Enemy Combatants Research Articles

Fire at Sea: A 70-year Review of Fire-Related Mass Casualty Events on U.S. Aircraft Carriers.

A major fire at sea is among the most devastating events that can occur while a U.S. Navy combatant vessel is underway. Since World War II, no attack on a large U.S. Navy capital ship has occurred during combat operations. However, increasing global tensions raise the threat of future peer adversary naval combat, and shipboard medical caregivers must be prepared for mass casualty events in the deployed maritime environment. To better prepare modern naval caregivers for this possibility, we reviewed mass casualty events from major fires aboard large U.S. Navy aircraft carriers from 1950 through 2020 to summarize available objective data and identify lessons learned. Underway fires from any cause aboard U.S. Navy aircraft carriers and large amphibious assault ships causing more than 10 casualties (injuries + deaths) were reviewed from 1950 through 2020 using available open access sources including literature review, the Naval Safety Command mishap database, and U.S. Navy Judge Advocate Manual reports. Of 246 fires identified, 27 met inclusion criteria resulting in 1,634 casualties with a combined crew mortality of 23% of those injured. In the 16 events with at least 1 death, 2.0% of the total crew was injured with a combined mortality of 28%. All mishaps occurred while underway during routine training or combat operations; none were caused by an enemy combatant attack. Those events affecting more than 5% of the crew were particularly devastating resulting in a mortality rate of 29% of 1,056 total casualties. Given that main medical spaces may be damaged or destroyed during major fires from any cause, identified lessons learned included the need for (1) distributed medical supplies, (2) flexible medical treatment locations throughout the ship, (3) specific training to prepare non-physician caregivers and non-medical first responders to provide burn and hemorrhagic shock resuscitation, airway management, and prolonged care at or near the point of injury, and (4) the prolonged holding capability of critically ill burned and injured patients if evacuation off the ships is unavailable. Shipboard fires underway pose a significant threat to crew safety with a mortality of nearly a quarter of those injured. These fire mass casualty events immediately overwhelm shipboard medical capabilities requiring a complex response from all hands beginning with non-medical first responders. Notably, all events occurred outside of direct enemy combat, potentially underestimating the impact and number of casualties of a shipboard fire during naval combat. Advances in peer weaponry and the threat of future conflict emphasize the need for pre-deployment burn care training for all shipboard medical caregivers as well as advanced airway and resuscitation training for non-physician caregivers. This review underscores the profound impact of shipboard fires on crew safety, highlighting the critical need for enhanced preparedness and response strategies to prepare for fire-related mishaps during routine operations and naval combat.

The human cost of war: An experimental study of Taiwanese attitudes towards war casualties

This paper investigates public attitudes toward types of war casualties. Through a survey experiment, we examine Taiwanese responses to hypothetical scenarios involving casualties among Taiwan's own military, the US military as allies, the Chinese military as enemy combatants, and mainland Chinese civilians. Our paper reveals three findings: first, there is a stronger aversion among Taiwanese citizens to their own military casualties compared with those of their allies. Second, Taiwanese attitudes toward their own military casualties are more adverse than those incurred by enemy military. Lastly, Taiwanese support for military action diminishes more significantly with Chinese civilian casualties than with Taiwanese military losses.

The Impact of Adversity on Body Mass Index as Veterans Transition to Civilian Life

