Military Strikes Research Articles

Iran's Neighborhood Policy: Parameters, Objectives, and Obstacles

AbstractIn April 2024, Iran launched its first‐ever military strikes on Israeli soil. While the United States and its allies see Tehran as potentially stoking the Gaza war and spreading the conflict across the region, the Islamic Republic has actually drawn its neighbors closer and enjoys friendlier relations with them today than at nearly any point in its 45‐year history. This rapprochement had been pursued informally by successive Iranian administrations since the late 1980s. However, it was formally adopted as the “good‐neighbor policy” by President Ebrahim Raisi, who served from 2021 until his death in a May 2024 helicopter crash. Raisi's successor, Masoud Pezeshkian, has both the desire to continue the policy and a favorable regional environment within which to do so. Despite serious challenges, Iran has improved engagement with longtime rivals like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE. Even cross‐border clashes with the Taliban in Afghanistan have been downplayed in favor of dialogue. Neighborly policies are impermanent. A number of structural and political obstacles could change Iran's calculations, but the approach is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

Characterization of combined blast- and fragments-induced synergetic damage in polyurea coated liquid-filled container

Liquid-filled containers (LFC) are widely used to store and transport petroleum, chemical reagents, and other resources. As an important target of military strikes and terrorist bombings, LFC are vulnerable to blast waves and fragments. To explore the protective effect of polyurea elastomer on LFC, the damage characteristics of polyurea coated liquid-filled container (PLFC) under the combined loading of blast shock wave and fragments were studied experimentally. The microstructure of the polyurea layer was observed by scanning electron microscopy, and the fracture and self-healing phenomena were analyzed. The simulation approach was used to explain the combined blast- and fragments-induced on the PLFC in detail. Finally, the effects of shock wave and fragment alone and in combination on the damage of PLFC were comprehensively compared. Results showed that the polyurea reduces the perforation rate of the fragment to the LFC, and the self-healing phenomenon could also reduce the liquid loss rate inside the container. The polyurea reduces the degree of depression in the center of the LFC, resulting in a decrease in the distance between adjacent fragments penetrating the LFC, and an increase in the probability of transfixion and fracture between holes. Under the close-in blast, the detonation shock wave reached the LFC before the fragment. Polyurea does not all have an enhanced effect on the protection of LFC. The presence of internal water enhances the anti-blast performance of the container, and the hydrodynamic ram (HRAM) formed by the fragment impacting the water aggravated the plastic deformation of the container. The combined action has an enhancement effect on the deformation of the LFC. The depth of the container depression was 27% higher than that of the blast shock wave alone; thus, it cannot be simply summarized as linear superposition.

How fear of entrapment shapes South Korean public opinion on conflicts with North Korea under US extended deterrence

ABSTRACT The nuclear crises in 1994 and 2017 between the United States and North Korea introduced South Korea to the fear of becoming entrapped in unwanted wars on the Korean Peninsula. To understand how the fear of entrapment shapes a client state’s strategic judgments toward the use of force by a patron state under extended deterrence, we designed novel experiments on pre- and post-strike approval of military operations by combining war-game scenarios and survey experiments. In the pre-strike-approval experiment, we examined how the decision-making mechanism for military planning and operations, the type of weapon systems, and the expected casualties shape South Korean public opinion on the use of US military strikes against North Korea. In the post-strike-approval experiment, we provided South Koreans with outcomes of military strikes and examined how US unilateral military strikes against North Korea would change public attitudes toward the US–South Korea alliance. We found that the fear of US unilateral use of force and consequent entrapment in unwanted wars substantially decreased South Korean public approval of the military strikes against North Korea. We also found that US unilateral military strikes against North Korea, regardless of their success or failure, would severely harm the US–South Korea alliance.

