Weapon Of War Research Articles

MEDIA AS A WEAPON OF NARRATIVE BUILDING: A CASE OF FIFTH GENERATION WAR

In this new era, warfare techniques have changed as demand for the new modern world. This is an economic, political, and social connectivityoriented century where the media is the crucial instrument of hybrid warfare. The mindset, narrative, perception, and information are the primary weapons of hybrid war or media warfare. This war can destroy a country’s culture from the inside and disturb people’s beliefs and views; moreover, it can also impact a country’s economy with high intensity. People are expected to go rogue and become rebels against their state or nation. Usually, the reasons for this war are frustration, lack of authentic reason, and or absence of political objective or ideology to serve the country. This war has a huge impact on people’s minds and thinking for a long time. It separates people into groups and segments believing in different propaganda and fallacy. The research is a qualitative analysis of previously published relevant documents. The study concludes that media has played an immense role in building or shaping a narrative that one wants since media is among the powerful weapons used to converge or diverge people’s minds against one idea.

When the pigeons refuse to fly: Legal perpesctives on the deployment of chemical weapons in Syria

In recent times, several hostilities have taken place all over the world. However, these hostilities have been non-international in character and outlook, with the attendant gory effects more pronounced in the 20th and 21st Century warfare. The type of weaponry engaged in such hostilities have been in the spotlight in International Humanitarian Law (IHL). The deployment of chemical weapons in the Syrian war and its adverse effect on the civilian population have become a global concern. The effectiveness of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development and Production, Stockpiling and use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction, and other legal instruments relating to the protection of victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts, have been questioned. Although, scholars had in times past advocated for the restriction and prohibition of the use of chemical weapons in armed conflicts, the Syrian situation has again exposed the need to devote urgent attention to providing more effective sanctions for perpetrators of this heinous crime. This paper seeks to explore the legal implications of the deployment of Chemical Weapons in Syria, by canvassing arguments for more concerted efforts to guard against the use of Chemical Weapons in armed conflicts and ensure more adequate protection for civilians. This will give effect to and promote the core values of IHL.

Measuring public knowledge on nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War: dimensionality and measurement invariance across eight European countries

Research on public opinion and international security has extensively examined attitudes toward nuclear weapons, but the diffusion of basic knowledge about nuclear weapons among the everyday citizens has nevertheless been mostly missed. This study proposes a working definition and advances a measurement model of knowledge on nuclear weapons in the general public. It analyzes data from two novel surveys conducted in 2018 (N = 6559) and 2019 (N = 6227) where respondents from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom answered a web survey on attitudes and factual knowledge on nuclear weapons. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic models are used to examine the dimensionality and to assess the measurement invariance of a scale of knowledge about nuclear weapons. A bifactor measurement model, where a strong general factor represents the construct of interest and specific factors account for the presence of testlets due to questionnaire design, is established and validated. Configural, metric, and scalar invariance are established across the eight samples. The findings indicate that knowledge about nuclear weapons in the general, non-expert public can be reliably measured cross-nationally.

Wounds & Weapons in the Napoleonic War: a database of the Peninsular War

The research supporting the authors’ book Officiers de Napoleon tues ou blesses pendant la Guerre d’Espagne (1808-1814) has uncovered a database of over 4,000 entries where the wounds, and the weapons that produced them, are described in some detail. This information can be cross-referenced with any of the other data in the book. The note includes tables relating the location of the wound, the different weapons causing the wound and the breakdown by arm (infantry, artillery, cavalry). The authors are ready to provide a suitable version of the databaseto researchers working in the field.

One Health approaches to improve refugee health

One Health approaches to improve refugee health

Mechanically excellent nacre-inspired protective steel-concrete composite against hypervelocity impacts

