Technological maturity for <i>Jeune École</i>: The case of Ukraine’s naval strategy

The article shows the urgency of using the missiles by corvettes of the Ukrainian Navy for naval purposes in modern conditions. The fighting and local military conflicts at sea of the last century are analyzed, where showed that ships with missile weapons are majorly important in order to achieve a victory over the enemy. Today, Ukraine and its Armed Forces are at the stage of undeclared war with the Russian Federation. Currently, the combat zone is Donbass, and the zones of increased tension are the Azov and Black Seas. Analysis of the peculiarities of a possible theater of operations, showing the relatively low defense capability of Ukraine to counter the threat from the sea and the important economic importance of the Black and Azov Seas for Ukraine, prove that in this direction, the aggressor can achieve the greatest strategic success. Analysis of recent events in the Black Sea, namely: the incident in the Kerch Bay, shelling of Ukrainian warships and aircrafts, constant provocative actions of the aggressor prove that the Black Sea is likely to become a new theater of operations. Combat actions on the high seas are virtually ruled out, as they have no tactical prospects. The main actions of our forces will be aimed at defending the territorial sea and the lines of our own coast. The Navy’s defense zone is likely to be a coastal strip up to 20 nautical miles wide, as well as the area around Zmiyny Island. In the north-western part of the Black Sea, coast of Ukraine is characterized by the presence of a large number of shallow estuaries, bays, etc., closed by queues, sandy shoals, areas unsuitable for navigation (Odesa, Dniester banks, Dnieper and Dniester estuaries, Tendriv, Kizhanka bays, the mouth of the Dunay and others). Such conditions favor the actions of small corvettes using «ambush» tactics. Therefore, the main tactical way of Ukrainian Navy corvettes action in the event of an armed conflict at sea may be the use of naval missile armament from «ambush», under aircrafts cover of Ukraine Air Forces with the usage of external sources of information on enemy location. Keywords: tactics, missile boat, naval target, missile weapon, sea battle, missile strike, combat application, combat effectiveness, missile weapon, anti-ship cruise missile.

Introduction PART I: CONCEPTS OF NAVAL WARFARE AND MARITIME POWER 1. The Nature of the Maritime Operating Environment 2. Maritime Strategy and Naval Warfare 3. Maritime Strategy and Naval Warfare 4. Naval Diplomacy PART II: CONTEMPORARY PRACTICE 5. Combat Operations at Sea: sea control and sea denial 6. Combat Operations at Sea: exploiting sea control 7. Combat Operations From the Sea 8. Maritime Security and the Maintenance of Good Order at Sea 9. Contemporary Naval Policy and Future Practice Conclusion

The law of naval warfare includes distinct and overlapping legal regimes applicable to the law of air warfare, the law of armed conflict, specific rules concerning the conduct of hostilities at sea, prize law, and maritime neutrality. These regimes govern hostilities at sea and beyond, balancing the rights of belligerents to conduct operations for sea control, sea denial, and the subjugation of the enemy with humanitarian considerations and protection of the rights of neutral states. The principles of the law of armed conflict apply in naval warfare, including military necessity, proportionality, distinction, and with special considerations, precautions in attack. Weapons must be reviewed for compliance with the law of armed conflict. Belligerent naval operations may be conducted in areas outside of neutral territorial seas. For the purposes of naval operations in peacetime and during armed conflict, the exclusive economic zone is subject to the rules of the high seas.