A-Bomb for the People? When Leaders Cue the Public in Nuclear Decision-Making

Abstract In building indigenous nuclear weapon programs, leaders have incentives to keep their plans secret, and several have. Domestic populations may limit the flexibility of the program, and international scrutiny could lead to sanctions or even military strikes. And yet, many leaders have cued the public to their nuclear ambitions. Why do leaders cue these audiences to their nuclear intentions when doing so could lead to both internal and external constraints from public awareness and foreign pressure? Using qualitative evidence from past cases of elite cueing, this article offers a theoretical examination of why some leaders choose to involve the public despite—or sometimes because of—the constraints that attention can impose. We describe six types of cueing logics based on the level of development of the nuclear program and the intended audience. Understanding the rationales behind such cues is not just of historical significance; these cues remain relevant as several states continue to pursue nuclear technologies—capabilities that can be used for peaceful purposes or repurposed for nuclear weapons. In other words, nuclear cueing is an important and overlooked aspect of research on nuclear proliferation.

ЕКОНОМІЧНІ ТА ІНФРАСТРУКТУРНІ ТРАНСФОРМАЦІЇ НА БЛИЗЬКОМУ СХОДІ. ЄМЕНСЬКИЙ ФАКТОР

The topicality of the article is determined by the examination the issues of maturation and formation of alternative centers of geo-economic tension, using the example of the Middle East. At the same time, a significant emphasis is placed on the global economic and infrastructural consequences of local conflicts and clashes. It is shown that the reliability and uninterrupted functioning of trade contacts between the West and the countries of Southeast Asia were threatened by the acceleration of the conflict in the Gaza Strip. Moreover, the source of risks was the ethnic-religious movement of the Houthis, which controls a large part of Yemen. Thus, the desire of the Houthis to protect co-religionists became a significant catalyst for regional and global transformations, including reflecting on the trajectories of trade flows. The discussed issues also cover the negative consequences of the complication of communication routes between Europe and Southeast Asia are analyzed, possible scenarios for solving the current situation are determined, including through the large-scale construction of new railway tracks in Saudi Arabia and connection to infrastructure projects of a number of other countries in the region. At the same time, a conclusion is made about the role of the civilizational factor on the stability and predictability of economic development on a global scale, when even a small ethnic group can provoke a crisis on a global scale and turn out to be completely insensitive to external interventions and military strikes. For this purpose, the author suggests not just taking civilizational factors into account when planning geo-economic actions, but maximally involving their hidden potential when analyzing and planning the consequences of probable clashes. This is especially true for the Middle East region, which is currently going through a difficult period of turbulence. In this way, the increase in the potential for conflict and, as a consequence, the growth of the role of the factor of uncertainty in the further development and the state of commodity markets and their infrastructure is asserted.

Algorithmic predictions and pre-emptive violence: artificial intelligence and the future of unmanned aerial systems

AbstractThe military rationale of a pre-emptive strike is predicated upon the calculation and anticipation of threat. The underlying principle of anticipation, or prediction, is foundational to the operative logic of AI. The deployment of predictive, algorithmically driven systems in unmanned aerial systems (UAS) would therefore appear to be all but inevitable. However, the fatal interlocking of martial paradigms of pre-emption and models of predictive analysis needs to be questioned insofar as the irreparable decisiveness of a pre-emptive military strike is often at odds with the probabilistic predictions of AI. The pursuit of a human right to protect communities from aerial threats needs to therefore consider the degree to which algorithmic auguries—often erroneous but nevertheless evident in the prophetic mechanisms that power autonomous aerial apparatuses—essentially authorise and further galvanise the long-standing martial strategy of pre-emption. In the context of unmanned aerial systems, this essay will outline how AI actualises and summons forth “threats” through (i) the propositional logic of algorithms (their inclination to yield actionable directives); (ii) the systematic training of neural networks (through habitually biased methods of data-labelling); and (iii) a systemic reliance on models of statistical analysis in the structural design of machine learning (which can and do produce so-called “hallucinations”). Through defining the deterministic intentionality, systematic biases and systemic dysfunction of algorithms, I will identify how individuals and communities—configured upon and erroneously flagged through the machinations of so-called “black box” instruments—are invariably exposed to the uncertainty (or brute certainty) of imminent death based on algorithmic projections of “threat”.

