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Armed Forces (armed + force)
Selected AbstractsChildren and fighting forces: 10 years on from Cape TownDISASTERS, Issue 4 2009Lindsay Stark It is 10 years since the adoption of the Cape Town Principles and Best Practices on the Prevention of Recruitment of Children into the Armed Forces and on Demobilization and Social Reintegration of Child Soldiers in Africa. The field of programming for the reintegration of children associated with armed forces and armed groups has made significant strides in this period. However, important gaps in the knowledge base remain. This paper examines empirical evidence that supports lessons learned from work with children formerly connected with fighting forces. It evaluates what is known, where promising practice exists, and lacunae in five programming areas: psychosocial support and care; community acceptance; education, training and livelihoods; inclusive programming for all war-affected children; and follow-up and monitoring. While the 2007 Paris Commitments to Protect Children from Unlawful Recruitment or Use by Armed Forces or Groups mark an emerging consensus on many issues, there is still a critical need for more systematic studies to develop the evidence base supporting intervention in this area. [source] Racial Nationalism as a Paradigm in International Relations: the Kosovo Conflict as Seen by the Far Right in GermanyPEACE & CHANGE, Issue 1 2004Fabian Virchow As the German Federal Armed Forces are becoming more involved in wars since the early 1990s, the far right in Germany strengthens its propaganda on matters of war and peace. Despite its general military-friendly stance and high regard of soldiery, the far right in its majority is very critical toward the deployment of German troops because this use is seen as being in the interests of the United States and Israel. Therefore, anti-Americanism as well as anti-Semitism and racial nationalism dominate the statements of the far right that creates the self-image of being the "real peace movement" at the same time that they favor a new hegemonic position for Germany in Europe. [source] Diverting with Benevolent Military Force: Reducing Risks and Rising above Strategic BehaviorINTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2007EMIZET F. KISANGANI Research on the diversionary use of force has burgeoned in recent years, but the literature remains divided. This paper attempts to reconcile extant findings by advancing a new theoretical framework for diversionary force centered on the agenda-setting literature. It expands the conventional conception of diversionary behavior and distinguishes the benevolent use of force over low politics issues (which we term socioeconomic interventions, SEI) from belligerent force used over high politics issues (which we term politico-strategic interventions, PSI). This expansion also refines our understanding of strategic conflict avoidance (SCA). Using Zero-Inflated Poisson (ZIP) regression on 140 countries from 1950 to 1996, we find that democracies and mixed regimes tend to use SEI for diversion even though strategic conflict avoidance does not prevent them from using PSI. We further find that autocracies do not externalize their internal problems with either type of armed force and that, surprisingly, strategic conflict avoidance may constrain autocracies suffering economic decline. These outcomes suggest that our theory has utility and that research on both diversion and SCA would benefit from further theoretical refinement. [source] The New Law of War: Legitimizing Hi,Tech and Infrastructural ViolenceINTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2002Thomas W. Smith This article examines how humanitarian laws of war have been recast in light of a new generation of hi,tech weapons and innovations in strategic theory. Far from falling into disuse, humanitarian law is invoked more frequently than ever to confer legitimacy on military action. New legal interpretations, diminished ad bellum rules, and an expansive view of military necessity are coalescing in a regime of legal warfare that licenses hi,tech states to launch wars as long as their conduct is deemed just. The ascendance of technical legalism has undercut customary restraints on the use of armed force and has opened a legal chasm between technological haves and have,nots. Most striking is the use of legal language to justify the erosion of distinctions between soldiers and civilians and to legitimize collateral damage. Hi,tech warfare has dramatically curbed immediate civilian casualties, yet the law sanctions infrastructural campaigns that harm long,term public health and human rights in ways that are now clear. [source] THE IDEA OF DEFENSE IN HISTORICAL AND CONTEMPORARY THINKING ABOUT JUST WARJOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS ETHICS, Issue 4 2008James Turner Johnson ABSTRACT What is, or should be, the role of defense in thinking about the justification of use of armed force? Contemporary just war thinking prioritizes defense as the principal, and perhaps the only, just cause for resorting to armed force. By contrast, classic just war tradition, while recognizing defense as justification for use of force by private persons, did not reason from self-defense to the justification of the use of force on behalf of the political community, but instead rendered the idea of just cause for resort to force in terms of the sovereign's responsibility to maintain justice, vindicating those who had suffered from injustice and punishing evildoers. This paper moves through three major stages in the historical development of just war thinking, first examining a critical phase in the formation of the classical idea of just cause as the responsibility to maintain justice, then discussing the shift, characteristic of the modern period, to an idea of sovereignty as connected to the state and the prioritization of defense of the state as just cause for use of force, and lastly showing how this conception of the priority of defense became part of the recovery of just war thinking in the latter part of the twentieth century. The paper concludes by noting recent changes in thought on international law that tend to emphasize justice at the expense of the right of self-defense, suggesting that the roots of just war thinking imply the need for a similar rethinking of contemporary just war discourse. [source] From Pacifism to War ResistancePEACE & CHANGE, Issue 2 2001Iain Atack Pacifism is often interpreted as an absolute moral position that claims it is always wrong to go to war. As such, it is often rejected on the grounds that it excludes or overlooks other moral considerations, such as an obligation to