State Military Forces Research Articles

МЕТОДОЛОГІЧНИЙ ПІДХІД ДО ВИЗНАЧЕННЯ ФАКТОРІВ, ЯКІ ВПЛИВАЮТЬ НА ЯКІСТЬ ОРГАНІЗАЦІЇ СПЕЦІАЛЬНОЇ (БОЙОВОЇ) ПІДГОТОВКИ ЧАСТИН (ПІДРОЗДІЛІВ) ТЕРИТОРІАЛЬНОЇ ОБОРОНИ ЗА РЕЗУЛЬТАТАМИ ПІДГОТОВКИ

The article is devoted to the consideration of new approaches to determining the factors that significantly influence the organization of special (combat) training of separate brigades of territorial defense of the Land Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to perform assigned tasks taking into account the specifics of their formation and training. The influence of conditions and factors on the level of compliance of the military forces system with the designated tasks, as well as the organization of effective training of its components to carry out the tasks for the purpose changes depending on the changes in the military-political situation, level of development of the state economy and military forces of the opposing parties, state of infrastructure, operational equipment of the territory of the country, etc. Considering the significant variability in the definition of conditions and factors that in general affect the organization of training and combat readiness of military units and troops of the armed forces, We can agree with the above-mentioned researchers and conditionally group these diverse conditions into two groups of factors - external (objective) and internal (sub-individual), which are characterized by certain indicators. Therefore, in contrast to the proposed approach, we propose to divide the objective and subjective factors into general, basic, the primary and indirect influence factors, which exert varying degrees of influence, both on the training of the armed forces and on the performance of designated special (combat) tasks. In order to identify the essence and importance of the influence of external and internal factors on the organization of special (combat) training of the special forces and combat service units, it is necessary to carry out their all-round analysis. Mechanically transferring the experience of other countries to national realities will be ineffective, but the implementation of certain areas of organization of training of military personnel and reservists can lead to an increase in efficiency of the training system for the mobilization contingent of territorial defense units. The identified objective factors and their indicators are general and only indirectly influence the quality of training of the special forces and military units and their further performance of the tasks assigned to them. Keywords: territorial defense, territorial defense units, factors of influence on special (combat) training.

Understanding public blame attributions when private contractors are responsible for civilian casualties

When the actions of private military contractors result in civilian casualties during war, who do citizens blame? This study argues blame attributions can be shaped by people’s inferences about the motivation of actors operating on behalf of the government. Using national survey data, this study randomizes whether casualties are the result of state military forces or private military forces contracted by the government. The results show that inferences about the motivation of state military forces insulate both military personnel and public officials from blame, while inferences about the motivation of private contractors disperse blame onto contractor personnel and the government. The results provide new theoretical insight into how citizens evaluate government performance and the potential drawbacks of utilizing private contractors to achieve public policy objectives.

TigerSwan at Standing Rock: Ethics of Private Military Use Against an Environmental-Justice Movement

In 2016, thousands of people, led by Oceti Sakowin Tribal members, gathered at the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota in an attempt to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The movement aroused international media attention, mass support from a wide range of individuals and environmental groups, and political debates regarding Indigenous rights, climate change, fossil fuel reliance, water protection, and corporate power. Ultimately, 10 months into the movement, it was halted by the US federal government and the pipeline was installed. During the movement, state and federal military forces worked alongside a private military and security contractor (PMSC), TigerSwan, hired by owners of the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners. This case study addresses the ethics of the use of private military against Indigenous-led environmental activists at Standing Rock. Readers will review the modern rise and use of privatized militia, examine specific tactics used by TigerSwan at Standing Rock, and consider the ethics surrounding principles of transparency, accountability, regulation, and the potential risk for increased violence against citizens. A brief historical overview of Oceti Sakowin’s political resistance to US federal land appropriation and corporate exploitation is provided, as well as an analysis of future implications for Indigenous-led environmental justice movements. With this case study, instructors, students, and researchers can debate and analyze the ethical dilemmas regarding the use of PMSCs to target environmental justice movements.

