Military War Research Articles

Measured the concentrations of uranium in human blood samples from Iraq using CN-85 nuclear track detector

The purpose of this study is to measure the concentration of uranium through 20 samples of human blood from healthy people and patients with leukemia, where the concentration of uranium increased by working in an unhealthy environment that led to people being exposed to cancer. The CN-85 was used to measure and determine alpha particles. Blood samples were dried and 0.5 g of each sample was obtained. The reagent was then bonded to a neutron stream using an (Am-Be) and 5 × 103 n.cm 2s-1 for seven consecutive days. The reagents were then scrapped with NaOH and 6.25 N for five hours. The intensity of the effect was measured by the optical microscope and compared with standard samples prepared in vitro. The increase in the proportion of uranium in the blood was caused by the military wars in 1991 and 2003 where the use of depleted uranium in the munitions and the war in abundance. The concentrations of uranium for healthy people ranged from (0.077 to 0.216 ppb), at a rate of (0.121 ppb). Patients ranged from (1,330-1.960 ppb) at a rate of (1.671 ppb). The acceptable value from ICRP is (0.810 ppb).

Boko Haram et la radicalisation des jeunes au Nord-Cameroun. Entre protestation sociale et nécessité de survie

Aujourd’hui engagé dans une guerre militaire contre la secte Boko Haram dans sa partie septentrionale, le Cameroun doit aussi mener contre elle une guerre idéologique. Cela passe par une compréhension des mobiles de l’engagement dans ses rangs de certains jeunes originaires de cette région. Notre analyse part de l’hypothèse que la radicalisation de ces jeunes du Nord-Cameroun relève de la protestation sociale et de la nécessité de survie plus que de l’engagement religieux : survie face à un ennemi aux méthodes de recrutement usant souvent de force, mais aussi survie mêlée de protestation face à une situation économique et sociale désastreuse. De fait, nous tentons ici de comprendre le processus de radicalisation d’une partie de la jeunesse en analysant les causes sociohistoriques.

Beyond Refusal: Queer Transpacific Feminism During the Vietnam War

This article illuminates the fugitive queer of colour history of the Indochinese Women’s Conferences in Canada in 1971, particularly the Southeast Asian delegates’ impromptu protest against white lesbian inquiries and the subsequent removal of lesbian workshops at the conference. Rather than assimilating this moment into a homonationalist historiography of perversely homophobic Asians, this article traces how the lesbian and gay liberation movements in the white Global North monopolized the political meanings of queerness and freedom in the 1970s. The Southeast Asian delegates’ decision to disengage from the topics forwarded by white lesbians suggests not their homophobia, but a contradiction within the meaning of queerness that emerges in the chaos of a race war. This article navigates through these logics, which critically make queer Asian women’s desires impossible. I employ the concept of refusal to discuss a specific site of queer Asian feminism, one that responds to the sexualized trauma of war and peace, as well as to the white Global North gay and lesbian activism that emerged in the same moment. Indeed, while refusal may imply replacing information with absence, the delegates’ refusal critically communicated the exploitative nature of white lesbian feminism and its unexpected affinities with heteropatriarchal Cold War militarism. Seriously considering the delegates’ insights into their multiple marginalizations within a transpacific economy, and the way they actively shaped how others should understand these experiences of violence, this article argues that this moment ushered in a prescient and innovative critique of queer Asian feminist formations in Canada.

Dangerous work: Terrorism against U.S. diplomats

ABSTRACTThe goal of diplomats is to represent their countries’ interests through diplomacy, not arms. Because they are not military personnel, they may be perceived as at lower risk of being the target of terrorists. However, recent events have called this perception into question. Despite this danger, there has been little research on terrorist attacks against diplomats. Drawing on the terrorism studies literature, this article argues that diplomats are targeted more than non-diplomatic targets in countries where certain U.S. foreign policies are implemented. An empirical analysis of 471 attacks against U.S. diplomats from 1970 to 2011 reveals that while U.S. alliances and foreign aid increase the likelihood of attacks against diplomats, U.S. military intervention and civil war, on the other hand, increase the risk of terrorism against non-diplomatic targets. This finding is relevant because it shows terrorist attacks against diplomats result from certain types of foreign policy.