resist aggression or defend fundamental human rights. Vocational pacifism, restricted to those who choose nonviolence as a way of life, is one version of pacifism that might overcome some of the objections connected to its moral absolutism. Contingent pacifism, on the other hand, acknowledges the complexities of moral reasoning connected to decisions concerning the use of armed force while retaining pacifist objections to war and preparations for war. Even contingent pacifism is limited by its individualism or voluntarism as a moral position, however. War resistance contributes its analysis of the political or structural factors responsible for war or preparations for war while retaining pacifism's moral impetus for action. [source] Between Pinochet and Kropotkin: state terror, human rights and the geographersTHE CANADIAN GEOGRAPHER/LE GEOGRAPHE CANADIEN, Issue 3 2001John Wiley Lecture The lecture develops a civil perspective on states engaged in systematic but arbitrary armed violence against their home populations: what the Nürnberg Tribunal called ,government by terror. Civilians, or most of them, appear uniquely vulnerable to such violence and the gross violations of human rights accompanying it. Moreover, this, rather than wars as usually understood, involved the largest uses of armed force in the twentieth century. It was the main cause of violent death of civilians. Two geographical concerns are addressed: the ,geographic' nature of such violence, and its implications for the thought and practice of geographers. They are explored especially through the work of two geographers whose lives bracket the past ,century of violence, Peter Kropotkin and Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile fully illustrates the scope of state terror. Geographies of coercion are seen in the system of political prisons and torture, the making of a society and landscapes of fear, and the unmaking of civil life. The atrocities also violated Chile's former commitment to human rights initiatives. Pinochet's geographical work, especially the geopolitics, is in accord with, or offers no counter to, the repressive, authoritarian regime he headed, Kropotkin's descriptions of imperial Russia show many parallels to the Chilean case, and the kind of repressive state power that he rejected to dedicate his life to its vulnerable and innocent victims. Almost alone among geographers he developed a coherent, influential vision of violence, social justice and interpersonal ethics, based on geographical investigations as well as an anarchist perspective. These two may also seem to represent conceptual and lived extremes - respectively, an extreme deployment of state violence, and a total rejection of the state because of the facts and potential of violent repression. Unfortunately, enquiries into violence and the state, let alone terrorist states, are virtually absent from contemporary geographical scholarship. Its emergence as an essentially ,civil field' has reinforced this - when it should have had the opposite effect. In part this involves a failure to temper our long, and less-than-critical, service to the state in all areas, and a continuing governmental mind-set. It is suggested that the absence of critical reflection on the contested relations of civil society and the state, especially as they involve state violence, undermines the intellectual value and ethical standards of our work. [source] Children and fighting forces: 10 years on from Cape TownDISASTERS, Issue 4 2009Lindsay Stark It is 10 years since the adoption of the Cape Town Principles and Best Practices on the Prevention of Recruitment of Children into the Armed Forces and on Demobilization and Social Reintegration of Child Soldiers in Africa. The field of programming for the reintegration of children associated with armed forces and armed groups has made significant strides in this period. However, important gaps in the knowledge base remain. This paper examines empirical evidence that supports lessons learned from work with children formerly connected with fighting forces. It evaluates what is known, where promising practice exists, and lacunae in five programming areas: psychosocial support and care; community acceptance; education, training and livelihoods; inclusive programming for all war-affected children; and follow-up and monitoring. While the 2007 Paris Commitments to Protect Children from Unlawful Recruitment or Use by Armed Forces or Groups mark an emerging consensus on many issues, there is still a critical need for more systematic studies to develop the evidence base supporting intervention in this area. [source] Understanding the Helmand campaign: British military operations in AfghanistanINTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, Issue 2 2010ANTHONY KING British forces are now engaged in a major operation in southern Afghanistan, the outcome of which is likely to be strategically decisive,especially for the configuration and status of Britain's land forces. Although progress seems to have been made, there has been much criticism of the campaign. Through an analysis of the three-year Helmand mission (Operation Herrick), this article explores whether, for all the improvements in the campaign in terms of resources and numbers of troops, the basic structure of the campaign established in 2006 has endured. Instead of focusing on an ,ink-spot' from which to expand, British forces have tended to operate from dispersed forward operating bases from which they have insufficient combat power to dominate terrain and secure the population. They are consequently engaged in a seemingly endless round of high-intensity tactical battles which are normally successful in themselves but do not contribute to the overarching security of the province. The analysis explores the way in which this distinctive campaign lay-down,the preference for dispersal and high-intensity fighting,may be a reflection of British military culture and its military doctrine. By highlighting potential unacknowledged aspects of the British military profession, the article aims to contribute to debates about the development of the armed forces. [source] Personalization and Institutional Constraints: Pinochet, the Military Junta, and the 1980 ConstitutionLATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 1 2001Robert Barros The standard account of military dictatorship in Chile (1973,1990) portrays the case as a personalist regime, and uses the dynamics associated with this type of regime to explain General Pinochet's control of the presidency, the enactment of the 1980 Constitution, and the longevity of military rule. Drawing on records of the decisionmaking process within the military junta, this article presents