Sobre la implementación de la Justicia Especial para la Paz en Colombia

Objetivo: este artículo es una invitación a reflexionar sobre las estratagemas que pretenden limitar o anular el accionar de la Justicia Especial para la Paz (jep). Asimismo, sobre las consecuencias nefastas de estas prácticas no solo para la sociedad, sino, incluso, para quienes las promueven.
 Metodología: con el ánimo de reflexionar sobre estas posturas es importante considerar los diferentes modelos de justicia transicional.
 Resultados: en un conflicto interno como el colombiano, el cual inundó de violencia a todo un país por más de 50 años, son muchos los actores que intervienen. Entre estos, algunos han sido reconocidos plenamente, mientras otros aún permanecen en el anonimato. Por una parte, dentro del primer conjunto, existen muchos exmilitantes (tanto de las Fuerzas Militares estatales como de la insurgencia y de grupos paramilitares) interesados en resolver su situación jurídica por medio del Tribunal de Justicia Especial para la Paz (jep). Por otra, quienes no han sido procesados, condenados o siquiera expuestos públicamente como responsables de actos de violencia en el marco del conflicto, despliegan toda una serie de estrategias con el fin de evitar que el proceso de transición sea efectivo.
 Conclusiones: la ceguera política, en un contubernio perverso con la ignorancia sobre los principios y modelos explicativos que orientan la justicia transicional, nubla toda racionalidad que permita el tránsito efectivo de una sociedad con un conflicto interno a una con una paz estable y duradera.

Fragmentation and cooperation: the evolution of organized crime in Mexico

Some researchers suggest that the observed boom in the levels of violence in Mexico since 2008 are a consequence of placing federal military forces in states with a significant organized crime presence. However, little has been said about the role of the changeable, competitive, and violent nature of criminal organizations on this increasing violence. Using the literature on inter- and intra-state conflicts as matter of analogy to explain organized crime developments in Mexico, fragmentation and cooperation seem to be determinant forces that alter the equilibrium within Mexican criminal groups, affecting their territorial control. By using a private dataset gathered by the Drug Policy Program at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching (CIDE), we examine the evolution of criminal organizations in Mexico by focusing on their different alliances and fragmentations from December 2006 to December 2011. Our analysis suggests that violence is a consequence not only of the law enforcement actions, but also of the fragmentation and cooperation within and between private groups.

Defeating Violent Nonstate Actors

ABSTRACT: The role of landpower is as integral to US defense needs as landpower short of war. But what about the role of landpower between these two in environments in which violent nonstate actors dominate? In such cases, it is best to devolve opposing violent nonstate actors as quickly as possible so policing forces can implement follow-on strategies. Landpower can help provide security conditions under which these strategies can be facilitated. ********** And just like their allies in Al Qaeda, this new Taliban is more network than army, more of a community of interest than a corporate structure. GEN Stanley A. McChrystal (1) Landpower represents the application of force generated by conventional militaries--be they classical Roman legionnaires, medieval European knights, or modern US soldiers. Such power is generated by land forces, essentially the [p]ersonnel, weapon systems, vehicles, and support elements operating on land to accomplish assigned missions and tasks. (2) Boots-on-the-ground integrated into Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs) represents our state-of-the art operational approach to ground combat operations. In turn, official publications define landpower and what it influences: [L]and power.... The ability--by threat, force, or occupation--to gain, sustain, and exploit control over land, resources, and people. [It is] the primary means to impose the Nation's will on an enemy, by force when necessary; establish and maintain a stable environment that sets the conditions for political and economic development;.... (3) The integral nature of landpower to US defense needs--essentially in interstate war--is well recognized, as is the role of the United Sates Army as the nation's principal land force. (4) The contribution of landpower short of war--for influence, deterrence, and humanitarian purposes--is also well accepted. More problematic is the relationship of landpower to environments in which violent nonstate actors dominate. Far less obvious is the role of landpower in irregular warfare, intrastate war waged by belligerents who are not states--along with its attendant organized criminal, illicit economic, and governmental corruption components. (5) The lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan suggest that, while operational successes in such campaigns may be won at a high cost in US treasure, they are not economically sustainable. Further, the strategic goals of those campaigns--the desired results which would fulfill the multinational security objectives--could only be partially met. While the Ba'athist and Taliban governments have been removed from power--and more importantly al Qaeda forces decimated--both states are fragile, suffer from tribal and sectarian violence, and are beset with dysfunctional governments. At best, the campaigns waged in Iraq and Afghanistan can be considered only partial victories, at worst, partial failures. (6) With these perceptions in mind, this article will look at the relationship of landpower to violent nonstate actors. In order to do this, these actors first will be characterized along with their landpower-like attributes. Second, an overview of state policing and military forces will be provided. Third, landpower-related application strategies will be discussed. This article will end with some lessons concerning the need for networks when confronting violent nonstate actors and will provide a few cautionary remarks about democratic capacity building in the age of austerity now upon us. Violent Nonstate Actors The threats represented by violent nonstate actors are as old as the earliest states. Bandits, raiders, and pirates have plagued civilized peoples around the globe for millennia. A contemporary view of these actors is that they exist along a threat continuum from that of common criminals to criminal-soldiers (see Figure 1). [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] Criminals are at the left side of the continuum and are characterized as having limited violence and corruption capabilities. …