Towards a Humanitarian Military Ethics: Moral Autonomy, Integrity and Obligations in the British and German Armed Forces

ABSTRACTHumanitarian operations may pose challenges to which armed forces prepared for warfighting seem rather ill-equipped. It is the aim of this article to examine in what way military ethics should be adapted to humanitarian tasks. Two ideal types of military ethics are defined here: warfighting and humanitarian. The warfighting ethic is supposed to maximise the utility of the military in war and combat and to that end utilises the virtues of loyalty and honour. In contrast, humanitarian obligations require to a larger extent the development of personal integrity and an ability to follow one’s own conscience. The adaptation of military ethics is demonstrated in the case studies of the UK armed forces and the German Bundeswehr. Whereas the moral code of the UK armed forces remains anchored in the principles of the warfighting ethic, the case of the Bundeswehr presents a military ethic closely approximating the humanitarian ideal type.

СТАТИСТИЧЕСКИЙ АНАЛИЗ ВРЕМЕННЫХ ХАРАКТЕРИСТИК ЛОКАЛЬНЫХ КОНФЛИКТОВ И ВОЕННЫХ РАСХОДОВ (НАПРИМЕРЕ РОССИИ И США)

The distribution of military conflicts duration, the calculation of their average and median duration and the forecast of conflicts in future have been conducted based on the statistical analysis of most military conflicts in the XX–XXI centuries (up to the end of 2016). The unpredictability of military conflicts duration and useless of their accurate forecast have been grounded. The portion of periods when military conflicts occurred in the USSR and Russia during ХХ–ХХI centuries has been determined. The dynamics of military expenditure trends and its share in the GDP of the USA and Russia have been analyzed. The tendency to the GDP slowdown associated with the participation in military conflicts has been observed. The trend to increase military expenditures has also been revealed. The forecast of absolute values, GDP growth trends and military expenditures of Russia and the USA has been made using autoregression and trend models. The conception to create a special military fund to accumulate recourses to insure a country from different risks in current and future military campaigns has been suggested. The structure of expenditures on military campaigns has been analyzed. The examples of high costs of a country participation in military conflicts and full-scale wars in the case study of the USA have been given. The influence of military expenditures on an economic growth in a country has been studied based on the criticism of the “broken windows” effect. The positive effect to increase military expenditures on the social-economic development of a country to strengthen the security and to transfer military developments to a civil sector has been observed. The necessity to manage GDP dynamics due to military expenditures increase has been grounded. The future researches will concern the size of a special military fund and the speed of its increase. Keywords military conflict, expenditures, duration, a model, autoregression, resources, forecast, economic growth, GDP, fund, the expected duration, the broken windows theory.

Mercantilism or Liberalism? Economic Autonomy and State-Building in Palestine

¿Puede tener éxito la integración económica entre un socio rico y relativamente poderoso, y un socio pobre y relativamente impotente en el contexto de tensiones de seguridad entre ellos? Este documento evalúa la realidad económica resultante de los tratados de paz concebidos entre Israel y Palestina, países con intenciones de integración e interdependencia, pero que ha dado lugar a una situación de facto de desarraigo y mayor grado de dependencia económica. Se evaluó el contexto del estudio con base en las teorías mercantilistas y liberales del siglo XVII,. El estudio muestra que las condiciones reales que prevalecen en las relaciones entre Palestina e Israel están muy lejos de las de un contexto liberal. Palestina e Israel no son dos estados soberanos y en paz. Más bien, Israel es un estado soberano y bien establecido con una economía impresionantemente desarrollada, con un ejército fuerte, mientras que Palestina es una nación ocupada sin estado formal, instituciones incipientes, una economía en desarrollo y sin ejército. Además, el contexto de las relaciones palestino-israelíes no es de paz, sino de ocupación y guerra militares. Debido a esta brecha de poder entre las dos partes y el contexto de la ocupación y la guerra, el régimen de facto y las políticas que regulan y actualizan las relaciones econó- micas entre ellos han sido muy diferentes de lo que se establece de jure bajo los actuales acuerdos de integración económica. Por lo tanto, los resultados en términos de desarrollo económico y construcción de instituciones para Palestina no han sido en absoluto lo que se esperaría de un proceso de integración económica entre dos estados libres y bien establecidos en paz unos con otros.

