is among the most important variables of this challenge. As a matter of fact, the greatest success in war is to break the resistance of the opponent by keeping the damage to a minimum. In this context, guerrilla warfare, as a war of attrition that includes unconventional warfare methods, is a field of study revealing psychological elements. This study aims to explain the strategic nature of guerrilla warfare through the example of the Tet Offensive in 1968. The Tet Offensive, which has been widely accepted in the literature to be the turning point of the Vietnam War, is essential in understanding how a military defeat can achieve political success. This military attack, in which the Viet Kong guerrillas suffered seven times more damage than their adversaries, drove the adversaries of Viet Kong guerrillas into despair about the Vietnam War. This study analyses how the Tet Offensive achieved political victory despite a military defeat. The historical limitation of the study is between 1967 and 1975. The study is expected to contribute to Turkish literature by examining the issue of guerrilla warfare through the Tet Offensive. The analysis shows that the intangible dimensions of the war such as psychological aspects can be one of the determining factors of the war in terms of its capacity and the impact it creates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Japanese ninja are known in the west mainly by the romantic image of the secret agent, or assassin, endowed with superhuman powers. Yet there is a lack of serious scholarship on the actual warriors who became the subject of the myth. This paper seeks to use the full extent of primary sources from the period to offer a blueprint for a historical, rather than mythical understanding of the ninja. They did not belong to a unified class, but were instead a hodgepodge of heterogeneous groups, united only by their skills in irregular warfare. They became “ninja” only retrospectively, as a result of the historical imagination of later generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is no gain-saying the fact that terrorism has increasingly become widespread criminal violence as different countries/actors across the globe have their own unique ways of perpetrating the act. West Africa, in particular, has seen an increase in terrorism especially in the Sahel region. Religious extremism, particularly its violent radicalization, has become the fault line used by terrorist groups to garner support and sympathy for their actions, as well as to guarantee recruitment. For instance, the Boko Haram insurgents regard the Nigerian State as being run by non-believers. Thus, its political goal is to create an Islamic state. Terror in the Maghreb is nonetheless on the rise, and has been shown to have intimate links with violence in other regions of the Islamic world such as Iraq. Despite the efforts being made to prevent and end violent conflicts in Africa, the Continent continues to experience sporadic violence and volatile security challenges. Of particular academic interest is the major challenge to curbing conflict in West Africa which can be attributed to the poor understanding of the fundamental causes of conflicts a gap which this article seeks to interrogate. An understanding of this and other complex dimensions of the continent's security architecture is necessary for placing any analysis of state and non-state actors in the proper context. In general terms, the article seeks to understand the nature and dynamics of insurgency and the upsurge of violent new religious movements in West Africa while contributing to the understanding of the ideological underpinnings and geographical locations of terrorism on the continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A personal narrative is presented which explores the authors experience of influencing the US to pivot from counterinsurgency and irregular warfare.