El eterno retorno de Marquetalia: sobre el mito fundacional de las Farc-EP

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17227/01234870.37folios149.166 The aim of this paper is to review the influence of the story of the origin of the Farc-EP in the ongoing armed conflict with the state military forces, deepening in shaping what has been called the “founding myth of Marquetalia” from the available literature on the insurgent group. Methodologically, a documentary analysis was done from the perspective of discourse analysis with a socio-cognitive approach. The results highlighted the components of the mythic tale that survive in the current documents and, by extension, the ideological Fariano framework, as well as it approaches the construction of the subjectivity of the militant, through the definition of the ideal heroic guerrilla. We conclude that the founding myth condenses the historical, emotional and sociocognitive, elevating the story of the origin to the symbol and returning to it whenever it is required to strengthen, define or regulate the guerrilla morale.

Problematising the Role of Private Security Companies in Small Wars

This article sets out to investigate the impact of Private Security Companies (PSCs)1 on civil wars. In doing so, it has taken an historical line, outlining the way the industry has developed from when it first emerged on the international stage in the late 1960s, to the present. Importantly, the article is able to identify three broad strands of involvement in civil wars that include substituting for state military forces, propping up weak governments, and supplementing state militaries. Moreover, in each of these situations, the involvement of PSCs raises both moral and legal questions, as well as challenges for government. This is especially so in light of their activities in Iraq and Afghanistan and the likelihood that governments will increasingly turn to them for niche capabilities.

Legality of a Request by the Interim Iraqi Government for the Continued Presence of United States Military Forces

Applies the post-Charter law of intervention by invitation to the official request by the Iraqi interim government - which was not fully sovereign at the time - that the United States and its allies maintain their military forces in Iraq.

Where the Girls Are: the management of venereal disease by United States military forces in Vietnam.

Where the Girls Are:The Management of Venereal Disease by United States Military Forces in Vietnam Sue Sun (bio) Introduction Military health-education films form an intriguing branch of cinema from the standpoint of ideology critique. Inasmuch as they serve military purposes, assisting in the constitution of dependable soldier-subjects (i.e., subjects of the United States military), they are produced and received as unabashed works of propaganda. On the other hand, as films serving purposes of health education, they are yoked to the imperatives of a certain realism, a communication of medical knowledge regarding actual conditions in the field that soldier-viewers can put into effective practice. This contradiction, and the special pressures it exerts on cinematic form, manifest especially graphically in the military sex-education materials of the Vietnam period. Where the Girls Are—VD in Southeast Asia (hereinafter referred to as Girls) was commissioned as a basic sexual-education film just as United States involvement in Vietnam was deepening.1 Completed as the American military presence reached its height in Southeast Asia, it was first shown to overseas air force personnel and shortly thereafter adopted by the United States Army as well. The film served as an important introduction for new recruits to the culture of Vietnam and was intended to provide realistic medical information for troops on the ground. However, it also demonstrates the mixed impulses at work in the armed forces' efforts to control soldiers' sexual behavior. Its complicated production history and uneven cinematic form provide evidence of the larger mission involved in the making of the ideal American soldier. The film emphasizes a message of psychological and [End Page 66] physical prophylaxis combined with a stereotypical portrayal of Vietnamese women as promiscuous and sexually available. It proceeds on the basis of numerous formulaic categorizations, most of which reinforced the unequal social and economic power relations between American men and Vietnamese women. Susan Jeffords, in a study of masculinization and representation of the Vietnam War, argues that "an important way to read the war, perhaps the most significant way when we think about war itself, is as a construction of gendered interests." In her discussion, Jeffords points out that "patterns of power relations established in the domination of men over women are employed to set systems of dominance over other groups as well."2 In the history of Western cinema, visual techniques have proven a durable means of constructing gendered patterns of dominance. In Girls, the male soldier's dominance over an invented version of Vietnam is emphasized by a cinematic vocabulary that reinforces the centrality of the visiting soldier over the exotic and feminized world he encounters. This willfully disconnected fantasy of visual consumption reinscribes traditional gender relations in an international context. The power of these scenes draws upon a long history of cinematic reification of a passive and sexualized female body.3 Relying on these familiar patterns, Girls reenacts the customary power structure of traditional gender relations in Western cinema within the context of Vietnam. This essay examines the effects of this ideological backdrop on the deployment of sexual-health policy. As in other wars, military efforts to address sexually transmitted disease during the Vietnam War were complicated by overlapping and competing interests aimed at enforcing a certain visual and psychological stereotype of American masculinity and soldiery. What makes Girls unique is its contemporary setting in the international and interracial context of Vietnam in the early 1970s, which is exploited to dramatic effect throughout the film. The particular anxieties associated with America's long and frustrating history of military involvement in Vietnam are transmitted, in part, through a strategy of prophylactic venereal-disease management based on instilling fear of Vietnam—and Vietnamese women—in the minds of American soldiers. Addressing VD Although the official policy of the United States Department of Defense has always been "to suppress prostitution whenever possible," [End Page 67] by the time of the Vietnam War, sexual adventure with foreign women was regarded by most military leaders as an inevitable part of the modern military experience.4 The 1960s saw a general relaxation of American societal mores governing sexuality, with concomitant effects on the attitude of the personnel who...