Tuberculosis Screening and Control in the US Military in War and Peace.

Tuberculosis (TB) has a well-established association with military populations, but the association of increased TB risk during armed conflict is less certain. This historical review focuses on the evolution of screening practices, the changing epidemiology of TB, and the risk of TB among US military service members during armed conflict from 1885 to the present. Overall, deployed soldiers were not at increased risk for TB compared with nondeployed soldiers in any of these conflicts, and the risk of TB in the US military largely reflected that of the underlying US population. Nevertheless, there are focal risk groups with higher rates of TB in the military, including prisoners of war. Although the principles of TB control in the military conform to those used in the civilian population, unique military exposures during both times of peace and of armed conflict require additional screening, surveillance, and control measures.

‘Gross inefficiency and criminal negligence’: the Services Reconnaissance Department in Timor in 1943–45 and the Darwin war crimes trials in 1946

The post-World War II Australian military war crimes trials of Japanese from 1945–51 have been criticised for using a rule of evidence considerably relaxed from the ordinary requirements of a criminal trial, one that did not require witnesses to give evidence in person. Circumstantial evidence suggests that, in relation to a trial held in Darwin in March 1946 for war crimes committed in Timor, the secretive Special Operations Australia, otherwise known as the Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD), took advantage of the rule. This article argues that the SRD did not allow their members to give evidence in person in an attempt to control and limit the dissemination of information about their operational and security failures in Timor from 1943–45. The SRD operation was adjudged by its own official historian as displaying ‘gross inefficiency and criminal negligence’. While the SRD’s failures were known to select personnel at the time, access restrictions to archival records in the post-war period, including the war crimes trials, meant that the extent of its failures and how it appeared to manage knowledge of them has not been widely known.

THE USAGE OF AMMUNITION CONTAINING DEPLETED URANIUM AND ITS IMPACT ON HUMAN HEALTH FROM THE BIOETHICS PERSPECTIVE

Usage of ammunition containing depleted uranium has been common in recent decades. The aim of present study is to discuss ethical issues resulting from human health effect of depleted uranium. Depleted uranium has devastating effects on the environment, water, soil and living organisms, especially human health. Civilian consist the majority of victims especially individuals that living in affected area meanwhile children are vulnerable than others. Its durability in environment is very long and a source of several health problems for civilians. In this view, these types of weapons and ammunition are very similar to Weapons of Mass Destructive (WMD). So, its usage is not acceptable due to utilitarian and common good viewpoints meanwhile usage of DU in military operation is repugnance to International Humanitarian Law . Finally, we must fulfill all effort to ban usage of ammunition containing depleted uranium in military conflict and wars. Please cite this article as: Khaji A, Mashkoori A The usage of ammunition containing depleted uranium and its impact on human health from bioethics perspective. Iran J Bioethics 2016; 6(19): 181-198.

Edward Kennedy's Long Road to Reims: The Media and the Military in World War II

In May 1945, journalist Edward Kennedy famously bypassed military censorship to break the news of Germany's surrender. No action by an American correspondent during World War II proved more controversial. Disaccredited by the Army and denounced by many of his colleagues, at year's end, Kennedy's career at the Associated Press was over and his reputation in a shambles. Historians have considered the episode a rare instance of an otherwise cooperative media defying military censorship. However, reconstructing Kennedy's career reveals just how fraught media–military relations actually were during that war, and it calls into question the conventional wisdom that the media's relationship with the military was generally amicable during the war, only to break down a generation later in Vietnam.