ABSTRACT Introduction The impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), warfare exposure, and mental health symptoms upon changes in body mass index (BMI) were examined in a large U.S. post-9/11 veteran sample to assess gender-specific changes in BMI within the first 2½ years after military service. Materials and Methods Data were collected with institutional approval in 6 waves between 2016 and 2019 from veterans who (1) separated from active duty component service branches (i.e., Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps) or National Guard or Reserve or (2) deactivated from active duty status after serving in a National Guard or Reserve component. Veterans self-reported height and weight at separation/deactivation at wave 2, and weight was asked at each subsequent wave. Multilevel growth model analyses estimated the relationship between ACEs, warfare exposure, and mental health symptoms and BMI for males and females. Weighted wave 5 analyses were conducted to ensure the sample was calibrated for nonresponse based on wave 1 and the full sample (n = 48,965) for each cross-classification of the weighting variables of gender, rank, and branch. Results Approximately one-third of the veterans reported a normal BMI at separation/deactivation in comparison to being overweight (51%) or obese (20%). Twenty-six percent of male veterans had a normal BMI in contrast to almost half of the female veterans. Male veterans who experienced 3-7 ACEs had a higher BMI (0.74) compared to male veterans without any ACEs, where a BMI increase of 0.08 per year was reported. Female veterans who experienced 1-2 ACEs had a higher BMI (0.89) compared to female veterans without ACEs. Male veterans who engaged in warfare (e.g., combat patrols and firing a weapon at enemy combatants) and experienced corollaries (i.e., consequences of combat) or who experienced corollaries alone (e.g., saw refugees who lost their homes/belongings) had higher BMIs (1.14 and 0.82, respectively) compared to male veterans without warfare exposure. Female veterans who experienced corollaries had a higher BMI (0.94) compared to female veterans with no warfare exposure. Female veterans who experienced warfare (i.e., corollaries and combat) had a higher BMI (0.71) compared to female veterans with no warfare exposure. Male veterans who screened positive for likely post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or depressive symptoms had a higher BMI (1.01 and 0.52, respectively) compared to male veterans who did not screen positive. Male veterans who screened positive for likely PTSD increased their BMI by 0.10 per year. Male veterans who screened positive for both likely PTSD and depressive symptoms had a higher BMI (1.32) compared to male veterans who did not screen positive, and they increased their BMI by 0.21 per year. Female veterans who screened positive for likely PTSD and depressive symptoms had a higher BMI (0.78) and increased their BMI by 0.25 per year compared to female veterans who did not screen positive. Conclusions Boosting veterans’ and service members’ mental and emotional healing from childhood and warfare adversities through sound health promotion policies and increased access to evidence-informed interventions is imperative for optimal body weight and physical health.

Intelligent Trajectory Prediction Algorithm for Hypersonic Vehicle Based on Sparse Associative Structure Model

The Hypersonic Glide Vehicle (HGV) has become a focal point in military competitions among nations. Predicting the real-time trajectory of an HGV is of significant importance for aerospace defense interception and assessing enemy combat intentions. Existing prediction methods are limited by the need for large data samples and poor general applicability. To address these challenges, this paper presents a novel trajectory forecasting approach based on the Sparse Association Structure Model (SASM). The SASM can uncover the relationship among known data, transfer associative relationships to unknown data, and improve the generalization of the model. Firstly, a trajectory database is established for different maneuvering modes based on the six-degree-of-freedom motion equations and models of attack and bank angles of the HGV. Subsequently, three trajectory parameters are selected as prediction variables according to the maneuvering characteristics of the HGV. A parameters prediction model based on the SASM is then constructed to predict trajectory parameters. The SASM model demonstrates high accuracy and generalization in forecasting the trajectories of three different HGV types. Experimental results show a 50.35% reduction in prediction error and a 48.7% decrease in average processing time compared to the LSTM model, highlighting the effectiveness of the proposed method for real-time trajectory forecasting.

Overtrust in AI Recommendations About Whether or Not to Kill: Evidence from Two Human-Robot Interaction Studies

This research explores prospective determinants of trust in the recommendations of artificial agents regarding decisions to kill, using a novel visual challenge paradigm simulating threat-identification (enemy combatants vs. civilians) under uncertainty. In Experiment 1, we compared trust in the advice of a physically embodied versus screen-mediated anthropomorphic robot, observing no effects of embodiment; in Experiment 2, we manipulated the relative anthropomorphism of virtual robots, observing modestly greater trust in the most anthropomorphic agent relative to the least. Across studies, when any version of the agent randomly disagreed, participants reversed their threat-identifications and decisions to kill in the majority of cases, substantially degrading their initial performance. Participants’ subjective confidence in their decisions tracked whether the agent (dis)agreed, while both decision-reversals and confidence were moderated by appraisals of the agent’s intelligence. The overall findings indicate a strong propensity to overtrust unreliable AI in life-or-death decisions made under uncertainty.