Steel–concrete (SC) composite widely used in military defensive project is due to its impressive mechanical properties, long-lived service, and low cost. However, the growing use of hypervelocity kinetic weapons in the present war puts forward higher requirements for the anti-explosion and penetration performance of military protection engineering. Here, inspired by the special ‘brick-and-mortar’ (BM) structural feature of natural nacre, we successfully construct a nacre-inspired steel–concrete (NISC) engineering composite with 2510 kg/m3, possessing nacre-like lamellar architecture via a bottom-up assembling technique. The NISC engineering composite exhibits nacreous BM structural similarity, high compressive strength of 68.5 MPa, compress modulus of 42.0 GPa, Mohs hardness of 5.5, Young’s modulus of 41.5 GPa, and shear modulus of 18.4 GPa, higher than pure concrete. More interestingly, the hypervelocity impact tests reveal the penetration capability of our NISC target material is obviously stronger than that of pure concrete, enhanced up to about 46.8% at the striking velocity of 1 km/s and approximately 30.9% at the striking velocity of 2 km/s, respectively, by examining the damages of targets, the trajectories, penetration depths, and residual projectiles. This mechanically integrated enhancement can be attributed to the nacre-like BM structural architecture derived from assembling the special steel-bar array frame-reinforced concrete platelets. This study highlights a key role of nacre-like structure design in promoting the enhanced hypervelocity impact resistance of steel–concrete composites.

Efficacy of indigenous charms as weapons of war

Conflicts and wars in the contemporary world are often fought through the use of modern and sophisticated weapons. The forces using such modern weapons are often regarded as having an upper hand especially when their opponents possess what is regarded as inferior weaponry. However, modern weapons can be overpowered as evidenced in the Kamwina Nsapu conflict in the Kasai region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The insurgency of Kamwina Nsapu militia in the Kasai Central Province sought to bring accountability to the modern political leadership and address bad governance practices. The case of the Kamwina Nsapu revealed the use of charms or fetishes (manga) to address the problem that had emerged in the Luba community. Different types of indigenous charms (manga) were used: trees and sticks were used as guns; slippers as telephones; and fruits as grenades. Militia were able to cut off heads of enemies from a distance with their bare hands and they teleported from one place to another at will. These activities were made possible by the use of charms (manga), such as the tshiota fire and nkwembe.

Arms intervention: Weimar Germany, post-imperial influence and weapons trafficking in warlord China

The Treaty of Versailles aimed to strip Germany of both its colonial empire and the global reach of its arms industry. Yet the conflicts in warlord-era China led to the reestablishment of German influence on the other side of the world via the arms trade. Weimar Germany had declared a policy of neutrality and refused to take sides in the Chinese civil war in an effort to demonstrate that as a post-colonial power, it could now act as an honest broker. From below, however, traffickers based in Germany and German merchants in China worked to evade Versailles restrictions and an international arms embargo to supply warlords with weapons of war. Although the German state officially aimed to remain neutral, criminal elements, rogue diplomats, black marketeers and eventually military adventurers re-established German influence in the region by becoming key advisors and suppliers to the victorious Guomindang. Illicit actors in Germany and China proved to be crucial in linking the two countries and in eventually overturning the arms control regimes that were imposed in the wake of World War I.

Structural and Symbolic Violence Exacerbates the Risks and Consequences of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence for Forced Migrant Women

While much attention is focused on rape as a weapon of war, evidence shows that forced migrant women and girls face increased risks of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) both during and following forced displacement. In this paper, we argue that gendered forms of structural and symbolic violence enable and compound the harms caused by interpersonal SGBV against forced migrant women and girls. These forms of violence are encountered in multiple contexts, including conflict and post-conflict settings, countries of refuge, and following resettlement. This paper illustrates the consequences of resultant cumulative harms for individuals and communities, and highlights the importance of considering these multiple, intersecting harms for policy and practice.

Love Is in the Air?

A novel artwork appeared and dissolved in the air above the Welsh town of Llandudno in 2018. Vapour trails crafted by jets belonging to the RAF's 'Red Arrow' team, created an unlikely image for the assembled crowd: that of a huge love heart. This paper re-presents a 'grounded' ethnographic account of this moment - performed as part of Armed Forces Day - for a PhD thesis in 2019 - but places it in a new historical and contextual context. This visual essay examines this creative medium as one able to capture political territories through instilling different 'atmospheres' amongst spectators on the ground (Anderson, 2009: Duff, 2015). Affects included awe and fear as well as admiration and respect. Through my own account of absorbing sights and sounds made both on the ground and in the air, I argue that this display was a strategic response by the UK government to a growing independence movement in Wales, one which has long rejected militarism and the British State. Performed in a post-Brexit period of constitutional uncertainly, aerial theatre can be seen in this instance as 'spectacle to project images of future warfare and national power' (Holman, 2019). The air display created a 'hostile environment' as much as it evoked a sense of collective belonging to any United Kingdom. This aerial performance was one which showed how weapons of war have been used as the unlikely authoring instruments of heartfelt warmth, part of a populist political discoure that invokes displays of love and loyalty through performative threats and force.

