Digital Commons Network^™

Beyond Prepper Culture As Right-Wing Extremism: Selling Preparedness To Everyday Consumers As How To Survive The End Of The World On A Budget, Timothy W. Luke

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

The Rise Of The Robots: Technocapitalism And The Policing Of Race, Constantine Gidaris

Fast Capitalism

This article critically engages with the emergence of police robots in the United States, arguing that their inevitable foray into everyday policing will fuel existing issues of racial discrimination. Building on Luis Suarez-Villa's (2009) conceptualization of technocapitalism, I situate police robots within a framework of social domination that thrives not only on its connections to corporatism and militarism, but also on technocapitalist conditions that invariably exacerbate the oppressive dynamics of racist and discriminatory policing. Although police robots will make police work safer for officers (Sharkey 2008), I contend that they will be used by the police as weaponized machines of …

Adversarial Comparativism: The Role Of Emotion In United States–China Comparative Law Projects, Matthew S. Erie

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Contemporary comparative law operates across a landscape riven by protectionism, nationalism, and securitization, all of which complicate comparative law projects. Nowhere is this more evident than in the U.S-China relationship, the most important bilateral relationship in the world. Despite economic “delinking,” the U.S. and Chinese legal systems are interacting more than ever; however, how this interaction works is poorly understood. This Article proposes “adversarial comparativism” to explain this dynamic. It is an approach to comparative law and politics that includes different modalities: competition, aggressiveness, transactionalism, misunderstanding, opportunism, and gaslighting. Many of these are underpinned by emotion. As such, while this …

Book Review: Alliances & Armor: Communist Diplomacy And Armored Warfare During The War In Vietnam, Gregory A. Daddis

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Author: Jim Pomeroy

Reviewed by: Dr. Gregory A. Daddis, Melbern G. Glasscock Endowed Chair in American History, Texas A&M University

In Alliances & Armor, Jim Pomeroy reveals how Cold War diplomacy shaped North Vietnam’s battlefield tactics, transforming guerrilla warfare into Soviet-style armored offensives. Drawing from multi-archival sources, the book traces Hanoi’s strategic pivot from China to the USSR amid shifting global alliances and escalating US involvement. With gripping detail, Pomeroy chronicles the rise of the People’s Army of Vietnam’s tank-led campaigns, culminating in the dramatic fall of Saigon.

Book Review: A Day In September: The Battle Of Antietam And The World It Left Behind, Wylie W. Johnson

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Author: Stephen Budiansky

Reviewed by: Dr. Wylie W. Johnson, US Army War College Class of 2010

A Day in September: The Battle of Antietam and the World It Left Behind analyzes the battle’s “Revolution in Military Affairs” and how it radically changed the United States and the world. It focuses on technologies, personalities, military doctrine, nongovernmental organizations, medical advances, international intrigue, and politics.

Book Review: The Politics Of War And Peace: A Survey Of Thought, Isaiah Wilson Iii

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Authors: Abbott A. Brayton and Stephana J. Landwehr

Reviewed by: Dr. Isaiah “Ike” Wilson III (colonel, US Army retired); professor of practice, Arizona State University; and president emeritus, Joint Special Operations University

Spanning centuries of political and philosophical reflection, Brayton’s work explores how thinkers from ancient times to the modern era have grappled with the moral and strategic dilemmas of war and peace. Through a rich tapestry of ideas, the book reveals the enduring tensions between justice, power, and diplomacy. It’s an essential guide for understanding how past wisdom continues to shape contemporary debates on conflict and resolution.

Copyright: ©2026 …

Absolutizing The Particular, Robert J. Antonio

Fast Capitalism

From the late-1960s to the mid-1980s, Telos brought the Frankfurt School, Western Marxism, and other critical Continental thought to North America and the English speaking world; it was the critical theory organ of that era and best ever English language journal on the topic. Its left lean did not compromise its critical view of communist regimes and left-wing parties and thinkers. Its contribution with regard to critical theories, with Hegelian-Marxist roots, was so substantial and widely acknowledged that many former readers and, I expect, even some journal editors, who have advertised in Telos, during the last 25 years, did not …

From Covenant To Contract: How Secularization Of Christian Society Changed The Moral Basis Of Law, Rudy Iturrino