Understanding the military model of disability through the rulings of Colombia’s Constitutional Court

ABSTRACT This article analyses rulings issued by the Colombian Constitutional Court between 1995 and 2022 regarding compensation for military veterans with acquired disabilities. Arguably, the Court actively participates in normalizing and valorizing the occurrence of disability among soldiers fighting in Colombia’s internal armed conflict. We find that the Court consistently supports cause-oriented discourses around disability that provide different benefits to disabled veterans depending on whether they become disabled during enemy combat or merely in the course of active duty. This discrepancy is justified using frameworks of risk, nationalism, heroism, and respect for the military – frameworks that encourage military careers and avert criticism of the human costs of combat operations. Understanding how the Court approaches disability sheds light on a possible ‘military model’ of disability, distinct from other common models of disability used in policymaking. In the civilian sphere, contemporary governments often base policies on the ‘social model’ of disability, which de-emphasizes the causes of disabilities as a valid basis for determining levels of state support. Recognizing a separate military model allows us to identify tensions and challenges that may arise for governments that deploy both models in designing policy.

IMPROVE THE SAFETY OF AIR TRANSPORT, ESPECIALLY IN MILITARIZED TERRAIN, BY USE OF SIDE LOOKING AIRBORNE RADAR AND SPACE TIME ADAPTIVE PROCESSING

The paper explores the potential to enhance aviation safety, particularly in militarized regions, by outfitting aircraft with Side Looking Airborne Radar (SLAR) and employing space-time adaptive processing (STAP) algorithms. The research objective revolves around implementing a model of side-looking airborne radar and the corresponding STAP algorithms. This technology enables the detection of slow-moving targets amidst strong interference, encompassing both passive (clutter) and active (jammer) elements. Slow-moving targets relative to the aircraft's speed include tanks, combat vehicles, command vehicles, artillery, and logistical assets of enemy forces. The theoretical framework of space-time adaptive processing is presented, elucidating the sequential steps of the classical Sample Matrix Inversion Space-Time Adaptive Processing (SMI STAP) algorithm. The paper underscores the significance of characteristic parameters delineating a linear STAP processor. The proposed solution facilitates the detection of enemy combat measures and enhances aviation safety. It outlines a radar model installed beneath the aircraft's fuselage and elucidates algorithms for space-time adaptive processing of radar signals. The simulations conducted within the article were executed using the MATLAB environment. The simulation results indeed suggest that the proposed solution holds promise for deployment in equipping aircraft of one's own military and those engaged in operations within conflict zones. This paper stands as one of the few contributions in the literature addressing the augmentation of aircraft safety through radar and space-time adaptive processing.

From active duty to activism: how moral injury and combat trauma drive political activism and societal reintegration among Israeli veterans.

This article deals with combat experiences and their consequences and could be potentially disturbing. Moral injury (MI) is a severe form of combat trauma that shatters soldiers' moral bearings as the result of killing in war. Among the myriad ways that moral injury affects veterans' reintegration into civilian life, its impact on political and societal reintegration remains largely unstudied but crucial for personal, community, and national health. 13 in-depth interviews examine combat soldiers' exposure to potentially morally injurious events (PMIEs) that include killing enemy combatants, harming civilians, and betrayal by commanders, the military system, and society. Interviewees also described their political activities (e.g., voting, fundraising, advocacy, protest) and social activism (e.g., volunteering, teaching, charitable work). Interviewees also completed the Moral Injury Symptom Scale. Two distinct narratives process PMIEs. In a humanitarian narrative, soldiers hold themselves or their in-group morally responsible for perpetrating, witnessing, or failing to prevent a morally transgressive act such as killing or injuring civilians or placing others at unnecessary risk. In contrast, a national security perspective blames an out-group for leaving soldiers with no choice but to act in ways that trigger moral distress. Associated with shame and guilt, the humanitarian perspective triggered amends-making and social activism after discharge. In contrast, a national security perspective associated with anger and frustration fostered protest and intense political activism. Despite its harmful health effects, moral trauma and injury can drive intense political and social activism, depending upon the narrative veterans adopt to interpret PMIEs. Aside from moral injury's personal, familial, and social effects, moral injury drives veterans' return to the political arena of civil society. As such, veterans play a central role in politics and dramatically affect post-war policy in democratic nations following conflict.

