Military Perceptions Research Articles

Representations of Surveillance and Perceptual Technologies at Military Museums

Drawing from fieldwork at military museums across Manitoba, Canada, we explore the objects and narratives used to curate museum displays featuring what Bousquet (2018) calls “military perception.” Using Bousquet’s categories of military perception to organize our analysis, we examine how these museums position scopes, sonars, camouflage, and other devices meant to create visibility or invisibility as aesthetic objects rather than as instruments enabling state violence. With a focus on curatorial strategies and the arrangement of objects at these museums, we explore how surveillance and camouflage displays are organized to minimize the harm that military interventions cause and align the affect of the viewer with the form of Canadian nationalism animating the museum and against “enemy” others and spaces, a process we refer to as encasement. In conclusion, we reflect on what our analysis adds to literature on military museums and representations of surveillance.

Antoine Bousquet, The Eye of War: Military Perception from the Telescope to the Drone

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Antoine Bousquet. The Eye of War: Military Perception from the Telescope to the Drone.

A<scp>ntoine</scp> B<scp>ousquet</scp>. <i>The Eye of War: Military Perception from the Telescope to the Drone</i>.

Military parents' perceptions of separation for their younger children.

Many studies are available in the literature considering effects of deployment on older school age and adolescent children, but less is known about the effects on younger children. The purpose of this study was to describe the experience of deployment/separation for military children aged 4-10 years from both the deployed parent and stay-at-home parent's experiences. Parents completed demographics followed by an interview to describe the child's reaction to separation. Thematic analysis was used to identify children's reactions and intervention strategies. Thirty-eight families, encompassing 57 children aged 4-10 who experienced a separation or deployment within the past 2 years participated. Interviews included 24 military members and 34 spouses (most frequently the mothers) completed the interview and research instruments. Interview data revealed a turbulent experience for families resulting from frequent and repeated separations. Parents actively employed strategies garnered from military-provided materials and informal interaction with other military parents. The different perspectives provided new insights as to the strategies military families find successful during separations and will be useful in providing anticipatory guidance.

Irregular Moroccan Units in a Regular War

Abstract This article examines French and American observers’ perceptions of Moroccan goumiers’ participation in the Second World War. For these Western commentators, including soldiers and military officials, the goumiers were often stereotyped either in terms of positive assumptions about their bravery, or otherwise negative depictions of their supposedly bestial violence and seemingly ‘exotic’ appearance. Situating these military perceptions of goumier troops against previous research on French understandings of Moroccan irregulars, this article contrasts these external accounts of the soldiers, with veterans’ own accounts of their military service. Stereotypical accounts of the goumiers’ bravery and excessive violence are contrasted against veterans’ own valuation of combat in religious and cultural terms, as well as the linguistic politics of the term goumier. While concerned with drawing attention to Moroccan contributions to the conflict, the article also contributes to a wider literature concerning African veterans’ voices.

A Model of Deployment Readiness among Military Spouses: The Role of Mental Health and Deployment-Related Personal Growth

The purpose of the current investigation was to examine deployment-related risks, resources, and mediators contributing to military spouse perception of readiness for future service member deployments. We used data from 5,748 spouses and service members with two to five years of service (90% female spouses, M age = 27.54), all having experienced at least one deployment. The impact of deployment risks (number of prior deployments, combat exposure, deployment injury) and resources (formal and informal support, communication during the last deployment) were analyzed within a path modeling framework. Mediators of these relations were investigated, including service member and spouse mental health and spouse deployment-related personal growth. We found a well-fitting model suggesting a combination of direct and indirect effects on spouse perception of deployment readiness. Findings indicated that service member combat and injury negatively impacted spouse perception of deployment readiness through detriments to service member and spouse mental health. However, informal support and deployment communication were positively related to mental health for both partners, leading to improved spouse-perceived deployment readiness. Additionally, all resources contributed to spouses’ personal growth, a relatively strong mechanism for spouse-perceived deployment readiness. These findings suggest application through promotion of resources or by directly targeting mediating mechanisms to offset deployment risk.

