Digital Commons Network^™

Nuclear Deterrence Strategies And The Balance Of Power In Europe, Chick Edmond

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

The beginning of the Cold War era indubitably defines nuclear deterrence strategies in Europe by reinforcing and re-strategizing security dynamics amongst European States. The balance of power in Europe has been geopolitically influenced by NATO and Russia in a quest to avoid any kind of security dilemmas from either side. In order to maintain a strategic deterrence balance posture, this complex security navigation scenario therefore act as stabilizing factor in the region as well as preventing any future conflict on the Europe continent resulting from security imbalances. NATO eastward enlargement has maintained a significant strategic balance of power in the …

The Effect Of Electrode Geometry On Excited Species Production In Atmospheric Pressure Air–Hydrogen Streamer Discharge, Shirshak Kumar Dhali, Stuart Reyes

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

When a gas is overvolted at or near atmospheric pressure, it results in a streamer discharge formation. Electrode geometries exert significant impact on the electrical breakdown of gases by altering the spatial profile of the electric field. In many applications the efficient generation of radicals is critical and is determined by the characteristics of the streamer discharge. We examine the effect of electrode geometry on the streamer characteristics and the production of radicals. This is performed for three different electrode geometries: plane–plane, pin–plane, and pin–pin. A two-dimensional rotationally symmetric fluid model is used for the streamer discharge simulation in the …

A Quantitative Study Assessing The Impact Of Financial Sector Safeguards Rules On Us Publicly Traded Companies' Cybersecurity Breach Frequency And Severity, Alan Dinerman

School of Public Service Theses & Dissertations

Cybersecurity failure in the private sector is a growing federal policy priority. Nevertheless, US policy makers struggle with policy instrumentation in this domain. Behavioral public policy theory asserts that a linkage exists between policy target behavioral & cultural attributes and effective policy tool instrumentation. The federal government is now embracing a regulation heavy approach, but little empirical study exists at the nexus of behavioral public policy theory and use of regulatory tools in the cybersecurity policy domain. Since the early 2000s, the financial sector has employed a regulation heavy approach using the Safeguards regulations to facilitate cybersecurity in financial private …

Monarch, Philip Walzer (Editor)

Monarch Magazine

Spring 2024 issue of Monarch, the Old Dominion University Magazine.

Subtitled: Distinguished Alumnae Leading the Way

The Place Of Nuclear Weapons In Russian Identity: An Ontological Security Analysis, Peter Ernest Yeager

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

On May 9, 2008, Russia’s Victory Day, four 14-wheeled MAZ-7917s drove through Red Square carrying Topol intercontinental ballistic missiles. This was the first time nuclear weapons had been paraded through Moscow since before the end of the Cold War. The previous August, Russia had resumed nuclear-capable bomber patrols, and in January, 2007, President Putin acknowledged Russia had begun to build new nuclear weapons. These remarkable events were met with little acknowledgement in the West, as if they were completely normal. Instead, they represented a major evolution in the bilateral relationship between the United States and Russia. Sixteen years of fitful …

How Has Us Foreign Policy Militarization Affected Political Stability In Africa?, Christopher Korkor

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

US foreign policy toward Africa was minimal during the Cold War. US engagement in the continent was centered on spheres of influence politics, and compared to other regions in the global system, the continent was viewed as a backwater and neglected for several decades despite historical relations between the country and the continent. Scholars of political science, international studies, international relations, and history also relegated the study of US foreign policy toward Africa to a low-level status, instead prioritizing scholarship that focused on traditional security, particularly states in Western and Eastern Europe and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). US …

Alliances And Partnerships In A Complex And Challenging Security Environment, Regina Karp (Editor), Richard Maass (Editor)

Political Science & Geography Faculty Books

This publication is a product of the Conference "Alliances and Partnerships in a Complex and Challenging Security Environment," organized by NATO Allied Command Transformation (ACT) and Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. The Conference, held in person on March 11-13, 2024, is part of a long-term cooperation among the two institutions, and it represents the eleventh iteration of ACT's Academic Conference series. The success of the event was due to the joint efforts of the two institutions, and the editors want to acknowledge ACT's Academic Outreach Team, in particular Dr. Vlasta Zekulic, Lieutenant Colonel Virginie Lotti, and Staff Officer Luisa …