Hybrid warfare is the most common term used by commentators to describe the complexity and multifaceted character of contemporary warfare. Hybrid warfare refers to coercive methods of strategic competition that take place below the threshold of conventional military conflict and is usually applied to the blend of military and non-military methods of warfare employed by the West's principal adversaries, Russia and China. The term hybrid warfare has evolved from an essentially military concept to one that potentially embraces all the instruments of state power. Hybrid warfare remains an ill-defined and contested term, and there are many other buzzwords, such as irregular warfare, hybrid threats, and gray zone aggression, that are used to describe the same phenomenon. This article examines the evolution of thinking on hybrid warfare and these related concepts. It highlights the challenges that scholars and practitioners have faced in trying to define and apply these terms in the policy environment in a manner that promotes common understanding and strategic coherence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work of TE Lawrence is traditionally included among theories of insurgency and irregular warfare. However, such a reading of Lawrence's work disregards the political theory of state creation underpinning his strategic understanding of insurgency. This article comprises a historically driven analysis of Lawrence's writing and action in order to discern his military theory and return the Arab Revolt to its context of proxy warfare. This article argues that Lawrence's work is strategic and political as opposed to tactical. Rather than a simple theory of insurgency, Lawrence's military theory is one of proxy war that envisions state creation as a strategic goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hybrid Warfare is gaining currency and posing new challenges to military thinkers and practitioners. The changes by the technological revolution, information and psychological operations, digitisation of the battlefield, and modernisation in conventional warfare have ceased to be the standalone option for applying force. These changes envisage the application of all Elements of National Power (EoNP), projected along a continuous span of activities, stretching from stability, security, reconstruction and terminating at armed conflict. The paper explains that hybrid warfare is the instrument of choice by the challengers, primarily India, to weaken Pakistan, subjugate it and either balkanise it or make it a flaccid state as the least desired objective. With hybrid warfare as an instrument of application against Pakistan, this article has attempted to dissect its contours and impact on Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviews the two books: Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Unconventional Warfare in the Ancient World (Mayor, A.; 2022) and Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws: And Other Classical Myths, Historical Oddities, and Scientific Curiosities (Mayor, A.; 2022). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Thomas Joscelyn (Columbia, NY: Columbia University Press, 2022. By Marion Holmes Katz (Columbia, NY: Columbia University Press, 2022). viii + 309 pp. By Michael Francis Laffan (Columbia, NY: Columbia University Press, 2022. I The Muslim Difference: Defining the Line between Believers and Unbelievers from Early Islam to the Present. i By Youshaa Patel (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2022). xvii + 341 pp. [Extracted from the article]

Since achieving victory in World War II, the United States military has a less-than-enviable combat record in irregular warfare. This detailed historical analysis provides perspective on where past decisions and doctrines have led to defeat and where they may have succeeded if given more time or executed differently. In doing so, it provides lessons for future Army engagements and argues that until America becomes proficient in irregular warfare, our enemies will continue to fight us at the lower levels of the spectrum of conflict, where they have a good chance of exhausting our will to fight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are response mechanisms to modern peace and security threats adequately equipped to tackle gray zone conflicts? Attempts to address this question entail both confronting the old pre--Cold War peace operation capstone doctrine ("holy trinity") and constructing the characteristics of a new model capable of tackling the unique features of gray zone conflicts. This article analyzes the diplomatic relationship between Kenya and Somalia, which exemplifies the characteristics of gray zone threats. The article contends that the use of the "holy trinity" doctrine in treating such unconventional warfare tactics does not adequately discriminate between gray zone dynamism and conventional conflict typologies, and the results do not always allow certainty about relationships between states. Furthermore, the uncertainty of gray zone dynamism makes it difficult for analysts to conduct accurate conflict diagnostics using the current framework based on the "holy trinity" capstone doctrine. Using the Kenya- Somalia relationship as a case study, this article constructs a "doctrinal quadrality spectrum" (DQS) framework for conflict diagnosis in order to avoid the binary limitation of a black-orwhite decision that often does not fit the gray zone dynamism of modern warfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While conventional military forces have long been the focus of modern warfare, unconventional warfare (UW) will be waged behind enemy lines by US, allied, partner special operations forces (SOF), and