WOMEN IN MILITARY STRATEGY: A REVIEW OF WOMEN EMANCIPATION AND PROTECTION

&lt;p&gt;Whether in conflict and war or peacebuilding, women are always considered victims of human rights violation and the vulnerable. In recent decades, there has been efforts to advocate for the protection of women's rights and women empowerment in the name of emancipation. This has allowed women's presence in several key sectors, including politics and military, resulting in a new role for women as resources in military strategy. This has put the policy to protect women during war into question, especially when women have now become a combatant. This paper analyzes this issue through two concepts (women protection and military strategy to understand the military's perception toward women's position and one theory (feminism) to understand women's perception toward their roles in the military during war. Therefore, the object of this observation is the role of women in military strategy with regard to the implementation of women' rights protection and military strategy. In this observation, this paper collects secondary data through literature review. Through this observation, we can have broader understanding of the role of women in military strategy because the primary purpose of this paper is to assess the possibility for changing women protection during war policy to reflect the current condition.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Keywords:&lt;/strong&gt; emancipation, human rights, military strategy, women protection

The Eye of War: Military Perception from the Telescope to the Drone

The Eye of War: Military Perception from the Telescope to the Drone

The Eye of War: Military Perception from the Telescope to the Drone. By Antoine Bousquet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2018. 256p. $108.00 cloth, $27.00 paper.

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The Eye of War: Military Perception from the Telescope to the Drone by Antoine J. Bousquet

The Eye of War: Military Perception from the Telescope to the Drone by Antoine J. Bousquet

The Eye of War: Military Perception from the Telescope to the Drone

The Eye of War: Military Perception from the Telescope to the Drone

The Role of Security Forces in Thailand’s Deep South Counter-Insurgency

This study looks at the role of Thai state security forces in the Deep South across history until early 2017. These forces include the army, navy, police and paramilitaries and have been tasked with enforcing Thai state policy toward the Deep South since the centralization of power by the Siamese monarchy over this region in 1902. After the 2014 coup, the junta initiated a policy of using both repression and negotiations with insurgent groups to achieve its aims in the Deep South. Meanwhile violence has continued. The study, using historical institutionalism, argues that Thai security forces’ preference for a hard-line policy in the Deep South has resulted in a vicious cycle of tension and violence between security officials and local Malay-Muslims which has not been conducive to peace efforts in the region. Nevertheless, any durable peace will need to satisfy military perceptions of security. Yet what has been the historical trajectory of security policy in the Deep South? What has been the policy of the ruling National Council for Peace and Order military junta toward the region? What is the likelihood of the Thai junta becoming more pragmatic regarding the Deep South in the near future? This study examines these questions.

Hybrid framework of decision making in military: case study of railway planning

This paper focuses on exploring decision-making methods related to alternative decision choices, and how to derive its achievement strategy formulation. Albeit we found some combination of decision-making methods in the literature, we have to prove that such combination is a relevant framework for use in the context of military perceptions. We show in this case study that a structured combination of focus group discussions, Fuzzy AHP, Fuzzy TOPSIS, and SWOT is a straightforward framework to be used as a tool of decision making in the military environment.

Factors Influencing the Success of a Market Based Conservation Initiative to Promote Rural Land-use Compatibility

Encroachment of incompatible land uses increasingly threatens military training across the country. In many states, military training grounds are part of the rural landscape resulting in significant interest from military leadership in the maintenance and enhancement of land uses that are compatible with training operations. In the southeast, a vast majority of the rural landscape is under private ownership increasing the needs for policies that address the interests of landowners and provide meaningful incentives for maintaining land-use compatibility. Market-based conservation strategies have the potential to provide an effective means for conserving large landscapes used for military training. This issue is particularly salient in North Carolina that has an extensive military training footprint. We conducted a case study to evaluate a cross-sector partnership in the state that collaboratively developed a Market-Based Conservation Initiative Pilot to promote land use compatibility by engaging private landowners in performance-based contracts. This study determined the factors that influenced pilot project outcomes and lessons learned when developing market-based strategies that integrate military interests. Data analysis identifies five key factors that are 1) military funding authority to establish agreements, 2) development of landowner trust and program credibility, 3) military understanding the purpose and associated risks of a pilot program, 4) military perception of rural landownership patterns, and 5) institutional mandates of the Navy.

What Democratization, Trade Expectations, and Military Power All Mean for the Future of Sino-American Relations

ABSTRACTThis article analyzes Sino-American relations using three strands of international relations scholarship–internal stability, trade expectations, and military perception. There has been no attempt to date to explore the stability of Sino-American relations in the context of linkage between them. This study argues that political and economic interactions of the two major powers provide reasons to be optimistic that the relations will stay relatively stable. Although there is a significant amount of mistrust between Beijing and Washington on military and cyber matters, deterrence is largely at work at the highest level of interactions.

Human and Environmental Dangers Posed by Ongoing Global Tropospheric Aerosolized Particulates for Weather Modification.

