Low-intensity Conflict Research Articles

On the possibility of using Ramie – A natural material in cost-effective low threat body armours

Low intensity clashes have become the emerging crisis in society. In such situations, the protective vests worn by the law enforcing personnel are generally exposed to stabbing and low velocity impact from splinters. The present study is an attempt to explore the potential of Ramie, a natural fibre, to be used in body armours designed for relatively lesser threat (compared to military operations) encountered in low intensity conflict areas. Cultivation of Ramie plant to the preparation of Ramie fabric – the entire process is performed in a laboratory setup. Experiments (uniaxial tension test, direct shear test, yarn pull-out test, etc.) are conducted to characterize the stress–strain behaviour and inter-yarn friction of Ramie. The ballistic responses of single and multi-layered Ramie fabric targets are numerically investigated via FEM. In order to understand where Ramie stands with respect to Kevlar (a commonly used para-aramid synthetic fabric), the response of a single layer Kevlar target under similar circumstances (i.e. target size, boundary conditions, projectile types and impact velocities) is taken as the benchmark. Through the series of numerical simulations, the advantage and limitations of Ramie vis- a´- vis Kevlar are brought to an extent.

Characteristics and emerging patterns of forest conflicts in Europe - What can they tell us?

As a result of increasing demand for forest products and expanding bioeconomy uses, the relevance of forest conflicts is increasing in Europe. This study explores the distribution and occurrence of forest conflicts and their main characteristics across European countries. Conflicts usually arise when some party's interests are not considered or are not aware of the other party's measures affecting their use of the forest. A total of 84 conflicts are identified and analysed based on academic literature from the period 1999–2020, and each case is further characterised by its location, type of conflict, intensity and involved stakeholders. The location patterns show that forest conflicts mainly occur in and around urban areas, and often include urban forestry and forest conservation. Forest conflicts are mainly restrained (i.e., low-intensity) characterised by disagreements or disputes. However, several low-intensity conflicts escalate into open conflicts, of which typical actions are protests, blockades, and court actions. A minority of conflicts (N = 6) involve violent attacks, which in some cases resulted in physical exchange and death. The analysis of the conflicts' most common features results in three emerging patterns: conflict over forest protection, over development in forest areas and over recreation. Information about parties involved, forest conflict profiles, and concerns about stakeholders' involvement in planning and decision-making is often present. Effective communication, transparency of the planning process and involvement of all stakeholders are essential actions to prevent harmful high-intensity forest conflicts.

Recasting Low Intensity Conflicts in Laikipia County, Kenya, through Protracted Social Conflicts Paradigm: Causes, Socioeconomic, Political and Security Implications

Recasting Low Intensity Conflicts in Laikipia County, Kenya, through Protracted Social Conflicts Paradigm: Causes, Socioeconomic, Political and Security Implications

МОЖЛИВОСТІ ТА ПРОБЛЕМНІ ПИТАННЯ УДОСКОНАЛЕННЯ ЗАХИСТУ ОБʼЄКТІВ КРИТИЧНОЇ ІНФРАСТРУКТУРИ У СУЧАСНИХ УМОВАХ

The aggressive war against Ukraine makes it clear that the hopes of mankind that future wars will take place in the form of low-intensity conflicts, but rather in the economic, informational spheres without the use of military force, turned out to be in vain. Russia has demonstrated that such seemingly wild actions for the modern civilized world as the seizure of territories, the destruction of cities, attempts to destroy the statehood and self-consciousness of nations will remain relevant as long as autocratic regimes exist and there are no effective international mechanisms that would make any armed aggression impossible. Consequently, the issue of protecting territories and infrastructure in the face of large-scale aggression using the entire list of available types of means of armed struggle will, unfortunately, be relevant in the near future. The article analyzes the recent massive attacks on infrastructure facilities and modern technologies of air defense weapons. As a result of the analysis, possible directions for improving the protection of critical infrastructure facilities were proposed, the main of which is the use of a wide range of systems and complexes of very short-range weapons. In addition, a number of problematic issues and tasks were identified that need to be considered in order to improve the protection of critical infrastructure facilities, the main of which are: safety providing of using the proposed systems directly in populated areas or near them; ensuring the rational use of the resource of weapons, ammunition and other equipment and materiel associated with the functioning of the protection systems of objects; determination of the military formation which will be responsible for infrastructure facilities protecting.