Nato Past 75: Moving Into A Twenty Years' Crisis, 2021-2041, Simon Serfaty

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

[Introduction] "A constructive treatment of Europe's present-day problems calls for historical thinking which is something more than mere historical knowledge," wrote historian Hajo Holborn about the political collapse of Europe. Historical thinking views the moment as a combination of Saint Augustine's "three presents" - of things past and things future as well as of things present. Admittedly, it is on all three accounts that current conditions now look bleak on both sides of the Atlantic. At home, the constitutional order is at risk in the United States and other Western democracies, pending the next national election; abroad, the postwar institutional …

Data Driven Trade-Off Analysis For Cybersecurity, Goskel Kucukkaya, Murat Ozer, Murat Balci, Emrah Ugurlu

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Trade-off analysis, a specialization of systems engineering, addresses design criteria like security, cost, performance, and compliance. Monte Carlo simulations are commonly employed to generate impact scenarios for trade-off analysis combined with solution alternatives that accommodate industry-specific considerations and uncertainties. In the cyber domain, this paper proposes a methodology for data-driven trade-off analysis in cybersecurity, leveraging industry reports as primary data sources using confidentiality, integrity, and availability as trade-off analysis objectives. Distribution functions are derived to manage and model uncertainties for various industries. The approach given in this study aims to facilitate informed choices and to enhance cybersecurity decision making and …

Reverse-Engineering Of Disinformation Campaigns During The War In Ukraine, Lora Pitman, Ava Baratz, Kelly Morgan, Marcy Alvarado

School of Cybersecurity Faculty Publications

Information operations have long been a part of warfare. Disinformation campaigns, in particular, are usually launched by states in order to mislead and confuse populations in adversarial countries, but also to obtain support for their actions from domestic audiences. These campaigns threaten human security, at the individual level, but also state- and even international security. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia came with a new wave of disinformation not only in Ukraine itself, but also in countries from various other continents. This paper studies the characteristics of the spread of disinformation from the first day of the war in February …

Cyclegan-Gradient Penalty For Enhancing Android Adversarial Malware Detection In Gray Box Setting, Fabrice Setephin Atedjio, Jean-Pierre Lienou, Frederica F. Nelson, Sachin S. Shetty, Charles A. Kamhoua

VMASC Publications

Adversarial attacks pose significant threats to Android malware detection by undermining the effectiveness of machine learning-based systems. The rapid increase in Android apps complicates the management of malicious software that can compromise user defense solutions. Many current Android defense techniques rely on deep learning methods. Malicious users exploit GAN-based attacks to achieve adversarial attack transferability and deceive target models by crafting adversarial examples based on known models. We propose a new model based on a Cycle Generative Adversarial Network (CycleGAN) to detect GAN-based attacks. This model incorporates a gradient penalty to enhance the detection rate of the target model. Our …

A Defensive Strategy Against Android Adversarial Malware Attacks, Fabrice Setephin Atedjio, Jean-Pierre Lienou, Frederica F. Nelson, Sachin S. Shetty, Charles A. Kamhoua

VMASC Publications

Due to the popularity of Android mobile devices over the past ten years, malicious Android applications have significantly increased. Systems utilizing machine learning techniques have been successfully applied for Android malware detection to counter the constantly changing Android malware threats. However, attackers have developed new strategies to circumvent these systems by using adversarial attacks. An attacker can carefully craft a malicious sample to deceive a classifier. Among the evasion attacks, there is the more potent one, which is based on solid optimization constraints: the Carlini-Wagner attack. Carlini-Wagner is an attack that uses margin loss, which is more efficient than cross-entropy …

Parametrization Of Fluid Models For Electrical Breakdown Of Nitrogen At Atmospheric Pressure, Shirshak K. Dhali

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

In the transient phase of an atmospheric pressure discharge, the avalanche turns into a streamer discharge with time. Hydrodynamic fluid models are frequently used to describe the formation and propagation of streamers, where charge particle transport is dominated by the creation of space charge. The required electron transport data and rate coefficients for the fluid model are parameterized using the local mean energy approximation (LMEA) and the local field approximation (LFA). In atmospheric pressure applications, the excited species produced in the electrical discharge determine the subsequent conversion chemistry. We performed the fluid model simulation of streamers in nitrogen gas at …

A Review Of Emerging Sensor Technologies For Tank Inspection: A Focus On Lidar And Hyperspectral Imaging And Their Automation And Deployment, Sergio Pallas Enguita, Chung-Hao Chen, Samuel Kovacic

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper reviews various sensor technologies for tank inspection, focusing on Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) and Hyperspectral Imaging (HSI) as advanced solutions for corrosion detection. These technologies are evaluated alongside traditional methods such as ultrasonic, electromagnetic, and thermographic inspections. This review highlights their potential to enhance inspection accuracy, reduce the limitations of manual inspection, and support integrated data analysis for comprehensive asset management. Additionally, this paper proposes a pathway for automating these techniques to streamline inspection processes and improve implementation in practical applications.