Protecting the health of United States military forces in Afghanistan: applying lessons learned since the Gulf War.

Four weeks after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, US combat troops began bombing missions over Afghanistan in Operation Enduring Freedom. Additional Reserve and National Guard personnel were called to active duty to support the war effort and to ensure security throughout the United States. All of these troops will require health care and assistance during and after this war on terrorism. They will benefit from recent federal legislation that has increased access to health care and from the changes implemented by the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs since the Gulf War. An innovative Defense Department "Force Health Protection" strategy places greater emphasis on helping service members and families stay healthy and fit and on preventing injury and illness. The two agencies also have developed new post-deployment clinical practice guidelines, established deployment research centers, and made further improvements in preventive medicine, health surveillance, and risk communication and are thus better prepared for this newest generation of war veterans.

Herbert M. Howe. Ambiguous Order: Military Forces in African States. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2001. ix + 316 pp. Bibliography. Index. $55.00. Cloth.

Herbert M. Howe. Ambiguous Order: Military Forces in African States. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2001. ix + 316 pp. Bibliography. Index. $55.00. Cloth.

Ambiguous Order: Military Forces in African States

Ambiguous Order: Military Forces in African States

Ambiguous Order: Military Forces in African States

Ambiguous Order: Military Forces in African States

Ambiguous Order: Military forces in African states, by Herbert M. Howe. London: Lynne Rienner, 2000. xi + 316 pp. £41.50 hardback. ISBN 1‐55587‐931‐4

Journal Article Ambiguous Order: Military forces in African states, by Herbert M. Howe. London: Lynne Rienner, 2000. xi + 316 pp. £41.50 hardback. ISBN 1‐55587‐931‐4 Get access Douglas Rimmer Douglas Rimmer Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 101, Issue 402, 1 January 2002, Pages 131–132, https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/101.402.131 Published: 01 January 2002

Ambiguous Order: Military Forces in African States

Ambiguous Order: Military Forces in African States

Ambiguous Order: Military Forces in African States. Herbert M. Howe, Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner, 2001, 316 pp. $55

(2001). Ambiguous Order: Military Forces in African States. Herbert M. Howe, Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner, 2001, 316 pp. $55. Survival: Vol. 43, No. 4, pp. 156-156.

Ambiguous Order: Military Forces in African States. By Herbert M. Howe. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2001. 291p. $55.00.

Ambiguous Order: Military Forces in African States. By Herbert M. Howe. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2001. 291p. $55.00.

Book Review: United States Military Forces and Installations in Europe

Book Review: United States Military Forces and Installations in Europe

A Brief Survey of Law in Brazil

Using the anthropological method of legal pluralism, the author in this paper briefly surveys the development of law and legal institutions in Brazil. He shows how weak state legal organization in the Colonial period led to the development of private police forces and informal rule making, a pattern which continues to the present. Attempts in the last century to create a centralized Imperial state based on the development of a well trained judicial bureaucracy failed due to the power of the export oriented coffee aristocracy. The “First Republic” saw the creation of powerful state military police forces built to defend the interests of local oligarchies. These elite institutions continue as the formal legal system of the country, but are not adequate to the modern urban industrial society of today's Brazil. The development of new, more democratic, legal forms is essential.