The Future of the U.S.-Philippines Alliance: Declining Democracy and Prospects for U.S.-Philippines Relations after Duterte

executive summary: This article examines the Philippines' democracy under the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte and assesses the ramifications of democratic decline for the future of the U.S.-Philippines alliance under the next administration. main argument The anti-democratic policies of the Duterte administration have subverted institutional and societal checks on executive power, threatening the U.S.-Philippines alliance as an instrument of U.S. strategy in the Indo-Pacific. Duterte successfully reshaped domestic politics to augment his regime's influence over the legislature, judiciary, local governments, military, and economy, and openly sought to jettison the alliance for closer diplomatic and economic ties with China that would help him subvert domestic checks and balances on his administration. To repair and augment its alliance with the Philippines, the U.S. must recognize that the country's democratic decline is highly unlikely to reverse once Duterte leaves office and should transparently develop policies to incentivize the next administration and policymakers in the Philippines to roll back Duterte's anti-democratic policies. policy implications • If Duterte's successor continues to consolidate power domestically by weakening institutional checks on the administration's authority and coercing political opposition into silence or compliance, military cooperation between the U.S. and the Philippines will falter and create new vulnerabilities threatening U.S. interests in the Pacific region. • The Biden administration should reconfigure U.S. security assistance under the schema of positive conditionality to discourage further efforts to undermine democratic governance and degrade human rights conditions from the next presidential administration in the Philippines. U.S. assistance should also be optimized to support the Philippines' military modernization while prioritizing economic and technical cooperation to mitigate the challenges imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, economic recession, and pervasive low-intensity conflict. • Whereas the application of sanctions on individuals responsible for supporting human rights violations can be a coercive tool of diplomacy in extremis, it is more important that the U.S. offer inducements for curtailing these violations through bilateral efforts to expand investments from U.S. companies to Philippine business, particularly through the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation and the Millennium Challenge Corporation.

Techniques of Linguistic Cognitive Manipulation in the Information and Psychological Confrontation Environment

The article is devoted to the scientific understanding of the linguistic and cultural factors of shaping external ideology of governance in Ukraine during the preparation and conduct of a series of low-intensity conflicts (“color revolutions”) in 2004-2014. Using linguistic methods of semantic, structural, contextual, discourse and communicative analysis, the author studies verbal forms of linguistic cognitive manipulation with the public opinion of the Ukrainian society focusing on the techniques of polyphonic attack, conceptual modeling and reframing. Communicative strategies and methods of indoctrination of the population are viewed in the environment of the information and psychological war launched by the US-led collective West in the digital space of mass media and the worldwide web with the aim of alienating Ukraine from the geopolitical space of Russia and turning it into an antipode state of the Russian Federation. The author focuses on verbal forms and means of indoctrination identified in communicative strategies of disinformation, data blocking, falsifying truth, fake messages, tabooing of signs, distortion of the true semantic meaning and substitution of concepts that are used by subjects of information and psychological influence in the synergetic coupling of media resources of the media of Ukraine and the collective West. The author concludes that some processes are underway in the interdiscursive environment of the “post-Maidan” Ukraine that structure a new dominant information need of the society around the image of Russia as an enemy and aggressor. Russian linguistic and cultural pattern holders demonstrate speech behavior in Ukraine that has been formed under the external ideology of governance and illustrates the destructive changes in the values of Russian self-identity, which is a consequence of linguistic cognitive manipulation of the public opinion under the imposed information model of total Russophobia.