Black Sea Region in World Policy: Actors, Factors, and Scenarios of the Future

Европейский анчоус, или хамса, Engraulis encrasicolus L. — один из наиболее массовых видов рыб в Азово-Черноморском бассейне. E. encrasicolus — политипический вид; в Чёрном и Азовском морях он представлен двумя внутривидовыми формами — черноморским анчоусом (E. encrasicolus ponticus Alex.) и азовским анчоусом (E. encrasicolus maeoticus Pusanov), таксономический статус которых остаётся до настоящего времени неясным. Актуальной задачей является оценка современной популяционной структуры E. encrasicolus и её возможных изменений под воздействием климатических и антропогенных факторов в целях разработки необходимых мер по предотвращению негативных последствий и сохранения ресурсного потенциала вида. Данная работа посвящена изучению современной популяционной структуры европейского анчоуса в Чёрном и Азовском морях и геологических и палеоклиматических условий её формирования, а также оценке возможных изменений с учётом реальных природных и антропогенных факторов риска. В основу работы положены результаты изучения внутривидовой морфобиологической, биохимической, генетической и экологической изменчивости E. encrasicolus, а также пространственных и репродуктивных взаимоотношений азовского и черноморского анчоуса. В историческом аспекте выполнен анализ литературных данных по проблеме внутривидовой неоднородности E. encrasicolus в Чёрном и Азовском морях, полученных отечественными и зарубежными авторами за 100-летний период (1913–2014); список публикаций включает более 40 наименований. В работе использованы также результаты собственных исследований. Систематизированы и обобщены сведения о границах репродуктивных ареалов черноморского и азовского анчоуса. Установлено, что их репродуктивные ареалы охватывают всю акваторию Чёрного и Азовского морей и перекрываются на всём пространстве. При отсутствии отдельных, пространственно обособленных репродуктивных ареалов и при наличии одновременного нереста принадлежность черноморского и азовского анчоуса к разным подвидам (географическим расам) исключается. Популяционный уровень различий между черноморской и азовской хамсой подтверждают результаты генетико-биохимических исследований: коэффициенты генетического сходства и генетического расстояния между ними составили 0,9983–0,9985 и 0,0015–0,0017 соответственно. Представлена геологическая история формирования популяционной структуры Engraulis encrasicolus. Современные азовский и черноморский анчоусы в прошлом были пространственно разобщены и вступили в контакт лишь вторично (после того как в процессе эволюции между ними возник ряд различий). Их изоляция произошла в миоцене (23,0–5,3 млн лет назад), в новообразованном, изолированном от океана Тетис Сарматском море. В результате возникли две географически обособленные и независимые группы анчоусов (западная и восточная), дальнейшее развитие которых происходило с разной скоростью. Более быстрые темпы эволюции западной группы привели к образованию более прогрессивных черноморского и средиземноморского анчоусов, а более низкие темпы эволюции восточной группы — к образованию более примитивного азовского анчоуса. Только в современную эпоху, после окончания последнего ледникового периода и восстановления связи Чёрного моря со Средиземным 7–5 тыс. лет назад, произошёл контакт между ними, который впоследствии сопровождался гибридизацией, то есть образованием зоны вторичной интерградации. В условиях интрогрессивной гибридизации в последние десятилетия, связанной с осолонением Азовского моря в результате хозяйственной деятельности человека, существует реальная угроза разрушения генофонда азовской хамсы и её «генетического поглощения» черноморской. Тем не менее генетическая идентичность азовского анчоуса до настоящего времени сохраняется. Это происходит прежде всего благодаря экологическим механизмам сезонной (выбор времени) и биотопической (выбор места) изоляции в репродуктивный период. Установлена определённая закономерность перераспределения самок в составе нерестового стада: доля самок азовского анчоуса уменьшается, доля самок черноморской хамсы увеличивается. Из этого следует, что популяции азовского и черноморского анчоуса являются «температурными» расами, адаптированными к разным репродуктивным температурным условиям: азовская — к более низким, черноморская — к более высоким. Кроме сезонной, установлена биотопическая изоляция черноморской и азовской хамсы. Черноморский анчоус предпочитает нереститься в открытых районах Чёрного моря при солёности воды выше 16 ‰: там его доля составляет 55–60 % (в прибрежных водах значение показателя не превышает 5–40 %). Азовский анчоус, напротив, в нерестовый период преобладает в прибрежных опреснённых водах с солёностью ниже 15 ‰: его доля здесь достигает 60–90 %.