Compellence and batna for the Denuclearization of North Korea

Abstract This article analyzes the denuclearization negotiations with North Korea and recommends options to compel North Korea to denuclearize, focusing on the best alternative to a negotiated agreement (batna) concept. President Trump’s recent denuclearization summit meetings with North Korea failed because he did not employ a batna in his negotiations. A few candidates for the batna are compared and evaluated using criteria of effectiveness and feasibility. This article concludes that military strikes or economic sanctions cannot be relevant as batna s because of North Korea’s success in developing its second-strike nuclear capabilities and probable Chinese support. While South Korea’s nuclear armament does not seem feasible in the short term, another nuclear-sharing arrangement in Northeast or East Asia could be a viable and practical batna. The United States and South Korea should implement this batna gradually, reflecting the degree of the nuclear threat from North Korea.

Infrastructure collapsed, health care access disrupted, Myanmar people with chronic diseases are in danger.

The situation in Myanmar is getting worse. As civil war and military strikes erupt in many locations inside Myanmar, cities in nearby countries such as Thailand, Bangladesh, and India, report more wounded and internally displaced people (IDP) from Myanmar in their local clinics and hospitals [1]. Many IDP came both from nearby regions of Myanmar […]

Framing States: Unitary Actor Language and Public Support for Coercive Foreign Policy

Abstract A defining feature of public (and, often, scholarly) discussion of international affairs is the treatment of states as unitary actors, that is, akin to individual persons. Drawing upon social–psychological research, we theorize that such unitary actor (UA) framing increases the degree to which adversarial states are perceived as entitative—that is, as relatively united—and, thus, the perceived complicity of a country's people in their government's actions. We therefore hypothesize that UA framing increases citizens’ support for indiscriminate, coercive policies against target states. In a content analysis of US elite statements spanning three decades, we first establish that UA framing is exceedingly common, occurring in nearly two-thirds of all references to adversarial states. We then conduct a series of survey experiments on US adults, finding that, compared to frames in which a state is described as more factious and disunited, UA framing is associated with significantly greater willingness to impose harmful, indiscriminate economic sanctions and military strikes against target states. Our results highlight the utility and applicability of entitativity to political science research, and have important implications for the role of elite discourse in bolstering public support for hawkish foreign policymaking.

The Effect of the Pre-emtive Military Strike Doctrine on Efforts to Establish New International Legal Provisions

Introduction: One of the interventional measures that can be justified under international law is self-defence. When there has been an armed attack, on the condition that it is instant, overwhelming situation, leaving no means, no moment of deliberation, that is a justifiable proposition for self-defence.Purposes of the Research: To examine and analyze the influence of the doctrine of pre-emtive military strike on efforts to establish new international legal provisions.Methods of the Research: This research uses normative juridical research methods with legal materials used, namely primary legal materials, secondary legal materials and tertiary legal materials. The collection technique is carried out through literature studies and then analyzed using qualitative methods.Results of the Research: The practice of some countries today in order to anticipate such an attack, pre-emtive military strikes are carried out in the context of anticipatory self-defense, with the aim of conducting self-defense before an attack occurs. The practice of anticipatory self-defence has become a serious conversation among academics, even when the act is practiced repeatedly continuously by a number of countries and recognized for its existence, it is certain to set a precedent that leads to the creation of an international customary law. Self-defence anticipatory measures applied in the doctrine of preemptive military strike have been adopted by several countries before and after the formation of the UN organization. But this has not set a legal precedent, despite efforts to make it an International custom through the practice of countries. If this is allowed to take place, it will at some point become customary international law. The application of the preemptive military strike will affect the establishment of new international law provisions.