evidence for a different characterization of the dictatorship. It shows that Pinochet never attained the supremacy commonly attributed to him, that the commanders of the other branches of the armed forces retained significant powers, and that the 1980 Constitution was not enacted to project Pinochet's personal power. More generally, this study suggests that personal power is not a necessary condition for regime longevity; collective systems can also produce cohesion and stability. [source] Performance improvement in the armed forcesPERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT, Issue 3 2008Roger D. Chevalier CPT No abstract is available for this article. [source] Superpresidentialism and the Military: The Russian VariantPRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2008ZOLTAN BARANY This article explains the evolution of the presidential-military nexus in post-Soviet Russia. Why has the role of presidents become the overriding factor in Russian civil-military relations? What explains the differences between the relationships Russia's two post-Soviet presidents, Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin, developed with the armed forces? I argue that following the 1993 crisis between the president and the legislature, and even more so after the 1996 presidential elections, the Russian polity has gradually become a superpresidential authoritarian system and the type of executive-military relations that has evolved is consistent with this designation. Rather than establishing civilian oversight of the armed forces shared between the legislative and the executive branches, Yeltsin and Putin created a state in which civilian control has become synonymous with presidential control. [source] The Game of Electoral Fraud and the Ousting of Authoritarian RuleAMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 3 2010Beatriz Magaloni How can autocrats be restrained from rigging elections when they hold a huge military advantage over their opponents? This article suggests that even when opposition parties have no military capacity to win a revolt, opposition unity and a consequent threat of massive civil disobedience can compel autocrats to hold clean elections and leave office by triggering splits within the state apparatus and the defection of the armed forces. Opposition unity can be elite-driven, when parties unite prior to elections to endorse a common presidential candidate, or voter-driven, when elites stand divided at the polls and voters spontaneously rebel against fraud. Moreover, the article identifies some conditions under which autocrats will tie their hands willingly not to commit fraud by delegating power to an independent electoral commission. The article develops these ideas through a formal game and the discussion of various case studies. [source] Britain and its Armed Forces TodayTHE POLITICAL QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2007ANDREW DORMAN As defence becomes a political football once again this article examines the relationship of the UK's military with the country from which it is drawn and which it serves. It argues that all three elements of the classic Clausewitzian trinity: the state, the people and the military, there are major problems. These are undermining the capabilities of the armed forces and will ultimately place far greater limitations on future government's use of the armed forces in support of British policies overseas. This will have significant implications for Britain in the future if it wishes to continue to "punch above its weight". [source] The future of democracy in Melanesia: What role for outside powers?ASIA PACIFIC VIEWPOINT, Issue 3 2003John Henderson Abstract:,This paper critically examines the role of outside powers, particularly Australia and New Zealand, in meeting the challenges to democracy in Melanesia. The shortcomings of the Westminster political system in the fragmented societies of Melanesia are contrasted with the possible advantages of a Presidential system. The ,good governance' requirements of aid donors are considered, along with more direct forms of intervention , including armed forces in the case of the Solomon Islands. The paper concludes that democracy cannot be imposed, and that attempts to do so makes nonsense of the term. [source] Low Intensity Democracies: Latin America in the Post-dictatorial EraBULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH, Issue 4 2001Dirk Kruit In the context of the Cold War and accompanied by the doctrines of National Security, authoritarian and often repressive military or civil-military regimes emerged in a number of Latin American countries. However, military regimes were not the only ones contributing to the formation of societies mutilated by fear and terror. During the last four decades, the continent became affected by a cycle of violence that involved various armed actors, from the armed forces to the guerrilla, from the paramilitaries to the narcotics-trafficking Mafia, or from the committees of self-defence to the ,common' criminals. This article focuses on the persistence of military influence and organised political violence more general in post-authoritarian and indeed post-Cold War Latin America. After briefly reviewing the historical legacy of so-called ,political armies' in the region as a whole, I offer an assessment of the consequences of this legacy for the current agenda of democratic consolidation in Latin America. Two possible scenarios are examined: that of fairly progressive democratisation and civilianisation of politics, and that of the re-emergence of violence despite the formal rule of democracy. In the latter scenario, de facto harsh and violent regimes collide with a growing array of rival perpetrators of political and other forms of organised violence. [source] The Collapse of Fujimorismo: Authoritarianism and its LimitsBULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH, Issue 3 2001John Crabtree The resignation of Alberto Fujimori as president of Peru and the convening of fresh elections for 2001 invites a reassessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the Fujimorato. Fujimori's was a hybrid regime, an uneasy admixture of democratic and autocratic elements. While following prescribed election timetables and tolerating certain opposition, this was an authoritarian government. Grounded on a pact with the armed forces and involving a concentration of presidential power, its support was organised along populist lines that took advantage of the weakness of political parties. However, as the regime's demise suggests, the tension between democratic and autocratic elements could never be properly reconciled. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||