Access to primary healthcare Services in Conflict-Affected Fragile States: a subnational descriptive analysis of educational and wealth disparities in Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, and Nigeria

BackgroundMeasuring and improving equitable access to care is a necessity to achieve universal health coverage. Pre-pandemic estimates showed that most conflict-affected and fragile situations were off-track to meet the Sustainable Development Goals on health and equity by 2030. Yet, there is a paucity of studies examining health inequalities in these settings. This study addresses the literature gap by applying a conflict intensity lens to the analysis of disparities in access to essential Primary Health Care (PHC) services in four conflict-affected fragile states: Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali and Nigeria.MethodsFor each studied country, disparities in geographic and financial access to care were compared across education and wealth strata in areas with differing levels of conflict intensity. The Demographic Health Survey (DHS) and the Uppsala Conflict Data Program were the main sources of information on access to PHC and conflict events, respectively. To define conflict intensity, household clusters were linked to conflict events within a 50-km distance. A cut-off of more than two conflict-related deaths per 100,000 population was used to differentiate medium or high intensity conflict from no or low intensity conflict. We utilized three measures to assess inequalities: an absolute difference, a concentration index, and a multivariate logistic regression coefficient. Each disparity measure was compared based on the intensity of conflict the year the DHS data was collected.ResultsWe found that PHC access varied across subnational regions in the four countries studied; with more prevalent financial than geographic barriers to care. The magnitude of both educational and wealth disparities in access to care was higher with geographic proximity to medium or high intensity conflict. A higher magnitude of wealth rather than educational disparities was also likely to be observed in the four studied contexts. Meanwhile, only Nigeria showed statistically significant interaction between conflict intensity and educational disparities in access to care.ConclusionBoth educational and wealth disparities in access to PHC services can be exacerbated by geographic proximity to organized violence. This paper provides additional evidence that, despite limitations, household surveys can contribute to healthcare assessment in conflict-affected and fragile settings.

The effects of conflict type and conflict expression intensity on conflict management

PurposeThis paper aims to add to the current knowledge about conflict management by examining the relationships between conflict type, conflict expression intensity and the use of the conflict management approach.Design/methodology/approachThe authors test theory-based hypotheses using a field study of new product development teams in an interdisciplinary Masters program (Study 1) and an experimental vignette study (Study 2).FindingsResults show that people are more likely to respond to task conflict and conflicts expressed with less intensity using collectivistic conflict management approaches (i.e. problem-solving, compromising and yielding), and to relationship conflicts and conflicts expressed with higher intensity through forcing, an individualistic conflict management approach. Information acquisition and negative emotions experienced by team members mediate these relationships.Practical implicationsKnowing how the characteristics of the conflict (type and expression intensity) affect conflict management, managers can counteract the tendency to use dysfunctional, forcing conflict management approaches in response to high intensity conflicts, as well as to relationship conflicts and support the tendency to use collectivistic conflict management approaches in response to low intensity conflict, as well as task conflicts.Originality/valueThe authors examine an alternative to the prevailing view that conflict management serves as a moderator of the relationship between conflict and team outcomes. The research shows that conflict type and intensity of conflict expression influence the conflict management approach as a result of the information and emotion they evoke. The authors open avenues for future research on the complex and intriguing relationships between conflict characteristics and the conflict management approach.

Effects of Low-Intensity Conflicts on Farming Communities in Mindanao, Philippines

Low-intensity conflicts have often been afforded lesser importance than high-intensity conflicts. Yet, low-intensity conflicts can have impacts on the ability to farm, productivity, and income. We studied the effects of low-intensity conflicts on the farming communities in two conflict vulnerable areas in Mindanao, Southern Philippines. Following a review of the economic effects of conflict with a focus on Mindanao, we surveyed farmers in low-conflict areas to assess its impact on livelihood. In 2018, farmers in “peaceful” situation differed in income from those who are in “low-conflict” situations. The mean total household income for the “low conflict” (PHP8,360 or $US155) group was significantly lower by PHP13,060 ($US242) from the “peaceful” group (PHP24,433 or $US453). This findings suggest the need for further research regarding how villages resolve conflicts informally as a way of improve government-sponsored conflict resolution efforts.