Основные аспекты травматических поражений глаз в условиях войн и военных конфликтов

Представленные в обзоре данные литературы свидетельствуют о том, что в связи с применением в современных войнах и военных конфликтах высокоразрушительных видов оружия частота и тяжесть повреждений глаз в историческом аспекте постоянно растет. Одной из самых частых причин травматического повреждения мозга и глаз, которые по сравнению с органами грудной и брюшной полостей ­обычно менее защищены, является взрывная волна. Травматическим повреждениям глаз присущи минно-взрывной двусторонний характер поражения одновременно нескольких структур глаза, наличие внутриглазных инородных тел, комбинированных и сопутствующих повреждений по сравнению с монокулярным поражением отдельных структур глаза без сопутствующих и комбинированных повреждений в мирное время. Среди оперативных вмешательств большой удельный вес составляют витреоретинальные вмешательства. Пострадавших при медицинской сортировке следует направлять непосредственно в лечебные учреждения, оснащенные соответствующим оборудованием и кадрами, владеющими методиками оперативных вмешательств на переднем и заднем сегментах глаза. Залогом успешных результатов лечения травматических повреждений глаз, полученных в боевых условиях, является своевременное проведение первичной хирургической обработки и витреоретинального вмешательства, плодотворное сотрудничество военных и гражданских медиков.

Japan’s Poison Gas Legacy: Industrial Disease, Environmental Remediation, and the Challenge of Abandoned Chemical Weapons (ACW) in East Asia

This essay examines two aspects of the legacy of Japan’s manufacture and deployment of chemical weapons (CW) in World War II: the medical issues that arose among workers in Japan’s chemical industry related to weapons manufacturing and the long-term environmental impact of abandoned chemical weapons (ACW) remaining in China and Japan. The essay argues that these subjects have received inadequate attention due largely to three factors: the secrecy imposed upon the matter beginning in the immediate postwar period; the bureaucratic inertia that characterized the Japanese government’s attitude toward industrial workers during and after the war as well Chinese victims who suffered injuries as a result of ACW in China; and political constraints imposed by postwar agreements. Consequently, the victims - both Chinese and Japanese - have not been adequately compensated by either government. Nor has this subject received much attention in Korea, another site of Japan’s industrial manufacturing during the war, largely because the munitions plants in question were predominantly located in what is today North Korea. The issue of ACW related illnesses and deaths remains politically charged and controversial, despite efforts of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997 to address it.

How Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Affects the Settlement Experiences Among Yazidi Refugee Women in Canada

Gender and sexual violence is historically used as a weapon of war. Yazidi women resettled in Canada directly from northern Iraq after the 2014 Daesh-led attacks in the Sinjar region. This direct resettlement experience makes the Yazidi refugees a very distinct group from a resettlement perspective. The severe human rights violations and sexual and gender-based violence they have experienced has affected both their physical and mental health. However, research on pre-arrival trauma and its impact on resettlement has been limited to individual post-arrival psychological interventions without considering how pre-arrival trauma experiences may affect their overall settlement experience. Our paper focuses on the settlement challenges and needs of 21 Yazidi women resettled in the four Canadian cities with the largest Yazidi communities. Because the resettlement of the Yazidi often happened within weeks after their release from captivity, the structural deficiencies within the Canadian settlement network revealed challenges for resettlement organizations in terms of how they assist those with acute trauma. We argue that although the Canadian resettlement program is generous in many ways, it falls short of adequately addressing trauma at the acute stage, especially sexual and gender-based violence as experienced by the Yazidi women and children. Our analysis reveals that single-female-headed families, particularly those with young children, have a difficult time navigating the resettlement system in Canada. We have identified the resettlement experiences of Yazidi women and recommend resettlement to happen in three stages, to account for the acute level of trauma this particular group faces. The first stage lasts between six weeks and three months as many women require more dedicated support from settlement providers for housing, language, and health. The second stage is a period of adjustment which occurs within the next eighteen months, depending on the available support these refugee women have to navigate the different settlement services. The third stage begins sometime after the second year when many women can start navigating the social support, education and health systems independently. Thinking of how SGBV may influence the resettlement process in these three stages is a good way for us to consider the additional assistance that may be needed and how they may better access resettlement services.