civilian resistance movements. Prolonged field care (PFC) will be a forced necessity in the UW environment with unique challenges to mobility and security. Recorded experiences from World War II of allied surgeons and others reveal insights about how to prepare for this unique set of special warfare in the future, including in the areas of manning, training, planning, operations, and equipping. Countries at potential seams of conflict, like the Baltic States, possess significant UW experience. Lithuanian SOF medical leaders have developed a guerilla medicine course that increases readiness to provide PFC and austere resuscitative surgical care in UW. US military medical forces can benefit from partners like Lithuania and others by sharing knowledge, experiences, and adapting best practices to our tactics, techniques, and procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite China's traditional role as a continental power, modern Chinese leaders are pursuing a grand strategy that includes the explicit goal of becoming a maritime power. China is strengthening its ability to deny its "near seas" (the Yellow, East China, and South China Seas) to US forces and building the capabilities and infrastructure to project power into "far seas" that lie beyond these waters. Yet Beijing is doing so without crossing the threshold of actual violence -- unlike Russia's use of violent "hybrid warfare" in Ukraine. In the maritime areas close to its coast, China has adopted "gray zone" approaches to alter the status quo while avoiding combat between uniformed militaries. Farther afield, China's strategy focuses on accumulating influence through efforts such as the Belt and Road Initiative, which seeks to build economic connections across the Eurasian landmass and the Indian Ocean. This article aims to reconsider how experts categorize and think about the instruments of power China is deploying in the Western Pacific and Indian Oceans, and their roles in China's expanding overseas strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia is waging a far-reaching political warfare effort against US interests in Europe and elsewhere, an effort facilitated by the Internet, cyber tools, cable news, and especially social media. This persistent political warfare effort largely eschews traditional military force; rather, it is focused on influencing the populations of targeted countries. Though the effects of Russian political warfare operations are hard to measure, they have likely had some effect on elections in France, the Netherlands, and elsewhere. Factors that make nations vulnerable to political warfare include physical proximity to Russia, high levels of corruption, contested politics, and cultural or historical affinities with Russia. If left unchecked, political warfare can do great damage to US power and interests by creating unwanted tensions, weakening allies, and eroding faith in democracy. The United States, as an open and democratic society, is at an automatic disadvantage when it comes to countering Russian political warfare. Nonetheless, Washington can seek to defend its interests by investing in effective counter-messaging, ensuring that the US intelligence community has the analytical and collection resources it needs, prioritizing anti-corruption programs in certain countries, and helping to build defense institutions in allied and partner nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iran has grown proficient at using hybrid-war capabilities and tactics to achieve its regional objectives over the last 30 years. The country typically operates below the threshold of conventional warfare, using a blend of military and paramilitary tools, including proxy forces, missiles, cyber tools, maritime forces, and information operations to shape and coerce regional actors to its advantage. These are effective in the short term, but damage Iran's long-term interests by inviting greater isolation and more sanctions. Any US effort to curb Iranian hybrid-war tactics should combine pressure with potential incentives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the first decade of the twenty-first century, defense analysts identified the emergence of "hybrid warfare" as a compelling threat to American national security. Generally speaking, hybrid warfare consists of "conflict involving a combination of conventional military forces and irregulars ... which could include both state and non-state actors, aimed at achieving a common political purpose." This paper uses as a case study of hybrid warfare a specific campaign in the U.S. Civil War where conventional and unconventional operations were significant factors. It considers Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan's efforts to defeat the Confederate hybrid threat in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, the particular dynamics and challenges he confronted, and the factors that enabled him to prevail. By doing so, it will both draw on and contribute to the growing body of literature on the campaign and the challenge of countering hybrid warfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst scholars have examined the long-term political, social, and cultural dynamics with regards to Yugoslavia's collapse, the military has largely escaped similar scrutiny. This paper explores the League of Communists of Yugoslavia's attempt to solve the nationalist problems of Yugoslavia through the ideology of self-management, and how the failure to do so affected the strategy of Total National Defence. The republics were able to construct their own armed forces due to Total National Defence's devolution of powers and self-management making changes to the policy extremely difficult for the federal government and Yugoslav People's Army. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz is recognized as one of the most influential military theorists of all time. His ideas and theories represented in “On War” and their relevance in the 21st century are recurring debates as irregular warfare and asymmetric warfare is on the rise since World War II. While Clausewitz did not write extensively about irregular or asymmetric warfare in “On War”, he did hold lectures on as at the time was called “small war”, where he shared his views about the war on the Spanish guerilla war against Napoleon. In this study, we will examine the nature and tactics described by Clausewitz and draw a comparison regarding modern tactics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to Russia's continuous malicious actions against the Baltic and Scandinavian countries, as well as its ongoing war against Ukraine, most European countries have recently been forced to take a critical look at their national defense strategies and military capabilities. These reviews unearthed serious capability gaps, resulting in the emergence of so-called total defense strategies based on peacetime social resilience and war time resistance. This article focuses on resistance, arguing that the current manifestations of such a strategy do not ensure maximum results for the countries because their fundamental characteristics and principles were derived from cases that are limited in spatial and temporal scope. The article suggests that lessons must be also learned from recent experiences such as the Chechen resistance against Russia, Hezbollah's fight against Israel, the Iraqi and Taliban insurgencies, the Syrian insurgency, and other similar cases. This article offers a starting point for identifying such critical lessons by analyzing the First Russo-Chechen War through a research model built on the common principles of Mao Zedong, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, and General Vo Nguyen Giap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will discuss the Resistance Operating Concept and how nations should prepare to resist a potential enemy before an invasion takes place. Oriented towards the self-defense of small countries by a resistance or partisan force, it describes past examples of resistance groups in Europe. Specifically, by discussing the long-term survival of resilient organizations, its focus will be on the basic factors crucial for an underground resistance, including security, organization, and training. It also considers the need for a practitioner-oriented manual that can be disseminated at the widest levels to guide and enable future resistance operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies non-state militant group emulation and development of a special operation capability that stands in stark contrast to the normal repertoire of guerilla and terror tactics. Building on evidence of one well-documented Islamic State attack in 2012 that fit many of the criteria of a special operation, we analyzed the mission using concepts from strategic studies to understand the decision-making behind it. We then expanded our search of Islamic State operational claims looking for other examples, in order to understand the scope and frequency of Islamic State special operations since 2006. We found solid evidence of at least three Islamic State special operations over a decade: Ramadi, Iraq (2007), Haditha, Iraq (2012), and Abu Ghraib/Taji, Iraq (2013). Using these insights, we present two key levers – leadership and propaganda - used by the Islamic State in the decision-making and centralized distribution of resources to invest in a special operations capability that produced outsized strategic effects. These findings contest the conventional wisdom of the future of insurgency as decentralized structures made up of loose, leaderless networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the challenges faced by the U.S. intelligence community (IC) in recognizing and responding to the elements inherent in asymmetric competition with China. We offer that cultural and procedural impediments are negatively impacting the community's capabilities and argue that reliance on outdated methodologies and ad hoc technology acquisition to detect activities specific to asymmetric competition has allowed adversaries to exploit three types of interstitial gray areas (IGA) – operational, organizational, and informational. We argue that an updated framework to combat emerging threats from asymmetric competition and commensurate IGAs that has been proven in field settings to enhance detection, deterrence, denial, diplomacy, and defense against adversarial actions is needed. We demonstrate how the framework improves security resilience by focusing more on the human as a driver and user throughout the system, enabled by technological tools that start with the development of more diverse rules for data analytics through inputs from of federal, state, local, territorial, tribal, provincial, and private sector operators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From a global perspective, the emergence of the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) on the Nigeria’s security landscape in Maiduguri, Bornu state, Northeast of the country in 2014, ostensibly fulfills the imperative of counterinsurgency efforts (groups) in an increasingly era of conflict-riddle world faced with unconventional and asymmetric warfare. In Nigeria’s specific context, it apparently however, follows the familiar pattern of the rise of non-state actors on the social space where formal (state) structures of the security architecture have proved incapable of effectively securing, either partially