North Korea’s nuclear armament strategy and deception

ABSTRACT This article analyzes North Korea’s nuclear armament strategy. For this purpose, it applies Vipin Narang’s theory to North Korea and analyzes North Korea’s efforts to develop and strengthen its nuclear weapons on a strategic level. This study argues that North Korea’s deception operations were crucial to the ultimate success of its “strategic” nuclear buildup. This article found that North Korea initially employed a “hiding strategy,” but after its nuclear program was exposed, it managed to continue its nuclear program through deceptive agreements with the United States and eventually succeeded in developing nuclear weapons in 2013. Then, North Korea adopted a “sprinting strategy” and initiated deceptive denuclearization negotiations with the United States to prevent a military strike by the United States and gain the time necessary for its continuous nuclear buildup. China also allowed a “sheltered pursuit” through tolerance of North Korea’s nuclear armament and diplomatic assistance as well as various clandestine assistances.

China’s Economic Growth: Threats and Challenges to Chinese Economy and Energy Security

Despite global pandemic Chinese economic growth rate was 2.3 percent in 2020. GDP surpassed US $ 15 trillion and growth rate raised to 6.5 percent in fourth quarter of 2020 and US $ 17 trillion GDP was recorded in first quarter of 2021. People Republic China’s (PRC) gigantic military budget and revolution in military affairs (RMA) creates senese of hegemonic ambitions in its neighbours. Contrarily, United States (US) sights PRC has ambitions to expand its political influence, gain access to economic markets, change international order by replacing US. This potential asymmetrical and imbalanced relationship locks America in typical Thucydides trap. Washington reached conclusion that economic growth and military might are intertwined. However, it is dependent on China’s energy supplies. PRC’s rise can be slowed down by stopping or interrupting the flow of energy supplies. Range of threats are posed to PRC oil imports i.e. US aerial strike on PRC oil//gas pipelines, use of proxies specially ast Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) to disrupt oil supplies, terrorist attacks on oil containers on land and naval blockade in Persian Gulf. The inference drawn is energy security dependent on Strait of Malacca is Achilles Heel of China. This paper aims at probing Washington’s capacity to disrupt or stop energy supplies to PRC in Malacca strait, Persian Gulf, land routes in Pakistan. It discusses various strategies including direct naval blockade, use of proxies and direct military strikes.

From Conflict Avoidance to Peaceful Path: The US-DPRK Denuclearization Interaction under the Frame of Incomplete Information Game

The North Korean nuclear crisis is not only a major security issue but also a defense strategic issue as well. Whatever future U.S. policy toward North Korea, the game between the two countries will have to figure out what kind of Pyongyang Washington is dealing with. Starting from the extreme hypothesis that the United States may take a military strike against the DPRK, this article creatively constructs the game model of incomplete information between the U.S. and the DPRK, and establishes the payoff matrix for two types of the DPRK: tough and weak. Then, the article tries to answer why the United States does not have the conditions for military strikes against North Korea through the analysis of different payoffs of the United States towards the DPRK. Also, North Korea s tactics at the negotiating table, as well as the trends of US-DPRK relations, are important and will be analyzed in the article.

Two explanations for the paucity of cyber-military, cross-domain operations

Abstract This article investigates why states have launched so few cross-domain operations—in this case, operations between cyber and military domains—when they have launched so many cyberattacks. I explore a set of five hypotheses for why most cyberattacks do not occur at the same time as military strikes. My analysis reveals that of the five, two are compelling. First, state attackers make strategic decisions not to “cross the domain” for organizational reasons that are based on the internal division of labor. Second, many cyberattackers face significant technical challenges with cross-domain operations even if their cyber and military forces are integrated. The other three reasons are not as persuasive, including fear of conflict escalation, international law applied to cyberspace, and norms of cyberspace behavior.

The 25 February 2021 military strikes and the ‘armed attack’ requirement of self-defence: from ‘sina qua non’ to the point of vanishing?

ABSTRACT Following a rocket attack that occurred at Erbil airport in Iraq, President Biden authorised the first use of military force since becoming President on 25 February 2021. This was legally justified on the basis of self-defence. On the face of it this seemed an innocuous justification. Yet, this article argues that through both downplaying the treaty source of the right of self-defence and its express requirement for an armed attack, as well as promoting a contextual and enabling form of necessity, the Biden administration’s military action and ensuing strategy of legal justification place question marks over the meaning of, and even the requirement for, an armed attack. However, seeing the 25 February incident in the context of broader US and other state practice, while various attempts at diluting this requirement and the interpretation provided to it by the International Court of Justice have been sustained, others have clearly not.