U.S. military perception of nuclear warfare led to countless unethical nuclear experiments performed on unsuspecting individuals without their informed consent. As evidenced here, subsequent perception of weather warfare has led to exposing millions of unsuspecting individuals to toxic coal fly ash with no public disclosure, no informed consent, and no health warnings. Three methods were used: (1) comparison of eight elements analyzed in rainwater samples, thought to have leached from aerosolized coal fly ash, with corresponding coal fly ash laboratory leachate; (2) comparison of 14 elements analyzed in air filter dust with corresponding elements in coal fly ash; and (3) comparison of 23 elements analyzed in fibrous mesh found after snow melted with corresponding elements in coal fly ash. The rainwater element ratios show that the aerial particulate matter has essentially the same water-leach characteristics as coal fly ash. The air filter dust element ratios occur in the same range of compositions as coal fly ash, as do element ratios in fibrous mesh found on grass after snow melted. The fibrous mesh provides an inferred direct connection with the aerosolizing jet aircraft via coal fly ash association with the jet combustion environment. Strong evidence for the correctness of the hypothesis: coal fly ash is likely the aerosolized particulate emplaced in the troposphere for geoengineering, weather modification, and/or climate alteration purposes. The documented public health associations for ≤2.5 μm particulate pollution are also applicable to aerosolized coal fly ash. The ability of coal fly ash to release aluminum in a chemically mobile form upon exposure to water or body moisture has potentially grave human and environmental consequences over a broad spectrum, including implications for neurological diseases and biota debilitation. The ability of coal fly ash to release heavy metals and radioactive elements upon exposure to body moisture has potentially grave human health implications including cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, respiratory diseases, reduced male fertility, and stroke. The fibrous mesh data admit the possibility of environmentally disastrous formation of methylmercury and ozone-depleting chlorinated-fluorinated hydrocarbons in jet exhaust. Geophysical implications include atmospheric warming and rainfall retardation.

Mapping the Nation for War: Landscape in Danish Military Cartography 1800–2000

The focus in this article is on the way the post eighteenth-century cartographic turn in military practices developed into a particular military perception of landscape that continues to set the standard of Danish topographical mapping. My argument is that the development of modern topographical maps is the result of a long process of military comprehension and measurement of the terrain in order to conduct field operations. The demand for spatial data for actual or potential military operations had a direct impact on the specifications of maps produced by the military, as landscape representation was adapted to meet operational demands and as lessons learned from war experience were incorporated. In this and other respects, the development of Danish topographical maps in and after the nineteenth century followed the general trend of European military mapping as regards methods and standards.

Qualitative Study of a Solution-Focused Training Program for Taiwanese Military Instructors.

This study explored Taiwanese military instructors' perceptions of a training program using a solution-focused approach and its initial application to students with behavior problems. A total of 25 military instructors (16 men, 9 women; M age = 38.6 years, SD = 5.8) and 10 students (three men, seven women; M age = 17.5 years, SD = 0.9) participated in the study through convenience sampling. Grounded theory method was adopted for data analysis. Six prominent categories emerged from the focus group interview, weekly training notes, and the researcher's field notes, including reactions to learning solution-focused approach, strengths and weaknesses of using the solution-focused approach, identification of military instructors role function, initial responses to the techniques of the solution-focused approach, a positive attitude to deal with students' problems, and from assimilation to transformation. In addition, feedback collected from students was grouped into a seventh category. Finally, a modified pattern was developed for military instructors to use when working with students.

Coups and nascent democracies: the military and Egypt's failed consolidation

ABSTRACTWhy do coups happen in some nascent democracies but not in others? To answer this question, I probe four interconnected variables in democratizing regimes: the military's ethos; the military's corporate interests; the military's perception of the new civilian ruling elite; and the correlation of force between the military and the founding democratic government. My argument is twofold: first, I maintain that ideational variables are central to shaping the military's political behaviour; and second, I argue in favour of merging insights from cultural, corporate, and structural theories to understand the consolidation, or breakdown, of nascent democracies.

Stakeholder considerations and timeliness of action by managers in the military

The military is best known for exercising regimented, top-down control with little attention given to considerations of stakeholders, particularly outside stakeholders. Data from 102 managers working in US military were used to test the influence of the perceived strength of stakeholder considerations on the timeliness of military managers' action orientation. Findings show military managers' perceptions of the strength of stakeholders demands directly influences the timeliness of their intentions to act. The paper concludes with implications for future research.