or wholly, the national space and the citizenry. In Nigeria, in the past, such situations have led to the emergence of militia groups such as the Bakkasi Boys, Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), and Arewa People’s Congress (APC), among others. Emerging on the heels of the Boko Haram insurgency in the Northeast of the country, the CJTF was initially hailed as a vintage community security option and touted as an example of the untapped security potential in Nigerian communities, a local peacebuilding mechanism. Incidentally, experiences in the past indicate that such initiatives have been abused. Aside issues of human rights abuses, some have transmuted into some sort of monster to the society, becoming extortionist and predatory criminal gangs; at best morphed into ethnic militia. This paper examines the evolution of the CJTF against the backdrop of its dualistic origin. Importantly, has it satisfied its role as a vacuum filler – in contexts where formal (state) structures of the security architecture have proved incapable of effectively securing, either partially or wholly, the national space and the citizenry and as a model built around proactive citizen-driven communal response; or has the CJTF metamorphosed into such a monster as some of its precursors. The study employs the qualitative research methodology, and is contextualized within the global conflict – security discourse. It uses secondary data - academic and, newspaper publications including perspectives gleaned from published interviews on members and the public. It finds out that while the CJTF fulfils the purpose for its evolution, fears about its potential to transform into an ethnic militia or criminal gang is real. So are members’ sense of entitlement and sundry excesses foreboding. Thus, in the future, criminal elements could first mask their real agenda with such initiative only to unveil them later after gaining the trust of the society. Also foreboding is the issue of child soldiering as is easily discernable from the membership of the CJTF. It is recommended in a deeply-divided society as Nigeria, to forestall the emergence of such group as the CJTF, however attractive the reason for their founding could be, formal structures of the security architecture need be overhauled, if strengthened, however, not necessarily in terms of Nigeria’s extant over-centralized apparatuses. The CJFT as a non-state initiative could however be remodeled as community police model, fitting into the general framework of the proposed African-inspired mechanisms to solving African security problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement, the use of Chinese triads to attack protestors has attracted international attention, forcing the regime to constrain further acts of grand illegitimate violence. Research suggests that triads were used as 'thugs-for-hire' by the regime to achieve political ends. The present study aims to examine why the triads were hired and what their specific roles and motivations were. It concludes that triads acted as non-state securitization actors, agent provocateurs or extralegal protectors depending on several factors, such as financial incentives, being stakeholders in occupied sites, business interests in mainland China and individuals' political ideology. It suggests that triads were used as vigilantes against the threats of Western-instigated Color Revolution and hybrid warfare targeting China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In counterinsurgencies, minority groups such as the Sunnis in Iraq are important elements of the "population," the social–political terrain where population-centric counterinsurgency is battled. Yet there has been little systematic analysis of minority groups in unconventional warfare and no investigation of the ways intervening forces, like the United States, have approached in-country allies in an effort to get host nations to address the strategic importance of minorities. Examining new data on alliance politics between the United States and local partners in Vietnam and Iraq, I find that while existing scholarship would suggest that in-country allies will resist U.S. pressure to engage with minority groups, local allies are surprisingly likely to comply, at least in part, in order to avoid U.S. unilateral engagement with local minorities and to influence the policies adopted. This process slowly undermines U.S. counterinsurgency efforts, speaking to the complexities of population-centric approaches and working through local proxies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In conclusion, Biddle offers a detailed and systematic study of non-state actor behaviour and military strategy. Biddle moves beyond this dichotomy and maintains that non-state actor military behaviour is really on a continuum. Stephen Biddle offers the first comprehensive explanation of non-state actors' military strategy and tactics. [Extracted from the article]