The use of Earth Observation (EO) for water quality monitoring has substantially raised in the recent decade; however, harmonisation of EO-based indicators across the seas to support environmental policies is in great demand. EO-based Cyanobacterial Bloom Index (CyaBI) originally developed for open waters, was tested for transitional and coastal waters of the Lithuanian Baltic Sea and the Ukrainian Black Sea during 2006–2019. Among three tested neural network-based processors (FUB-CSIRO, C2RCC, standard Level-2 data), the FUB-CSIRO applied to Sentinel-3 OLCI images was the most appropriate for the retrieval of chlorophyll-a in both seas (R2 = 0.81). Based on 147 combined MERIS and OLCI synoptic satellite images for the Baltic Sea and 234 for the Black Sea, it was shown that the CyaBI corresponds to the eutrophication patterns and trends over the open, coastal and transitional waters. In the Baltic Sea, the cyanobacteria blooms mostly originated from the central part and the outflow of the Curonian Lagoon. In the Black Sea, they occurred in the coastal region and shelf zone. The recent decrease in bloom presence and its severity were revealed in the areas with riverine influence and coastal waters. Intensive blooms significantly enhanced the short-term increase in sea surface temperature (mean ≤ 0.7 °C and max ≤ 7.0 °C) compared to surrounding waters, suggesting that EO data originating from thermal infrared sensors could also be integrated for the ecological status assessment.

The paper studies the principal aspects of China’s defense strategy in the post-Cold War era, presenting an overview of the Sino-Russian defense cooperation. Focus is placed on the evolution of the operational/tactical doctrine of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA); PLA’s plans for the development of regional power-projection capabilities; the role of the United States of America and Japan as critical independent variables, influencing China’s foreign and defense policies; China’s threat perceptions in the 21st century; the centrality of the Taiwan issue in the Chinese defense planning; as well as, the development of “sea denial” and anti-aircraft carrier capabilities by the PLA Navy. We are also going to present a concise analysis of the influence exercised on the current Chinese defense and geopolitical planning by F. Ratzel’s concept of “living space”, and A.T. Mahan’s theory on the importance of naval power. Finally, our intention is to try to portray the bilateral Sino-Russian defense cooperation (developed after Soviet Union’s dissolution) as an important dimension of the Chinese national defense strategy in the post-Cold War era. We will attempt at presenting the main dilemmas and challenges posed by this relationship and define the main factors that will determine the future prospects of the Sino-Russian defense cooperation. Particular focus is placed on arms transfers and military-technical cooperation between the two states. In the final part of our monograph are cited three analytical tables depicting all the major contracts providing for arms transfers, concluded between the PRC and the Russian Federation between the years 1992 and 2009, and their implications on the regional security.

An adult man was struck in the face by his own aerial drone. The propellers hit the upper face region leading to forehead and eyelid lacerations, a partial scleral laceration,...

India urgently requires technological solutions to resolve its pressing sustainability issues. The study, therefore, analyzed published blog content to explore how drones were being used to promote the United Nations sustainable development goals in India. Blog entries were retrieved through the Google search engine and screened to select 35 blogs, which contained sustainable drone applications and drone operation policies in India. Blogs published from 2016 to 2021 were analyzed through qualitative content analysis using a phenomenological approach. The study identified four themes and ten sub-themes related to drone use for sustainability in India. Themes included drone applications for sustainable management of natural resources, drone use for sustainable agriculture, drone implementation for other sustainability purposes, such as biodiversity conservation, and rules and regulations for drone use that enhance sustainability. The study recommends commercializing India’s drone industry to promote research on finding solutions to sustainability issues in various sectors.

Russian depositories contain a corpus of large‐scale Russian manuscript coastal and navigational charts of the Straits (the Bosporus and the Dardanelles) compiled in the late 1770s either by naval officers in the field or by the Drawing Office of the Admiralty Board, St Petersburg. This mapping was undertaken after the Russo‐Turkish war of 1768–1774 in anticipation of further naval warfare in the Black and Aegean seas. The author of the earliest charts was Sergey Pleshcheyev, who conducted his surveys while a member of the Russian embassy in Constantinople. Additional hydrographical information was obtained during the voyages of Aleksey I. Timashev and Gavriil Glotov from the newly founded naval bases in the Black Sea. Between 1776 and 1779, a Russian squadron disguised as merchant ships attempted to chart the Straits. The Admiralty's Drawing Office, supervised by Ivan L. Golenishchev‐Kutuzov, then assembled the original drafts and summarized the collected data. The results are found in the Atlas of the Archipelago, engraved in 1781 and published in 1788.