Dynamics of Pakistan’s Nuclear Doctrine: Implications for Strategic Stability in South Asia

This article seeks to discuss Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine and its significance for strategic stability in South Asia which is challenged by complex interactions between different players in political, military, and technological dynamics. In particular, India’s easy access to technology and the challenges for Pakistan associated with fears of low-intensity conflicts due to Indian offensive strategies have resulted in dangerous instabilities. The Indian technological advancement has inevitably brought revolutionary changes in the strategic thought process thus continuously forcing Pakistan to modify or upgrade its nuclear doctrine. We argue that Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine is ambiguous, and the changing contours of Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine are within the framework of how technological advancement navigates strategic stability in the South Asian region.

A Phenomenological Study of Individual Strategies for Rebuilding Food Production Ability in Resource-Poor Post-Conflict Farming Communities in Myanmar

The impact of armed conflict on small-holder agricultural production recently became a closely studied topic (Verwimp, 2011). In post-conflict, or perpetual low intensity conflict, situations policy makers have identified agricultural rehabilitation of small-holder food production as vital for preventing economic collapse, encouraging internally displaced persons (IDPs) to return to their rural communities, and to reintegrate former insurgents into viable rural livelihoods (Christoplos, Longley, & Slaymaker, 2004). This issue has been studied at the regional and country level, but few studies have looked at this issue from resource poor small-holder farmers’ perspective (Shinn, 2010; Verwimp, Justino, & Bruck, 2007). This qualitative study documented the experience of resource-poor farmers who experienced armed conflict in northern Shan State, Myanmar. Thirty-four resource-poor farmers and six agricultural advisors were interviewed using semi-structured interview methods. The study was conducted over a three-month period in 2013. The study revealed eight themes, which described the reality of the post-conflict environment and small-holder strategies to cope and recover food production capacity. The themes were, armed conflict is always with the farmers; loss of animals and seed stock; loss of local markets; forest as refuge; fear of government and militias was mitigated by family networks; large agribusiness control land and employment; prolonged conflict causes movement to safe areas and neighboring countries; rebuilding food production. These findings reveal the need for policy makers and agricultural advisory services to modify their assistance strategies and services to better match upland resource-poor farmers realities and adaptation strategies

Pro-state paramilitary violence in Turkey since the 1990s

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the role of pro-state paramilitary groups in Turkey’s Kurdish conflict from the 1990s to the present. The role of paramilitaries in civil wars has been heavily discussed in general but remains understudied in the context of Turkey’s war with the PKK. Turkish state authorities established a number of paramilitary groups in the initial stage of the conflict. Their impact grew during the 1990s in line with the change in the state’s war strategy to a low-intensity conflict (LIC). This article discusses the evolution of the role of pro-state paramilitary groups in Turkey’s war with the PKK, focusing on their changing relationship with government agencies. It characterizes the first half of the 1990s as the paramilitarisation of the state and demonstrates the continuing impact of this into the 2000s. The data was collected from media resources, interviews, criminal prosecutions of national and local cases, and NGO reports. Overall, this article develops a better understanding of the nexus between paramilitarism and the state through the prism of Turkey’s Kurdish conflict.

Keşmir Çatışmasının Tarihsel Kodları

İngilizlerin Hint Alt Kıtası’ndan çekilme süreciyle güç boşluğunun oluşması ve dini çatışmaların başlaması üzerine kurulan Hindistan ve Pakistan devletleri arasında Keşmir’in egemenliğine ilişkin anlaşmazlık ortaya çıkmıştır. Hindistan ve Pakistan arasında Kontrol Hattı olarak adlandırılan bir sınırla bölünmüş olan Keşmir, iki ülke arasındaki en büyük gerilim kaynağıdır; iki ülkenin üç savaşına, sayısız çatışmasına ve askeri kavgalarına ve her ikisinin de nükleer silah geliştirmesine yol açmıştır. 1947 itibarıyla doğan Keşmir çatışması Hindistan ve Pakistan tarafından düşük yoğunluklu çatışmalar, ateşkes ihlalleri, sınır ötesi terörizm ve insan hakları ihlalleriyle hala devam etmekte, dolayısıyla çözüme yakın görünmemektedir. 1947’ye kadar yaşanan süreci odak alan çalışma, Keşmir çatışmasının tarihsel kodlarını analiz etmektedir. Bununla birlikte bölgedeki iki devlet arasında öngörülebilir bir zamanda çözülemeyecek bir soruna İngilizlerin neden olduğunu ve Keşmir çatışmasının hiçbir zaman gerçek anlamda tamamlanamayan bölünme sürecinin doğrudan bir ürünü olduğunu öne sürmektedir.