“Brutal by Temperament and Taste”

Abstract Central to the historiography of the First World War, scholarship on violence has focused on abstract and impersonal forms of violence between opposing forces or on more personal forms of violence between civilians and enemy combatants. In contrast, this article uses military justice archives to explore instances of serious interpersonal violence and sustained brutality between soldiers in the same combat unit. It provides a new vantage point to explore the complex entanglement of violence and camaraderie and how that played out in the specific context of France's multiethnic Armée d'Afrique. Unpacking the accusations, explanations, and justifications that emerge from multivocal military justice sources illustrates what it meant to commit and be criminalized for certain acts of violence in a context saturated with violence; how and where the line was drawn between acceptable and unacceptable conduct; and, most important, what violence reveals about individual combat experiences and relationships between comrades. Granting access to the perspectives and internal worlds of this diverse group of soldiers, many from racially and otherwise marginalized communities, military justice evidences a complicated and rich set of situational responses and social relationships that enhances our ability to reflect on the conflict's impact on the men caught up in it.

A theory of jihadist beheadings

Why do some jihadist organizations engage in beheadings while others do not? Although beheadings have become a signature tactic of the contemporary global jihadist movement, I show that most jihadist groups perpetrate few or no beheadings and only a minority have adopted beheading as a consistent part of their repertoire of violence. Such variation exists even among ideologically similar ‘Salafi-jihadist’ groups, suggesting that ideology alone cannot explain why such violence occurs. Instead, I argue that the use of beheadings is shaped by a combination of local strategic context and transnational ties. Beheadings are strategically useful to jihadist groups engaged in insurgency as a means of deterring civilian collaboration with the enemy, demoralizing enemy combatants and attracting foreign recruits. But the use of beheading is also costly for such groups, notably because of its tendency to alienate potential civilian supporters. Whether or not particular jihadist groups use beheadings depends largely on whether they can afford to ignore these costs. Jihadist insurgents who control significant territory are less sensitive to civilian attitudes because of their ability to obtain support through coercion and are therefore more likely to perpetrate beheadings. The use of beheadings is also shaped by transnational ties: organizations that seek formal affiliation with transnational jihadist networks are more likely to calculate that the benefits of using extreme violence to attract transnational support outweigh its costs. I test this theory using an original dataset of over 1,500 beheading events perpetrated by jihadist organizations between 1998 and 2019.

Assessing the Contribution of an Electronic Warfare Grouping to the Reduction of Enemy Combat Capabilities

Assessing the Contribution of an Electronic Warfare Grouping to the Reduction of Enemy Combat Capabilities

Assessing the Contribution of an Electronic Warfare Grouping to the Reduction of Enemy Combat Capabilities

Assessing the Contribution of an Electronic Warfare Grouping to the Reduction of Enemy Combat Capabilities

Should Weaponised Moral Enhancement Replace Lethal Aggression in War?