In a world of global interdependent security, the West is increasingly involved in the stability of all regions that could directly or indirectly influence national interests. To this end, security sector assistance (SSA), with its' perceived favourable effect-to-resource-ratio, has become somewhat of a panacea. For small states, coalition SSA has become the way to pursue own ambitions with military means internationally. But SSA is a difficult task, especially for miniscule contributors with scarce resources. We therefore ask: How can small states achieve the highest yield from their SSA-efforts? From a Norwegian perspective, and focusing on the SOF component, this article provides a practitioner's view on how to increase the military contribution to strategic utility. Through understanding the wicked problem SSA represents, and adhering to the principles of long-term commitment, vertical implementation, and specialised skillsets, we argue small states might gain a disproportionate advantage allowing them to punch above own weight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article states the core thesis about two asymmetric modes of existence of war – physical and discursive. The purpose of the article is to substantiate the analytical and practical necessity of distinguishing between two modes of existence of hybrid warfare as a phenomenon of physical reality and as a discursive construct, as well as to raise questions about the value specificity of the relationship between them. The methodology of work represents the implication of two asymmetric modes of war existence – physical and discursive. The relationship between the two modes can be described in particular through modern cognitive-semantic and communicative approaches. Analysis, synthesis (thesisantithesis), description, distinction, historical perspective, forecasting and hermeneutic tools of comprehension are the core methods of this work. In the military (material) dimension, any military confrontation in general (and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in particular) is localized, while the discourse of this hybrid war has become global. The interpretive component of hybrid warfare is implemented through discursive verbal-semiotic means. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the concept of victory. The Ukrainian dimension embodies the postmodern practical representation of the analysis of the problem of hybrid warfare as a war of interpretations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The experience of the US armed forces in terms of irregular warfare goes back to the 18th century. However, periodically, traumatic events such as the Vietnam War led to such valuable experiences to be ignored and to approach irregular war with caution. In this study, how the US Army's irregular war doctrine was shaped after the September 11 attacks and what it means in current strategic thinking is presented. Understanding the importance of irregular warfare in the changing security concept of the USA in the light of official documents, military manuals and discussions in the literature constitutes the main purpose of the study. In this sense, the method of the study was determined as qualitative document analysis. At the end of the study, it is argued that a period, in which conventional armies focus on irregular approaches to achieve political goals, and the difference between the conventional and the irregular is blurred, is experienced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.S. has spent the last two decades, during its short time as the singular superpower, engaging relatively successfully in counterterrorism. However, we have now entered a new era of Great Power Competition (GPC) with adversaries; Russia and China. In the last decade, these nations have either caught up to the U.S. or have gained a slight edge in several types of warfare, while they challenge the international order created and dominated by the U.S. In particular, Russian threats loom over our NATO Baltic allies, while Chinese threats loom over the South China Sea and Taiwan. The U.S. has inadequate conventional deterrence forces ing each of these theaters and likely could not respond to crisis in each area simultaneously. Concurrently, though not allied, Russia and China have increased cooperation. It will take many years for the U.S. to build adequate conventional forces to prevent each of these adversaries from asserting their will and taking and holding the sovereign territory of our allies or partners. Yet history reveals a type pf warfare for which we and our allies and partners can prepare for immediately at little cost to add a layer of deterrence to assist in denying ultimate victory to our adversaries with scarce dedication of resources. It is a type of warfare that can asymmetrically impose costs on an occupier by forcing him to devote substantial resources to his own security while also making his political consolidation of the occupied territory very difficult if not impossible. Its methods range from violence led by an authorized organization fighting to reclaim sovereignty, to passive and peaceful activities by the general population. This method of warfare, which must be organized, trained and equipped immediately, is resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether the mission is Unconventional Warfare, Foreign Internal Defense, or Counterinsurgency, success is often dependent on an individual's and/or unit's ability to both understand the vulnerabilities of their foreign counterparts on psychological, cultural, and operational levels, and to influence those counterparts in a manner consistent with US military and political objectives. While many of the criteria for assessment and selection, training, and employment of Special Operations Forces (SOF) supporting Special Warfare are skill-based, the conduct of Special Warfare is often relationship-based. In fact, ARSOF Next lists not only empathy as a characteristic of an Army Special Operations Forces (ARSOF) unit but also love as a desired trait of an ARSOF soldier. These psychological constructs are applicable both internally (toward one's in-group) and externally (toward one's out-group) and are measurable, albeit not easily, and therefore capable of being evaluated in assessment and selection and cultivated during training. However, the spectrum of today's assessment and selection arguably misses the most valuable psychological characteristic, emotional intelligence. For