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Modern secular society has replaced religious understandings of obligation with legal contracts in which the state acts as the final arbiter. The purpose of this document analysis is to explore how the Christian concept of covenant was gradually replaced by secular legal contracts during the Reformation and Enlightenment, and how this shift influences modern views on eminent domain and national security policy. This dissertation was guided by Social Contract Theory. The following research question guided this study: What patterns from a document analysis reveal how the Christian idea of covenant was replaced by secular contract theory during the Reformation and …

Full Issue, Fast Capitalism Editorial Team

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Outmaneuvered: America’S Tragic Encounter With Warfare From Vietnam To Afghanistan, Marie Louise Deraismes Combes

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Author: James A. Warren

Reviewed by: Dr. Marie Louise deRaismes Combes, assistant professor of national security, Department of National Security and Strategy, US Army War College

Outmaneuvered: America’s Tragic Encounter with Warfare from Vietnam to Afghanistan chronologically examines the United States’ relationship with counterinsurgency. The author’s primary focus is the influence of politics on irregular warfare and covers irregular conflicts that occurred prior to and after 9/11. The reviewer saw both positives and negatives to the book and its arguments.

©2025 Marie Louise deRaismes Combes

A Long, Hard Year: Russia-Ukraine War Lessons Learned 2023, John A. Nagl, Michael T. Hackett

Integrated Research Projects

Following the 2024 A Call to Action: Lessons from Ukraine for the Future Force, which explored military lessons learned from the first year of the Russia-Ukraine War, this book examines the changing character of war as the second year of the war unfolded. This year’s authors explore the conflict from four different angles: information advantage (intelligence, information operations, and cyber); landpower operations (fires, maneuver, force protection, mission command, and mercenaries); multi-domain operations (air and maritime); and crosscutting themes (diplomacy, sustainment, and innovation and adaptation). The second year witnessed the innovative approaches to combat of the first year—drones, unmanned aerial …

A Human-Centric Framework: Employment Principles For Lethal Autonomous Weapons, Brennan Deveraux

Books, Monographs & Collaborative Studies

This monograph challenges the Department of War to reframe the conversation about humans’ involvement in lethal autonomous weapons systems by codifying a human-centric framework built on the employment pillars of certification, authority, restriction, and accountability. Although an ample body of literature discusses lethal autonomous weapon systems, this monograph takes a novel approach by proposing a theoretical framework and applying it to historical and hypothetical practical scenarios involving weapons with autonomous characteristics. In terms of methodology, the monograph relies heavily on primary sources, including UN documents and Department of War publications, which are augmented by secondary sources from experts in the …

Book Review: The Dark Path: The Structure Of War And The Rise Of The West, John A. Nagl

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Author: Williamson Murray

Reviewed by: Dr. John A. Nagl, General John J. Pershing Professor of Warfighting Studies, US Army War College

The Dark Path covers five decades of Western expansion as the author explores aspects of military organizations throughout history, focusing on the five Military-Social Revolutions. The reviewer believes this book “synthesizes [the author’s] career in an important and accessible package well worth the time for readers of this journal.”

©2025 John A. Nagl

The 2024 Carlisle Conference On The Pla: Protracted War Against The Prc, Joshua Arostegui

Books, Monographs & Collaborative Studies

The US Army War College’s 2024 Carlisle Conference on the People’s Liberation Army was held on October 16 and 17 at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. The conference featured keynote speakers from the US Department of Defense and the think-tank community, and panels focused on assessing the People’s Republic of China’s understanding of and capability to carry out a protracted war in the Indo-Pacific. The conference brought together over 100 participants from government, military, US Intelligence Community, academic, and think-tank organizations.

The conference papers were authored by expert speakers and panelists and were designed to provide insight into key People’s Republic of …

Book Review: Ground Combat: Puncturing The Myths Of Modern War, Justin R. Lynch

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Author: Ben Connable

Reviewed by: Justin R. Lynch, lecturer, Georgetown University

Ground Combat: Puncturing the Myths of Modern War by Ben Connable dismantles popular assumptions about the future of warfare by grounding its analysis in over 400 real-world battles. Rather than relying on hype around technology and precision, Connable reveals the enduring, gritty realities of land combat. This thought-provoking study challenges military planners and strategists to rethink how wars are truly fought—and won.