DOES MONEY BUY FRIENDS? EVIDENCE FROM CHINA'S BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE

AbstractStudies of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) have focused on the strategic intentions of Beijing, with much less attention paid to its political effects. The argument that the initiative can improve political relationships with BRI countries is assumed rather than empirically grounded. This paper bridges the gap by studying countries’ cooperation and conflict with China. I find that (a) the initiative appears to marginally improve BRI countries’ cooperation and significantly reduce low-intensity conflict; (b) the cooperation-promoting effect is driven only by neighboring countries while the restraining effect for low-intensity conflict results primarily from non-neighboring countries; and (c) there is no systematic evidence so far that the initiative has any effect on high-intensity conflict. These results offer mixed evidence of commercial liberalism in the context of the BRI: money (or the potential thereof) can induce cooperation in the short run, but it may not be enough to fundamentally change interstate relations.

Counterinsurgency in Istanbul: provocative counterorganization, violent interpellation and sectarian fears

ABSTRACT Situating the Turkish counterinsurgency within the global context of Cold War counterinsurgencies this article sheds light on counterinsurgency’s provocative and affect-generating techniques and its urban dimensions. I argue that the Gazi incidents of 1995 marked the beginning of a new counterinsurgency strategy in Istanbul that combined overt repressive state violence with urban-centred and affect-generating provocative counterinsurgency techniques in an attempt to quell the growing left-wing mobilization and subvert the Turkish and Kurdish left-wing alignment, which was drawing closer at the time. That new strategy was informed by the principles of the low-intensity conflict doctrine—more specifically, by Britain’s counterinsurgency warfare in Northern Ireland —that came to prevail during the Cold War era. Utilizing a concept I call provocative counterorganization—that is, provocation of individual and communal fear, intercommunal conflict, and ethnosectarian discord by national security states in order to refashion a population’s dissent against the state—I show how provocative counterorganizational strategies work to inform and shape dissent by provoking counterviolence and ethnosectarian discord.

Tierra quemada by Óscar Collazos as an Allegory of Displacement in Colombia

Through the portrayal of never-ending march of a caravan of internally displaced persons (IDPs), the novel Tierra quemada (2013) by the Colombian author Óscar Collazos explores the interrelation between different forms of violence and their devastating impact on the peripheric outposts of Colombia. This article proposes an allegorical reading of the novel by examining how it represents the difficulty to break the cycle of violence and the impact of a low-intensity conflict on the IDPs, without presenting a voyeuristic perspective of the violence nor a Manichean vision of the armed conflict.

Psihološki rat i vojne nauke

In this paper the brief development and contemporary trends in modern military psychology, in theory and praxis, were presented. The origins and concepts of psychological warfare and its basic characteristics were discussed. Also, similar terms, modified with conceptual frameworks and contemporary development of military sciences, like special warfare, hybrid warfare, asymmetric warfare, cyber warfare, low-intensity conflict, public diplomacy, total warfare, were disucssed. The development of modern weapons and technologies brings changes in the perception of importance of psychological warfare of itself, but also different possibilities of use of modern techniques in it. The special opportunity presents social networks, characterized by hugh speed, wide spread network, different modes, adaptibility, avaliability and simplicity of use. All these changes also broght some changes in definition of psychological warfare inside military psychology of itself, but also changes the definition of perception of terms and modus of war, so as the polity of the states, geopolitical situation and gobal economy.

