Strong armies, slow adaptation: civil-military relations and diffusion of military power

Why are some states more willing to adopt military innovations than others? Why, for example, were the great powers of Europe able to successfully reform their military practices to better adapt to and participate in the so-called military revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries while their most important extra-European competitor, the Ottoman Empire, failed to do so? This puzzle is best explained by two factors: civil-military relations and historical timing. In the Ottoman Empire, the emergence of an institutionally strong and internally cohesive army during the early stages of state formation—in the late fourteenth century—equipped the military with substantial bargaining powers. In contrast, the great powers of Europe drew heavily on private providers of military power during the military revolution and developed similar armies only by the second half of the seventeenth century, limiting the bargaining leverage of European militaries over their rulers. In essence, the Ottoman standing army was able to block reform efforts that it believed challenged its parochial interests. Absent a similar institutional challenge, European rulers initiated military reforms and motivated officers and military entrepreneurs to participate in the ongoing military revolution.

From services to civilian: the geographies of veterans’ post-military lives

This paper explores the spatiality of (post)military identities, demonstrating the continuing impact of having been part of the military community despite the passage of time. Our tri-service respondents highlighted the challenges faced even by those deemed to have ‘successfully’ transitioned to ‘Civvy Street’, articulating discourses of loss and separation. While some had achieved closure with their past military selves, others struggled and became stuck in a liminal space between civilian and military lives that perpetuated feelings of isolation. Our work contributes to understandings of military geographies and highlights the importance of conceptualising post-institutional transitions as a process in order to understand how individuals negotiate their identities in changing spatial circumstances.

Military targeting in the context of self-defence actions

In order to bring conceptual clarity to a particular dimension of the relationship between the jus ad bellum and the jus in bello regimes, this article explores the independent sources of a military targeting rule in both branches of international law. The aim is not to displace the jus in bello as the ‘lead’ regime on how targeting decisions must be made, or to undermine the traditional separation between these regimes. Rather, conceptual light is shed on a sometimes assumed but generally neglected dimension of the jus ad bellum’s necessity and proportionality criteria that may, in limited circumstances, have significance for our understanding of human protection during war, by covering possible gaps in the jus in bello targeting rules.

From warfare to welfare: veterans, military charities and the blurred spatiality of post-service welfare in the United Kingdom

The military offers a form of welfare-for-work but when personnel leave they lose this safety net, a loss exacerbated by the rollback neoliberalism of the contemporary welfare state. Increasingly the third sector has stepped in to address veterans’ welfare needs through operating within and across military/civilian and state/market/community spaces and cultures. In this paper we use both veterans’ and military charities’ experiences to analyse the complex politics that govern the liminal boundary zone of post-military welfare. Through exploring ‘crossing’ and ‘bridging’ we conceptualise military charities as ‘boundary subjects’, active yet dependent on the continuation of the civilian-military binary, and argue that the latter is better understood as a multidirectional, multiscalar and contextual continuum. Post-military welfare emerges as a competitive, confused and confusing assemblage that needs to be made more navigable in order to better support the ‘heroic poor’.

Civilian casualties – do we really care? The failure of the revolution in military affairs of non-lethal weapons in the U.S., Russia and Israel

Causing civilian casualties during military operations has become a much politicised topic in international relations since the Second World War. Since the last decade of the 20th century, different scholars and political analysts have claimed that human life is valued more and more among the general international community. This argument has led many researchers to assume that democratic culture and traditions, modern ethical and moral issues have created a desire for a world without war or, at least, a demand that contemporary armed conflicts, if unavoidable, at least have to be far less lethal forcing the military to seek new technologies that can minimise civilian casualties and collateral damage. Non-Lethal Weapons (NLW) – weapons that are intended to minimise civilian casualties and collateral damage – are based on the technology that, during the 1990s, was expected to revolutionise the conduct of warfare making it significantly less deadly. The rapid rise of interest in NLW, ignited by the American military twenty five years ago, sparked off an entirely new military, as well as an academic, discourse concerning their potential contribution to military success on the 21st century battlefields. It seems, however, that except for this debate, very little has been done within the military forces themselves. This research suggests that the roots of this situation are much deeper than the simple professional misconduct of the military establishment, or the poor political behaviour of political leaders, who had sent them to fight. Following the story of NLW in the U.S., Russia and Israel this research focuses on the political and cultural aspects that have been supposed to force the military organisations of these countries to adopt new technologies and operational and organisational concepts regarding NLW in an attempt to minimise enemy civilian casualties during their military operations. This research finds that while American, Russian and Israeli national characters are, undoubtedly, products of the unique historical experience of each one of these nations, all of three pay very little regard to foreigners’ lives. Moreover, while it is generally argued that the international political pressure is a crucial factor that leads to the significant reduction of harmed civilians and destroyed civilian infrastructure, the findings of this research suggest that the American, Russian and Israeli governments are well prepared and politically equipped to fend off international criticism. As the analyses of the American, Russian and Israeli cases reveal, the political-military leaderships of these countries have very little external or domestic reasons to minimise enemy civilian casualties through fundamental-revolutionary change in their conduct of war. In other words, this research finds that employment of NLW have failed because the political leadership asks the militaries to reduce the enemy civilian casualties to a politically acceptable level, rather than to the technologically possible minimum; as in the socio-cultural-political context of each country, support for the former appears to be significantly higher than for the latter.