Gender Difference and the Liberal-Realist Divide: Citizen Opinions of Power, Institutions, and War in Global Comparison

Recent scholarship has raised the hypothesis that gender difference in attitudes toward global issues may be rooted in a broader gender difference in world views, perhaps along the familiar liberal-realist divide. However, evidence for this hypothesis is limited. Most research examines gender difference in the US, and there is an almost exclusive focus on gender difference in attitudes toward military force and war. This paper offers a broader perspective and more cross-national evidence. Specifically, I examine gender difference in opinion surveys from more than forty countries across three categories of global issues: military power and balance of power, global institutions and their legitimacy, and military force and war. Taking the evidence as a whole, my major finding is that gender difference is greatest on issues of violence, force, and war. Second, it is only in the US that gender polarization characterizes general views of international institutions, but there is evidence in global opinion that multilateral military interventions lower gender difference, and women demonstrate less support for expending resources in the pursuit of power.

Re-imagining the Empire of Japan through Japanese Schoolboy Uniforms

Japanese kimono and the Japanese schoolboy uniform continue to interact with, and interrogate, global fashions as contemporary designers continue to call on the tropes of ‘military chic’ (Tonchi) and Japanese-inspired clothing (Kawamura).

“I am a radioactive mutant”: Emergent biological subjectivities at Kazakhstan's Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site

ABSTRACTThe Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site in Kazakhstan was conceived as an experimental landscape where science, technology, Soviet Cold War militarism, and human biology intersected. As of 2015, thousands of people continue to live in rural communities in the immediate vicinity of this polluted landscape. Lacking good economic options, many of them claim to be “mutants” adapted to radiation, while outsiders see them as genetically tainted. In such a setting, how do post‐Soviet social, political, and economic transformations operate with radioactivity to co‐constitute a “mutant” subjectivity? Today, villagers think of themselves as biologically transformed but not disabled, showing that there is no uniform way of understanding the effects of radioactive pollution, including among scientists. [Kazakhstan, Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site, subjectivity, toxic environments, low‐dose radiation, nuclear testing]

Military families and war in the 21st century: comparative perspectives

Military families and war in the 21st century: comparative perspectives

Physicians as Experts of the Integration of war invalids of WWI and WWII

After the First World War the large number of war invalids posed a medical as well as a socio-political problem. This needed to be addressed, at least to some extent, through healthcare providers (Versorgungsbehörden) and reintegration into the labour market. Due to the demilitarization of Germany, this task was taken on by the civil administration, which was dissolved during the time of National Socialism. In 1950, the Federal Republic of Germany enacted the Federal War Victims Relief Act (Bundesversorgungsgesetz), which created a privileged group of civil and military war invalids, whereas other disabled people and victims of national socialist persecution were initially excluded. This article examines the continuities and discontinuities of the institutions following the First World War. A particular focus lies on the groups of doctors which structured this field. How did doctors become experts and what was their expertise?

Bridging between “here/now” and “there/then”: guiding Japanese mainland school “peace education” tours in Okinawa

Anthropologists and geographers have pointed out an inherent dilemma in educational tours, such as fieldtrips and educational “dark” tours, which bring tourists to the places where a tragic event befell. While these tours emphasize a difference between the learner-tourists’ home and their travel destinations as a source of great pedagogical potential, the learner-tourists must also bridge the gap for their educational experience to be meaningful. The article examines “peace education” school tours from Japanese main islands to Okinawa, the site of the tragic Battle of Okinawa in 1945 and the host of massive U.S. military bases today, guided by local peace activists who view tour-guiding, or what they refer to as “peace guiding”, at the sites relevant to the past war and current militarization as a means of political activism. Through two ethnographic snapshots of tour-guiding for the school tours by these “peace guides”, the article demonstrates how the educational tours’ spatiotemporal dilemma can be mediated by engaging and thought-provoking narrative performances by tour guides.