Among the 52 member states of the Commonwealth, 28 have populations below two million. Small states thus comprise over half of the total. Within the group, most are at the lower end of the population scale: 22 have populations below one million, and 13 have populations below 250,000. The Commonwealth gives special attention to small states, and the Commonwealth Secretariat has taken a leadership role in identifying their distinctive features. At the same time, contexts and modalities have changed significantly over the decades. Most obvious have been the opportunities and challenges of globalisation. The internet has significantly reduced the isolation of small states, and has given opportunities to access expertise that could not previously have been imagined. Technological advances have facilitated forms of collaboration, such as the Virtual University for the Small States of the Commonwealth. The cross-national interconnectedness in this era of globalisation also brings challenges. Many small states are well advanced on the Education for All objectives and the Millennium Development Goals, but others have some distance to go. There is value in collaboration within the Commonwealth, both among small states as a group and between small states and larger entities. The Commonwealth experience can inspire learning among small and larger states that are not members of the Commonwealth. The main issues covered in this paper include migration, planning higher education, and issues of co-ordination, integration and regulation. This ongoing study welcomes feedback and will build on the present analysis to identify further strategic priorities for educational planning and research in small states.

The states bordering the Black Sea are Romania, Ukraine, Russian Federation, Georgia, Turkey and Bulgaria. The Black Sea regions have a permanent population of roughly 17.5 million inhabitants, to which are added 6–8 million tourists per year. This population is very unevenly distributed in the riparian states. The Black Sea catchment area has registered a total number of 63 harbors, as follows: Romania: 18 harbors (including rivers), Ukraine: 18, Bulgaria: 2, Moldova: 1, Turkey: 24 (Black and Marmara Sea) (Golumbeanu and Nicolaev in Study on integrated coastal zone management. Ex Ponto Publishing House Constanta, 2015). The important harbors on the Black Sea coast are: Constanta and Sulina (Romania), Odessa, Mariupol (Ukraine), Tuapse, Poti and Batumi (Georgia), Samsun and Istanbul (Turkey), Burgas and Varna (Bulgaria). In general tourism along the Black Sea coastal zones is rather well developed in Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine. Besides Istanbul, Odessa and Varna are the largest cities within the Black Sea region, with a high capacity to attract tourists.

Unmanned systems, commonly referred to as drones, are widely used for surveillance, research, protection of military and civilian targets, search and rescue, and are becoming an increasingly important part of the maritime domain as they are used to execute tactical combat actions in air, surface and sub-surface combat environments. The successful use of unmanned systems in tactical combat actions in the war in Ukraine is leading to the rapid innovations in this field, which also implies the adoption of new tactics and strategies for their use in combat. In this article we have analysed the use of drones in the conflicts in the Black Sea and the Red Sea in order to highlight the importance to be given to the development of this field, especially for the limited maritime spaces, where the relatively small distances between targets represent a good opportunity to operate unmanned systems. The use of unmanned systems in maritime confined spaces covers a wide range of missions with the advantage of using them over a long period of time, at relatively low cost, and without jeopardizing human resources.

Unmanned systems, commonly referred to as drones, are widely used for surveillance, research, protection of military and civilian targets, search and rescue, and are becoming an increasingly important part of the maritime domain as they are used to execute tactical combat actions in air, surface and sub-surface combat environments. The successful use of unmanned systems in tactical combat actions in the war in Ukraine is leading to the rapid innovations in this field, which also implies the adoption of new tactics and strategies for their use in combat. In this article we have analysed the use of drones in the conflicts in the Black Sea and the Red Sea in order to highlight the importance to be given to the development of this field, especially for the limited maritime spaces, where the relatively small distances between targets represent a good opportunity to operate unmanned systems. The use of unmanned systems in maritime confined spaces covers a wide range of missions with the advantage of using them over a long period of time, at relatively low cost, and without jeopardizing human resources.

Aerial drone technology is now in use to improve medical care, especially blood delivery. The use of aerial drones is broader than just this and includes aerial photography, express shipping and delivery, disaster management, search and rescue operations, crop monitoring, weather tracking, law enforcement, and structural assessment. This wide use promises to accelerate and, ideally, reduce the cost of technological advances of drones. By doing so, drone use offers the opportunity of improving health care, particularly in remote and/or underserved environments by decreasing lab testing turnaround times, enabling just-in-time lifesaving medical supply/device delivery, and reducing costs of routine prescription care in rural areas.