Avoiding the Fog of Crisis: A Protocol for the Proper Domestic Use of the Military

Failure to contemplate and define an appropriate role for the armed forces of the national government in domestic crises of this sort is a serious problem. It is all the more serious now as these potential crises seem to multiply in character and scope. This thesis will explore the history of this problem and its recent implications. It will argue the need for a comprehensive, operational framework, codified in law, which defines the various alternative uses of all emergency services, both civilian and military, and is applicable to “all hazards.” I will attempt to provide a blue-print for what such a framework should look like.

Interviewing the Brazilian military: reflections on a research experience

My purpose is to present some reflections about my experience in interviewing Brazilian military officers. Despite the specificity of the Brazilian case, I trust that these observations may serve as a comparative reference for the study of military institutions in other contexts.

Voice over IP 2.0: an analysis of limits and potential of IP2IP telecommunication

Internet Telephony (VoIP) is changing the telecommunication industry. Oftentimes free, VoIP is becoming more and more popular amongst users. Large software companies have entered the market and heavily invest into it. In 2011, for instance, Microsoft bought Skype for 8.5bn USD. This trend increasingly impacts the incumbent telecommunication operators. They see their main source of revenue – classic telephony – under siege and disappear. The thesis at hand develops a most-likely scenario in order to determine how VoIP is evolving further and it predicts, based on a ten-year forecast, the impact it will have on the players in the telecommunication industry.The paper presents a model combining Rogers’ diffusion and Christensen’s innovation research. The model has the goal of explaining the past evolution of VoIP and to isolate the factors that determine the further diffusion of the innovation. Interviews with industry experts serve to assess how the identified factors are evolving.Two propositions are offered. First, VoIP operators are becoming more important in international, corporate, and mobile telephony. End-to-end VoIP (IP2IP) will exhibit strong growth rates and increasingly cannibalize the telephony revenues of the classic operators. Second, fix-net telephony in SMEs and at home will continue to be dominated by the incumbents. Yet, as prices for telephony fall towards zero also they will implement IP2IP in order to save costs. By 2022, up to 90% of the calls will be IP2IP. The author recommends the incumbents and VoIP operators to proactively face the change, to rethink their business strategies, and to even be open for cooperation.

The risk of falling into the acceleration trap during a privatization process: a case study of a European telecommunication company

A privatização de uma empresa é uma mudança empresarial disruptiva que geralmente coincide com o fim de uma posição de monopólio e da subsequente entrada num ambiente competitivo. Os desafios que a privatização coloca são tão árduos que eles levam muitas vezes a liderança (leadership) para executar planos ambiciosos de mudança empresarial. No entanto, a literatura mostra que muitos deles falharam. Na verdade, esses planos preveem mudanças bruscas e importantes que tendem a empurrar a empresa privatizada na armadilha de aceleração (acceleration trap). Um tipo de “burnout organizacional” (organizational burnout) onde a exaustão e a resignação da força de trabalho afetam drasticamente o desempenho da empresa. A tese, portanto, focalizou em estudar a ligação entre um processo de privatização e o risco de cair na armadilha de aceleração. Uma investigação preliminar sobre a literatura das mudanças empresariais permitiu a concepção de um quadro preliminar teórico que sugere a existência de dois moderadores (moderators) deste relacionamento entre um processo de privatização e a armadilha de aceleração: um “choque cultural” (cultural clash) e um “fraco clima de liderança transformacional” (weak transformational leadership). Em seguida, um estudo de caso - baseado numa empresa de telecomunicações europeia e conduzido através de uma abordagem metodológico não puramente indutivo (non-purely inductive approach) - confirma, mas também aprofunda a compreensão da ação desses dois moderadores. A respeito do moderador “choque cultural” (cultural clash moderator), a análise de dados do estudo de caso da empresa de telecomunicações europeia mostra a importância exercitado tanto por um “choque de identidade corporativa” (corporate identity conflict) como por um “conflito de identidade gerencial” (management identity conflict). Quanto ao moderador “fraco liderança transformacional”, a análise dos dados destaca o papel da “falta de confiança na nova gerência” (lack of trust in the new management), mas também de “sentido do trabalho” (lack of job sense), principalmente através da perda de “orgulho no trabalho” (loss of proudness). Finalmente, a análise dos dados salienta que a “não aceitação do novo sistema de incentivos” (non-acceptance of the new incentive system) afeta significativamente a relação entre a privatização e a armadilha de aceleração, contribuindo tanto para um “choque cultural” como para um “fraco clima de liderança transformacional”.

Politics, press and military participation in the abdication of d. Pedro I

This work seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the Abdication, analyzing how and why sections of the army joined the liberal groups against the emperor, focusing on the period that immediately preceded this event. The argument is that the alliance between sections of the army and the liberal groups in 1831 was possible because the expansion of the "public space" in the city of Rio de Janeiro, a process in which newspapers such as "O Republico" played a key role as they became a privileged locus for political disputes. The article shows that that newspaper helped to build a political identity based on the defense of Brazilian interests against Portuguese despotism, giving momentum to internal conflicts around this subject that were already taking place among sections of the army and hence triggering the process that would lead to the Abdication.

Electromyographic validation of the trapezius and serratus anterior muscles in military press exercises with open grip.

It was studied the trapezius muscle and serratus anterior muscle in 24 male volunteers using a 2-channel TECA TE 4 electromyograph and Hewlett Packard surface electrodes, during the execution of four different modalities of military press exercises with open grip. The results showed that TS acted significantly in the modalities standing and sitting press behind neck, while SI acted in all the modalities, i.e., standing and sitting press behind neck and forward, justifying their inclusion as basic exercises for physical conditioning programmes.