AbstractSome have proposed the development of technologies that improve our moral behaviour – moral enhancement – in order to address global risks such as pandemics, global warming and nuclear war. I will argue that this technology could be weaponised to manipulate the moral dispositions of enemy combatants. Despite being morally controversial, weaponised moral enhancement would be neither clearly prohibited nor easily prohibitable by international war law. Unlike previous psychochemical weapons, it would be relatively physically harmless. I argue that when combatants are liable to lethal aggression to achieve an aim of war, they are also liable to weaponised moral enhancement to achieve that same aim. Weaponised moral enhancement will loosen just war requirements in both traditional and revisionist normative just war theories. It will particularly affect revisionist theories’ jus ad bellum requirements for humanitarian and preventive wars. For instance, weaponised moral enhancement could be more proportional and efficacious than lethal aggression to effect institutional changes in preventive and humanitarian wars. I will conclude that, despite evading international war laws and loosening normative just war requirements, the intuition that weaponised moral enhancement would gravely harm combatants can be defended by arguing that it would severely disturb personal identity, which could potentially ground future prohibitions.

Should unlawful combatants be considered as prisoners of war when captured?

Upon being captured or held captive, an enemy combatant is subjected to ‘POW’ status and hence enjoys certain rights and protections based on the Geneva Conventions. Even throughout the period the combatant is in prison awaiting trial, he/she is to receive humane treatment from the State or belligerent party which has captured him/her as a suspect during the war. However, a complication arises with the differentiation of the term ‘enemy combatant’, which applies to both ‘lawful’ and ‘unlawful combatants’. While lawful combatants are automatically considered to receive ‘prisoners of war’ status regarding unlawful combatants, giving them a similar classification is frowned upon. As a result, the captured combatants are exposed to not receiving any rights that a POW may receive. The term itself has no official existence in the Geneva Conventions documents but is often used in other writings and has become a matter of debate. Unfortunately, the expression to address the ones who have taken part in an armed conflict illegally has made them vulnerable to cruel punishments and inhuman treatment while in the custody of the enemy. The question is, should that be the case that a person who has been captured during wartime and is suspected or proven to be taking part in hostile activity not be considered a POW or at least receive proper protection just because the Geneva Conventions do not mention the term in particular? This research paper discusses the discrimination made between lawful and unlawful combatants.

The Impact of Just and Unjust War Events on Mental Health Need and Utilization within U.S. Service Members

Background: Soldiers are resilient to just war events, such as killing enemy combatants and life-threatening experiences, but these same soldiers appear to struggle with unjust war events, such as killing a noncombatant or being unable to help civilian women and children in need. This study is the first to examine how just and unjust war experiences are associated with clinical health service outcomes. Methods: Two samples of soldiers in different stages of readjustment from deployment were drawn from a longitudinal, survey-based study of a US Army brigade. Measures included items related to combat events, mental health utilization, perceived mental health need, PTSD, depression, and functional impairment. Results: After controlling for other kinds of combat events, just war events (i.e., life-threatening events and killing enemy combatants) predicted outcomes in soldiers who are less than three months post-deployment, but only predicted 2 of 26 outcomes in soldiers one year post deployment. In contrast, unjust war events were found to be robust predictors of short-term and long-term outcomes related to mental health need and utilization, even after controlling for exposure to other combat events. Conclusions: The results extend previous longitudinal research that suggests that exposure to unjust war events carry a heavier long-term mental health burden than other types of events. Additionally, Soldiers exposed to unjust war events had an unmet need for care one year post deployment that was not directly tied to PTSD or depression. The results question the emphasis on life-threat within mental health pathogenesis models.

A New Approach for Target Capability Assessment and Selection in Complex Situations

In modern information warfare, medium and long-range weapons with high strike precision are often used to ensure stable, accurate, and ruthless conditions. However, the target system often has multiple target units and which target units to specifically attack becomes the primary issue. This study constructs a target combat system network based on the complex network theory and maximum entropy principle, establishes a key target selection model based on this network, and then determines the use of medium and long-range weapons to strike the key target unit in the enemy combat system network. The key target selection model consists of four parts. The first is a value model of the node itself constructed by comprehensively considering the relationship between the target and the war, the importance of the target in the system, and the threat of the target. The second is a node network value model based on the potential field theory. The third is to construct a cascading failure model of the target system through the definition of triples (results of strike action, target unit status, and failure influence relationship between target units). Fourth, with the optimal cost-effectiveness ratio as the objective function, the evaluation criterion function model is established. Case scenarios and simulation experiments illustrate the rationality and effectiveness of the method which can provide effective solutions for commanders to select key targets.