the past 2 years, the Paul Ekman Group (PEG) has provided a specialized version of the Evaluating Truthfulness and Credibility (ETaC) seminar to Special Forces soldiers. These facial micro-expressions, or "micros," are proven to be both cross-cultural and involuntary, and are thus an ideal fundamental skill for ARSOF soldiers. ETaC focuses on understanding the five channels of communication (face, body language, voice, verbal style, and verbal content) and their behavioral manifestations to better assess the credibility of another. The seminars were not only well received by the participants but also, despite a relatively high baseline competency, demonstrated statistically significant performance improvement in a matter of hours. Not only do such results begin to validate the emotional intelligence of this specifically chosen audience, but it helps to demonstrate the capacity of these unique soldiers to develop their cognitive processes to effectively influence their environment. While the sample size is small, the results are promising and are worthy of additional research. This paper presents the background and summary of these seminars, as well as some recommendations for incorporating more emotional components of Special Warfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ottoman Special Organization made its way into the literature of historical studies during the 1960s in the United States through the work of Philip H. Stoddard. Stoddard's doctoral dissertation resonated so powerfully within academic circles that his approach to the organization, albeit flawed, was adopted extensively and thus echoed by later researchers. This also holds true for Turkish academia, where the nature, origin and historical course of the Special Organization in particular, and unconventional warfare and intelligence in general, was and remains largely misunderstood due to Stoddard's fallacious analysis of the organization coupled with the uncritical character of conventional history-writing in Turkey. Through a critique of the paradigms and referential points Stoddard based his study on, as well as the conceptual and terminological aspects of his work, this study offers a more sound approach to both the organization and the units that fulfilled intelligence duties at the institutional level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes introducing the concept of total war into the study of Latin American Independence in the 1810s and 1820s. We argue that total war was not an exclusively North Atlantic phenomenon, but an experience that also manifested itself at the beginning of the nineteenth century in the Spanish Viceroyalty of New Granada. To prove it, we analyze the social militarization caused by the enlightened reforms of the eighteenth century, the impact of political revolution in the Atlantic world and the decisive role of religion in creating an enemy that should be exterminated. The article concludes by pointing out two topics that underline the uniqueness of total war in a region of Latin America: the spatial and temporal unity of different forms of regular and irregular warfare, and the fact that total war was not the consequence of state action, but the starting point for State-building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the United States must always be ready to prevail during a high-end conflict --and overwhelming lethality represents a significant deterrent to conflict in the first place --the Nation must also be able to overwhelmingly compete and deter activity short of traditional armed conflict. In the language of emerging Joint Doctrine, this is known as the "Competition Below Armed Conflict" portion of the "Competition Continuum." It is also referred to as the Gray Zone, Hybrid Warfare or Irregular Warfare. Winning in the Gray Zone means completing the "deterrence equation," that is, precluding adversary aggression in competition below armed conflict with intermediate force capabilities (IFCs) in a manner similar to equipping the U.S. military element of national power with overwhelming lethality as a deterrent to armed conflict. IFCs, which include non-lethal weapons as well as other non-lethal tools, will bridge the gap that exists between a mission of mere presence and the use of lethal effects. These capabilities allow active measures when presence alone is insufficient to deter malign activities or when the use of lethal or destructive force is neither desired nor appropriate. The addition of IFCs to the Joint Force's toolkit will help the Services maintain a decisive advantage over strategic competitors, in addition to the lethal force that is the hallmark of the U.S. military. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A central challenge of the military profession revolves around how best to understand future wars and the strategies needed to fight them. For an earlier, extensive discussion, see Gray, I Second Nuclear i , 153-70. 23 Gray, I Future of Strategy i , 100-6. 24 Gray, "Future of War", 23-4. 25 Ibid., 24. 26 Ibid. 27 Gray, I Modern i , 1. 28 Gray, I Future i , 63-79. 29 For a detailed discussion of these themes, see Gray, I Modern i , 48-68. 30 Gray, I Strategy Bridge i , 1-14. 10 For example, see Gray, "Clausewitz Rules", 161, note 2. 11 Gray, "Difficult", 7. 12 Gray, I Modern i , 98. 13 Gray, "Conclusion", 296-8. 14 Gray, I Modern i , 52. 15 Gray, "The 21st Century Security Environment", 15-17. 16 Gray, "Future of War", 17. 17 Gray, I Future of Strategy i , 98. 18 Gray, "Future of War", 17. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid., 23. 21 Gray, interview, 3 May 2019. See also Gray, I Modern i , 153; Gray, "Future War", 17. 9 Gray, "Conclusion", 290. [Extracted from the article]