The COVID-19 War in Ceramic Arts: Navigating Aesthetic and Symbolic Expressions

This paper reports on the production of a ceramic installation artwork that explores the story of the COVID-19 pandemic experienced by people throughout the world. The work is a symbolic expression in the form of a set of ceramic art models that portray the story of the battle between positive and negative values, expressed through a 3-dimensional visual ceramic installation consisting of an arrangement of statues that portray an imaginary battle between COVID-19 troops and Lord Krishna. The method used in the process of creating this work was a creative approach that combined appreciation and interpretation of the object of the creative idea. The artwork was made of plastic clay taken from the southern area of Malang regency, East Java, Indonesia, which was formed using a manual technique of direct hand massage and fired at a temperature of 900 °C. The COVID-19 phenomenon is imagined and visualized as a ceramic installation sculpture consisting of the imaginative figures of COVID-19 troops, led by the king of COVID-19 who is shown fighting with Lord Krishna. The result is a visual expression of the COVID-19 troops and their king, in several imaginative forms, carrying various weapons of war, in combat with the imaginary figure of Lord Krishna. The distinction of this work is its portrayal of a battle between positive and negative forces that have become a part of human life during the COVID-19 pandemic, expressed in a symbolic visual narrative through the arrangement of a set of ceramic sculptures.

Behind the weapon of war: sexual violence in wartime as a reflection of social attitudes towards women in peacetime

ABSTRACT This article looks at practices of sexual violence that were prevalent during the period before the conflict in 1996 in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and shows how they have contributed to war-related sexual violence. The findings are based on 30 semi-structured interviews with men and women who directly or indirectly witnessed sexual violence in South Kivu province prior to the 1996 war. The findings suggest that prior to its use as a weapon of war in armed conflicts, sexual violence was already embedded in gender norms that regard women as subordinate to men and in the traditional perception of masculinity. Although sexual violence may have been less prevalent before the war, it was nonetheless perpetrated as a tactic for coercing marriage, correcting and punishing women, and sexual gratification. This article argues that in addition to ending armed conflicts, anti-sexual violence interventions have to take into account the sociocultural factors underlying this phenomenon and promote gender equality and justice.

Airpower in Counterinsurgency: Analysis of the Nigerian Air Force’s Response to The Boko Haram Insurgency in the Northeast

This paper examined the role of airpower in counterinsurgency with particular focus on analyzing the Nigerian Air Force’s response to the Boko Haram insurgency in the north-east. The paper adopted the documentary method and sourced data from mainly secondary sources. The Nigeria Air Force ’s operations against the insurgent group commenced in 2010, as part of the armed forces operations within the purview of the Joint Task Force. It was found out that in spite of the significant contribution made by the Nigeria Air Force , there still are challenges to Nigeria Air Force ’s counterinsurgency efforts. Firstly, Nigeria Air Force faces logistical problems such as a dearth of spare parts, shortage of precision-guided ammunition, and inadequate trained personnel that can operate and maintain sophisticated war weapons. Secondly, there is a paucity of systems to initiate and maintain a systematic kill-chain that will encompass searching for the adversary, maintaining intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance presence over them, and subduing them and obtaining data for purposes of analysis. It was recommended, among others that for the Nigeria Air Force to be more effective in the northeast operations, there should be increased spending on purchasing more modern platforms and weaponry that are pliable in contemporary air power considerations.

Theoretical and practical aspects of the identification of the bladed weapon on the example of the SG 98/05 bayonet to the Mauser rifle based on metal science research