Courts at War: Executive Power, Judicial Intervention, and Enemy Combatant Policies since 9/11

Courts at War: Executive Power, Judicial Intervention, and Enemy Combatant Policies since 9/11

The Moral Case for the Development and Use of Autonomous Weapon Systems

ABSTRACT Autonomous Weapon Systems (AWS) are artificial intelligence systems that can make and act on decisions concerning the termination of enemy soldiers and installations without direct intervention from a human being. In this article, I provide the positive moral case for the development and use of supervised and fully autonomous weapons that can reliably adhere to the laws of war. Two strong, prima facie obligations make up the positive case. First, we have a strong moral reason to deploy AWS (in an otherwise just war) because such systems decrease the psychological and moral risk of soldiers and would-be soldiers. Drones protect against lethal risk, AWS protect against psychological and moral risk in addition to lethal risk. Second, we have a prima facie obligation to develop such technologies because, once developed, we could employ forms of non-lethal warfare that would substantially reduce the risk of suffering and death for enemy combatants and civilians alike. These two arguments, covering both sides of a conflict, represent the normative hill that those in favor of a ban on autonomous weapons must overcome. Finally, I demonstrate that two recent objections to AWS fail because they misconstrue the way in which technology is used and conceptualized in modern warfare.

Les femmes de l’ennemi en Gironde pendant la Première Guerre mondiale: des femmes si ordinaires?

The history of «foreign» women in France during the Great War is not yet been written. Long forgotten by historians, they are presented by the military and police authorities as dangerous and suspicious from the beginning of the conflict. As moral and family support for enemy combatants, they are monitored in camps or at home, and their daily lives are followed in order to detect a possible new Mata-Hari. Whether they are single or married to a German, young or old, these women are asked to leave the country at the beginning of the conflict, but those who remained by choice are subjected to police constraints, interrogations and the suspicious looks of the population. Considered as «internal enemies», they experience difficult and even precarious living conditions. The case of Marthe Gusdorf, living with her children in Bordeaux-Caudéran for the duration of the war, is one example among hundreds of these women who made history in spite of themselves.

Devising a procedure for justifying the need for samples of weapons and weapon target assignment when using a reconnaissance firing system

This paper proposes an algorithm to substantiate the need for weapons samples, as well as targeting when using a reconnaissance firing system taking into consideration the peculiarities of functioning of such systems. The algorithm essentially implies streamlining the stages in determining the magnitude of the reduction of the enemy's combat potential and, on its basis, the formation of the need for the number of weapons by type. The algorithm makes it possible to take into consideration the nonlinearity of functions that describe both different types of weapons and targets. In addition, this algorithm is based on a modified method of nonlinear programming (two functions). The modification involves the use of a normalized share of the weight of each target as weight coefficients. This allows for targeting while taking into consideration the established level of the combat potential of an enemy. A procedure for determining the need for samples of weapons and targeting in the use of reconnaissance firing systems has been devised. It was determined that in order to achieve the goal of enemy fire damage, it is not typically necessary to use all weapons samples. In general, the procedure makes it possible to take into consideration the peculiarities of the samples of weapons and their suitability to hit a certain target. That could prevent problems with overspending of resources, failures in the detection-defeat cycle, non-fulfillment (not fully performing) tasks during enemy fire damage. In general, the algorithm and procedure for determining the need for the samples of weapons and targeting when using a reconnaissance firing system testify to devising a methodology for justifying the need for weapons samples and targeting. The performance and adequacy of this procedure have been tested by considering an example of determining the need for weapons samples and targeting and obtaining the result confirmed by the experience in the use of reconnaissance firing systems