К ВОПРОСУ О ПОДГОТОВКЕ СТУДЕНТОВ МАГИСТРАТУРЫ ВОЕННОГО ВУЗА К РАЗВИТИЮ ПРОФЕССИОНАЛЬНОЙ КАРЬЕРЫ

A modern officer is not only the backbone of the army and navy, but also a highly qualified, purposeful military specialist with clear and precise career guidelines. The training of officers in the military magistracy contributes to the development of a professional career. It seems expedient to consider this problem in the context of global trends and changes in the field of military security on the basis of the acmeological approach. Since the onset of the era of hybrid and network-centric wars poses serious tasks for countries to transform their armed forces and create modern, mobile, professional and well-equipped troops capable of quickly and effectively solving tasks in military conflicts of low, medium and high intensity. In these conditions, the face of the officer corps is rapidly changing, to which high demands are made by society and the state. I have conducted a sociological survey of servicemen of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Kazakhstan. It is noted that the professional development of officers is increasingly viewed from the perspective of a career approach. In the course of the study, it was found that the master's degree plays an important role in the professional life of an officer: it enriches it with new knowledge and ideas, contributes to meeting the needs for prestige and career. Modern trends indicate an increasing need for the elaboration of the methodology of this problem. The author presents his own view on the formulation of a number of concepts, such as “career and professional development of an officer”, “professional career of an officer”, “the readiness of graduate students of a military university to design and develop a career.” Thus, the training of officers in the military magistracy in the context of the development of their professional careers has acquired the status of the most important problem of modern military education and a key task of educational reforms in the present and near future.

Polityka Francji i Niemiec wobec niepodległej Ukrainy. Wokół stabilizacji i bezpieczeństwa

This essay provides the shaping of the leading EU countries’ policy towards independent Ukraine. It examines that it was influenced by several factors: including the history of relations between each country with the Russian Empire and the USSR, and the lack of experience in cooperation with Ukraine as an independent state, and geopolitical interests of each state. The German political circles and the media as well as the French ones have been expressed their concern over the possible proliferation of nuclear weapons by Ukraine, which in turn has led to political and economic pressure on Ukraine’s stance on its nuclear status. The essay proves that the issue of nuclear technologies was not limited to the discussion of the former existence of a nuclear arsenal in Ukraine. France and Germany take an active part in the activities in the Chernobyl zone. Leading EU countries in the 1990s hoped there will be democratic changes in Russia, transparency and the development of civil society. Ukraine’s multi-vector policy was incomprehensible to Western countries, as was the security vacuum felt by Ukraine, which was gradually trapped in the geopolitical grip of two defense blocs: NATO in the West and Collective Security Treaty Organisation (Tashkent Pact) in the East. Since 2014, France and Germany have been mediators in the resolution of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in Donbas in the framework of Normandy format, but so far there is no progress in resolving this low-intensity conflict.

Effect of Protected Areas on Human Populations in the Context of Colombian Armed Conflict, 2005–2018

It is widely recognised that conservation policies in protected areas must also favour the development and viability of human populations. Although much research has focused on economic consequences, understanding the real impact of conservation on local populations requires a more holistic standpoint. Using quasi-experimental matching methods and a diachronic perspective, the biodemographic and socio-economic effects of Colombia’s National Natural Parks (NNPs) were evaluated (all in a context of internal conflict and post-conflict). The analyses were made for the set of NNPs and then grouped into four natural regions (Andes, Caribbean, Amazon-Orinoquía and Pacific) and two conflict intensities. Differences were found mainly for NNPs with low-intensity conflict, but only for biodemographic variables, not for socio-economic ones. Starting from a situation of disadvantage, a relative improvement in the conditions of the NNP municipalities was observed throughout the 13-year period in relation to the control group. Results should be taken with caution due to the conflict situation, but the lack of correlation between biodemographic and socio-economic aspects highlights the need to include more complex approaches in protected area management policies.