The article examines the studies of the bayonet fragment with severe damages of metal found in the city Kremenchuk (Ukraine) in one of the canals on the outskirts of the city, near the Dnipro River. Theoretical research to study blade weapons of the World War I period and the typology of the bayonets of that period, which made it possible to put forward an assumption about the possible identification of the object as a modified bayonet to the Mauser rifle has been carried out. Metal science expert examination was based on X-ray fluorescence spectrometry to determine the concentration of elements in the sample from the cleaned part of the blade. Analysis of the chemical composition showed that the blade was made of hardened carbon steel alloyed with silicon, chromium, manganese, nickel and copper. Measure results of the chemical composition of the object correspond to steel for castings of grade 55L with an average blade hardness of 42 HRC. Manufacturing technology of the casting corresponds to the end of the XIX – the beginning of the XX century with the use of converter production. The bayonet blade was subjected to strengthening heat treatment in the form of hardening and medium tempering. Metallographic analysis showed that the research object of blade fragment suffered corrosion cracking between crystals or along the body of grains, indicating a long stay in silty deposits. The identification of the research object has been carried out using applied technologies based on visual inspection with a description of the state of conservation and comparison with the results reflected in scientific periodicals; metal science expertise; determination of weight and size characteristics and their compliance with the original, including experimental reconstruction, which identifies the preserved fragment with the original drawing at the control points. A comparison of the chemical composition of the blade steel and the “Haenel” steel, differing in concentration and additional alloying elements has been made. The remains of the royal monogram imprint of the stamp and the absence of the regimental stamp have become the basis for searching through catalogs of registered bayonets. This allowed the identification of the object under study as part of the German imperial modified bayonet model 1898/1905 for the Mauser rifle, which was manufactured in the period from 1915 to 1918. Prospects for further research are seen in an increase in the number of metal science examinations for more accurate identification of discovered specimens.

Ancient Roman Naval Rams as Objects of Phallic Power

AbstractPolyvalent meanings behind naval ram displays were prevalent and ingrained in the Roman world, especially at Octavian’s Campsite Memorial for the Actian War. Naval rams and their display alluded to gender and power discourses within Roman society. These discourses included Roman notions of sex, penetration, domination, phallus size, and ideas of achieved hierarchies of masculinity. Analyzing ram displays through Roman perceptions of gender and sexuality, specifically concerning ancient masculinity, reveals that rams functioned not only as weapons of war but also as metaphorical phalloi that embodied and projected immense power. Octavian’s ram display at Actium was used to effeminize Marc Antony through the successful defeat and figurative castration of his fleet, which was done by cutting off the rams from the bows of the warships. By exhibiting the rams as such, Octavian asserted his own impenetrability and masculine virtue, which simultaneously promoted Antony’s penetrability and lack of masculinity. In choosing the largest rams, Octavian implied that his masculine prowess was invincible. The ram display unveiled Octavian’s phallic dominion over all other Greeks and Romans. As Octavian’s naval ram display was the largest and most impressive of the ancient world, he effectively rendered all previous ram dedications subordinate to his own.

Optimal interception strategy of air defence missile system considering multiple targets and phases

Due to the rapid development and wide application of air attack weapons, air defence missiles against them are increasingly important and have become the main air defence weapons in modern war. However, interception strategy of air defence missile system is ignored in previous studies. Thus, using the combinatorial optimization, this paper proposes a methodology to optimize the strategy of ADMS in a missile-target interception process in order to minimize the expected costs for defender. According to the practice, the considered process has multiple targets and multiple phases, and the expected costs are composed of the loss caused by targets and the cost for intercept missiles. Two numerical examples are presented to illustrate the proposed methodology. The results of the examples show that interception strategies have a great impact on the expected costs of ADMS during a missile-target interception process.

D is for democracy?

As part of a larger study on documenta as a Haunted Exhibition, my article proposes a revision of the historiography produced by and about the recurring large-scale exhibition, founded 1955 in Kassel. By rehabilitating a selection of the modern abstract art that was ostracized in the ‘Third Reich’ as ‘Jewish-Bolshevist’ degeneration, the early documenta editions contributed to the construction of a binary historiographic fairy tale of ‘good’ (i.e. democratic) abstraction vs. ‘bad’ (i.e. totalitarian) realism, which has often been discussed with regard to US-American cultural politics of reeducation in Germany. Taking a closer look at the biographies of documenta’s founding fathers and the ‘Germanic’ genealogies of their historiographic practices, however, I seek to complicate this success story of documenta as an arbiter of democracy, whose makers were claiming a radical break with the Nazi past. Highlighting the show’s continuities with German nationalism before, during and after the Nationalist Socialist regime, both on an ideological and a personal level, I will argue that documenta not only served as a ‘weapon of the Cold War’, but also as a washing machine for German (art) history, including the biographies of its historians and curators, who thus managed to distract attention from their former Nazi associations by deploying abstraction as a detergent, whose capacity for political resignification allowed for its recuperation by different ideological regimes. The article traces the continuous attempts by a network of nationalist documenta co-founders to brand abstraction as something specifically German before, during and after the NS and discusses how this part of modern art’s history in Germany was largely overwritten by the general perception of an ‘Americanization' of abstraction after World War II.