Reclaiming My Story: A Freirean Framework For Surviving Trauma And Transforming Recovery Into Liberation, Carl Bryan

The Interactive Journal of Global Leadership and Learning

This white paper explores trauma recovery through the lens of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970/2018), framing healing as an act of critical consciousness and liberation rather than passive survival. Using the author’s lived experience of stalking, manipulation, and emotional abuse as a case study, it reimagines recovery not as a return to normalcy but as a dialectical process of reclaiming narrative agency, reconstructing identity, and transforming pain into purpose. Drawing upon Freirean concepts of conscientização (critical consciousness), dialogue, and praxis, the paper outlines a model for survivors to move from internalized oppression toward empowerment and social transformation.

Volume 61, Issue 2, 2025 Speaker & Gavel Front Matter

Speaker & Gavel

Front matter and table of contents for Volume 61, Issue 2, 2025 of Speaker & Gavel.

Volume 61, Issue 2, 2025 Speaker & Gavel

Speaker & Gavel

Complete digital issue (Volume 61, issue 2, 2025) of Speaker & Gavel.

Hybrid Warfare: A Collection Of Scenarios, Adrian Borbély

DRI Press

Hybrid Warfare is nothing new but it has increasingly made the news - even if most of it remains beyond our awareness. Hybrid Warfare gathers all methods through which countries wage war against each other beyond traditional military, diplomatic and economic battlefields (cyber attacks, disinformation, transnational organized crime, appropriation of natural resources, lawfare, corruption, etc.). Such below-the-surface foreign aggressions are not limited to localized regions where armed forces shoot at each other trying to take each other’s positions. In hybrid warfare, society as a whole is the battlefield. In other words, hybrid warfare is not the concern of a few, …

Commercial Off-The-Shelf Electronic Warfare Threats To Global Positioning System Receivers, Matthew P. Robinson

Theses and Dissertations

This research evaluates the feasibility of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware developed into an electronic warfare (EW) system used to degrade or deny Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers. All 16 critical infrastructure sectors rely on GPS signals to operate safely and effectively. Millions of Americans rely on GPS signals and the services they provide in their daily lives, so the loss of these vital services would dramatically impact our society. Our nation’s reliance on the GPS network makes it a potential target for COTS EW threats. The ways and means to develop COTS hardware into EW systems to interfere with GPS receivers …

Between “The Favela” And “The City”: Exploring The Daily Geographies Of Carolina Maria De Jesus Using Gis, Sterling D. Quinn

Geography Faculty Scholarship

Geographic information systems (GIS) enable interesting visual and analytical engagement with personal narratives. I offer a case study by constructing digital historical maps of Carolina Maria de Jesus’s São Paulo as described in her 1950s diary entries from Quarto de Despejo (published as Child of the Dark in English). Examining 48 locations mentioned in the book, I show how GIS algorithms such as standard deviation ellipses and kernel density estimation can summarize geographies of daily activities in the personal, institutional, and professional realms, including in the informal economy. I also employ ideas from feminist cartography to put Carolina’s own words …

Ransomware As Organization: A Comparative Analysis Of Corporate And Criminal Structures In Conti, George Urling

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Cybercriminal groups continue to pose major threats to global cybersecurity. One of the most common types of cybercriminal groups are, “Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS)" groups, who create and sell ransomware. While research is conducted into the development of ransomware, there is limited reporting on the organizational structure and habits of RaaS groups. In 2022, prominent RaaS group Conti had their chat logs leaked, with the logs ranging from 2020 to 2022. This study seeks to provide a deeper understanding of RaaS group structures by utilizing the Conti leaked logs as a case study. The study, entitled “Ransomware as Organization: A Comparative Analysis …

Memories Of The Low-Income Elderly Of South Korea, Jacob Gilbert

BYU Asian Studies Student Journal

Rain pattered against my umbrella as I walked down the small alleyway near Tapgol Park. An elderly man carrying a black umbrella hobbled past me. Rain dripping from the gutters made puddles at my feet. I carefully avoided several puddles in the pavement making my way to the end of the alleyway. As I drew closer to the end, loud voices echoed down the alley. Around the corner a crowd of elderly people huddled underneath the roof of the front gate to the park. Some stood, while others sat on the ground leaning their backs against the walls of the …

Full Issue

BYU Asian Studies Student Journal

No abstract provided.