Ethiopia – Military Strikes in October

Ethiopia – Military Strikes in October

Parallel Ensemble Deep Learning for Real-Time Remote Sensing Video Multi-Target Detection

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is one of the main means of information warfare, such as in battlefield cruises, reconnaissance, and military strikes. Rapid detection and accurate recognition of key targets in UAV images are the basis of subsequent military tasks. The UAV image has characteristics of high resolution and small target size, and in practical application, the detection speed is often required to be fast. Existing algorithms are not able to achieve an effective trade-off between detection accuracy and speed. Therefore, this paper proposes a parallel ensemble deep learning framework for unmanned aerial vehicle video multi-target detection, which is a global and local joint detection strategy. It combines a deep learning target detection algorithm with template matching to make full use of image information. It also integrates multi-process and multi-threading mechanisms to speed up processing. Experiments show that the system has high detection accuracy for targets with focal lengths varying from one to ten times. At the same time, the real-time and stable display of detection results is realized by aiming at the moving UAV video image.

Unilateral vs. multilateral approaches in US foreign policy: A case study of Iraq and Afghanistan war

During US war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush administration vindicated its pre-emptive military strikes against Iraq and Afghanistan on the grounds of national security. The strike was carried out under the Bush administration’s National Security Strategy which asserts the right of the U.S to take unilateral military action against rogue states and terrorist organizations in order to prevent or to reduce an assumed attack by such groups or organizations against the United States. However, the action by the administration has been widely criticized as not being in conformity with international law, and United Nations’ Security Council resolutions. It has been investigated in this research paper that the hidden motive behind the attacks on these two countries was not merely the elimination of the terrorist groups and to stop their activities and to destroy the weapons of mass destruction but to capture the oil, gas, and other natural resources in order to sustain the fastest growing economy of the US and western countries. The present study will present a comparative analysis of the two approaches; unilateral and multilateral which were incorporated in U.S foreign policy with the special reference of Iraq and Afghanistan war.

Transformer: A Multifunctional Fast Unmanned Aerial Vehicles–Unmanned Surface Vehicles Coupling System

With the continuous development of the maritime economy, the maritime unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become important parts of the maritime transportation system. Unmanned vehicles play a pivotal role in water safety management, offshore patrol and maritime rescue. Consequently, this article researches and develops an unmanned aerial vehicle–unmanned surface vehicle (UAV-USV) coupling system with multiple functions. The ship body module, the deformation module and the UAV module are designed by using the modular analysis method, then volume of fluid (VOF) technology and STAR-CCM+ software are applied to analyze the ship resistance before and after deformation and optimize it. The results show that the Transformer has high speed before deformation and stable navigation ability after deformation, and it can navigate in high winds and waves. It has a large reconnaissance range and some radar stealth capability, which can fulfill different tasks, such as maritime patrol, military strike and maritime rescue.

Remote sensing image striping noise algorithm based on region-weighted double sparse constraint

Infrared remote sensing image has been used in many fields such as land cover crop monitoring, climate monitoring, military strike and early warning. In spaceborne remote sensing imaging system, the stripe is a common noise, seriously affects the researchers’ study of the ground scene. In recent years, the framework that researchers based on different principles use a variety of methods to remove fringe noise in infrared remote sensing images is proposed, such as filtering based method, the method based on statistics, however, most current algorithm still exist the following two problems: some structure or texture was easy to be mistaken as the stripe noise and removed, lost the original information of the image; in some bright or dark areas, it is easy to create artificial traces, adding redundant information and making the denoising result look unnatural. In view of the above two problems, this paper will analyse the causes of the problems and propose a stripe noise removal algorithm based on the region-weighted doublesparse constrained unidirectional variational model, which can effectively reduce the above two phenomena.