Securing social difference: Militarization and sexual violence in an Afro‐Nicaraguan community

ABSTRACTRenewed violence in Nicaragua in the aftermath of the 1980s Contra War is tied to the drug trade, drug war militarization, and the rise of the postwar security state. State sexual violence in an Afro‐Nicaraguan community under counternarcotics military occupation vividly demonstrates this linkage. I argue that state sexual violence in this case has served as a mechanism for asserting mestizo state sovereignty in a minoritized security zone. The forms of racial and patriarchal power that enabled the violence permeate the social body and structure political life in Nicaragua, and their diffuse nature has made it difficult for local people to find political redress for the abuses of state power that occurred in their community. Politically engaged feminist ethnography can illuminate the relationship between state security projects, preexisting social hierarchies, and endemic forms of insecurity and violence that remain difficult to politicize in postwar Central America.

Military Strategy, Private Information, and War

In conventional crisis bargaining models, bluffing provides the primary rationale for states to misrepresent their private information, and war occurs because strong states are unable to credibly demonstrate strength to their opponents. Here, I argue that military strategy supplies an alternative reason for states to misrepresent their private information. Both strong and weak states may misrepresent themselves because of the battlefield benefits of fighting against an uninformed opponent, who may choose a suboptimal military strategy. Under appropriate conditions, the military gains for concealing information exceed the diplomatic gains available for revealing that information. Thus, states will choose to keep secrets and fight. To demonstrate this, I incorporate military strategy into the standard bargaining framework, showing that military concerns incentivize both strong and weak states to conceal information, even when they are able to reveal that information costlessly and credibly. As in the usual model, war may occur when states underestimate their adversaries, but it may also occur when states overestimate their adversaries. I further show that a mere willingness to fight does not reveal that a state is strong. I conclude the paper with two brief case studies.

Cultural invasion and moral insecurity in thoughts of imam Khamenei

Abstract. The Islamic revolution, as a modern concept and political pattern has made a huge impact on western world’s domination. The imperialism worked out all means of subversion such as riot, coup and military war against the revolution, but Iranian’s resistance under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini made arrogant powers to comprehend how vain it is to threaten Iran by applying harsh and military methods, regarding such deep faith amongst Iranians; On the contrary this provides unity and solidarity for the nation. They, therefore, had to confess to being unsuccessful in using tough strategies against Islamic Republic system and embarked on a more complex fight since the beginning of second decade that is referred to, by ‘the latest approach with the framework of utilizing deliberate methods’ which the great leader reminded about by using different terms such as cultural invasion, cultural ambush or cultural NATO and called the authorities to remedy the situation. Today, what has become problematic is cultural invasion, for instance the growing trend of manipulating cultures specially, Islamic culture, by establishing western way of life that has caused moral insecurity in different communities. Different manifestations of cultural invasion can be divided into two categories: Internal manifestations. For instance; attempts to remove religion, destroying confidence in one’s culture, promotion of western thoughts and ideology, etc. and external manifestations. For instance; making countries lag behind in all aspects (scientific, industrial), economic deprivation, cultural affairs’ authorities negligence, etc. In this essay we will discuss the abovementioned aspects of cultural invasion and propose solutions to handle the situation and we will proceed with considering four different political dialectics for cultural invasion from Ayatollah Khamenei’s point of view that are observational, reflective, ideal or desired and prescriptive or contemplative dialectic. The main focus in the first part, where we will analyze three concepts as a single conceptual network, based on crisis theory while all concepts will be processed on the basis of two concepts; the world of Islam and enemy-centric view. So the issue that is going to be assessed is cultural invasion as the major problem our society greatly suffers from.