Colonial Legacy And National Identity:, Nina Harris

BYU Asian Studies Student Journal

The island of Taiwan occupies an unusual political position in the world today. Taiwan is viewed primarily in relation to its complicated relationship with the People’s Republic of China. While Taiwan considers itself distinct from the Chinese mainland, with its own constitution and democratically elected leaders, China’s government claims the island is an inalienable part of China and has been for centuries. Taiwan’s history, however, is more complicated and diverse than China allows. Unbeknownst to many, Taiwan was a Japanese colony from 1895 to 1945, and it was an era of highly significant change for Taiwan. The Japanese occupation was …

Made For War, Abandoned In Peace:, Michelle Parada-Gonzalez

BYU Asian Studies Student Journal

Amid a raging blizzard in the mountains of 1907 Hokkaido, Sugimoto Saichi shelters inside the still-warm carcass of a freshly killed deer, huddled beside his companion, Asirpa. As she asks if his wounds still hurt, he brushes it off, insisting that the man he killed earlier had no human heart and felt little pain. When Asirpa reprimands him, Sugimoto concedes—war has changed him. The person he once was had been left behind on the battlefield. Some men, he says, can return to their old lives, but others like him remain stuck in the past. Asirpa, only twelve years old, considers …

Beyond War: Building Wisdom Civilization To Rescue Humanity, Andrew Targowski

Comparative Civilizations Review

This paper presents a comparative civilizational analysis of humanity’s transition from a War Civilization to the emerging Wisdom Civilization. Drawing on the works of Toynbee, Sorokin, Quigley, Huntington, Spengler, and Koneczny, it interprets the present global disorder — marked by the tension between Western, Chinese, Russian, and Muslim civilizations — as a transformative moment in human history. War and militarism, once adaptive mechanisms of civilizational growth, have become self-destructive in an era of technological interdependence. It is proposed that the next evolutionary stage of civilization must integrate knowledge with conscience to form a Wisdom Civilization founded on empathy, sustainability, and …

Review:Linklater, Andrew. Violence And Civilization In The Western States-Systems. Cambridge University Press, 2017., Stephen T. Satkiewicz

Comparative Civilizations Review

The late Andrew Linklater (1949-2023) has been considered one of the most influential scholars within the field of International Relations. This was the result of his innovative synthesis into the field, with others, of the historical sociology of Norbert Elias (1897- 1990), work that addressed the long-term figuration processes of societies. This synthesis was enriched with the insights of the English School of International Relations, as devised by Martin Wight (1913-1972) and Hedley Bull (1932-1985), scholars who analyzed the many and differing interlocking networks and connections amongst geopolitical actors on the world stage. These efforts led Linklater to his final …

Deterrence Without Peace: Nuclear Weapons And The Rising Threshold Of Warfare, Catie Clarke

CISLA Senior Integrative Projects

Nuclear weapons fundamentally changed the international political landscape, leading to the emergence of deterrence theory and the notion of the Long Peace. This paper challenges these claims, arguing that nuclear weapons facilitated a more violent and volatile international system rather than stability. Drawing on constructivist theory, this paper develops the Threshold of Violence framework – a normative model which asserts that nuclear weapons elevated the perceived upper limit of tolerable violence in international politics. This raised threshold generated three trends in the nuclear era: increased frequency of proxy wars, escalating levels of benefactor involvement, and greater severity of conflicts fought …

The Paradox Of Intellectual Property At The U.S. Supreme Court, Tonja Jacobi, Matthew Sag

Faculty Articles

The Supreme Court is dramatically more politically polarized in the Roberts Court era, and the justices have been criticized for highly ideological and partisan decision-making. Yet, we show that there is one area of law that is becoming less ideologically divided and predictable: intellectual property (IP). In an earlier study, we showed that, prior to the Roberts Court, IP case outcomes were predictable based on judicial ideology, with more conservative justices embracing IP rights, as they do for real property. In the last two decades, IP has become more influential on the economy and society, through the increasing dominance of …