Monarch, Philip Walzer (Editor)

Monarch Magazine

Summer 2023 issue of Monarch, the Old Dominion University Magazine.

Subtitled: The Launch of a New Era

The Solidarity Manifesto: A New Network For Future Change, Sofia Calicchio

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Colonialism is a scheme of standpoint; colonizer versus colonized, West versus East, good versus bad. When put in the foreground, the value of what we see heavily relies on our perspective and knowledge. When learning to dissect, deconstruct, and decolonize spaces, we need to start utilizing decolonial thought as an historical tool rather than a true depiction of reality. Decolonizing spaces and recognizing Western colonization practices means challenging the normative structures in colonial history, thus breaking the cycle of oppression through building community and fostering solidarity. Drawing on theories exploring access to public spheres, representation, protection, permanence, cultural displacement and …

United States Foreign Policy And The Additions Of Sweden And Finland To The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Kara Gwendolyn Broene

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Following the reemergence of Russia as an aggressive power to the east and the invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, Sweden and Finland have decided to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). With the additions of Sweden and Finland, the security dynamic of the Baltic will change. The United States (US) has been the backbone of NATO since the Soviet Union, fell and as such, NATO has continued to be a major part of US foreign policy (USFP). If Finland and Sweden join NATO, then one of three scenarios will occur within USFP: (1) USFP in the Baltic …

Attitudes Of Ethnic Minorities Towards National Defense And Security In The Triadic Nexus: The Case Of Russian-Speakers In Estonia, Nikita Lumijoe

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The contested loyalty of ethnic minorities between the host nation and ethnocultural homeland can play a significant role in the formation of geopolitical tensions as well as civil and ethnic-based conflicts. When the ethnocultural homeland of an ethnic minority increases the scale of intervention into the inner affairs of the host countries using hybrid, cognitive and even military wise, the attitudes of ethnic minorities towards national security and defense policy become a strategic asset for both sides.

In 2014, pro-Russian separatism in Ukraine focused the attention of the international community to the political attitudes of Russian-speaking ethnic minorities in Eastern …

Can’T Let Go: Anxiety, Ontological Security, And French Foreign Policy Decision-Making During The Hollande Administration, Peter D. Langley

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Why does France continue to intervene militarily in sub-Saharan Africa despite repeated commitments, both in practice and in rhetoric, to disengage and adhere to strict non-intervention? Although many accounts of France’s African security policy have been put forth, few have analyzed French foreign policy choices through the decision-making process itself, let alone exclusively applied International Relations (IR) theories to understand those decisions. Synthesizing a narrative approach with an ontological security interpretation, which understands states as having identity security needs on top of their physical ones, I propose an alternative framework for understanding France’s security-seeking, threats to identity, and how they …

Systemic Risk Analysis Of Human Factors In Phishing, Mark Guilford

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The scope of this study is the systemic risk of the role of humans in the risk of phishing. The relevance to engineering managers and systems engineers of the risks of phishing attacks is the theft of data which has significantly increased in the past couple of years. Phishing has become a systemic persistent threat to all internet users. Understanding the role of humans in phishing from a systemic perspective is a critical objective towards creating a strong defense against complex and manipulative phishing attacks. The systemic view of phishing concentrates on how phishing affects the entire organizational system, not …

A Qualitative Analysis Of The Relationship Between Cyberthreats And Democratic Backsliding, Amy I. Browning

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

Interstate conflict has developed beyond conventional tactics to include the cyber realm, making cybersecurity a key component of international relations and an integral part of state defense plans. Research in international security has included the analyses of the relative success or failures of particular cyberattacks. However, the instigators behind these attacks receive comparatively little attention, leaving a gap in knowledge for when, why, and where cyberthreats are likely to emerge. Recent analysis has found that democratic institutions are likely to hinder state-sponsored cyberattack initiation. A consideration that the latest wave of global democratic backsliding could be fueling cyberthreats must be …

On Whose Grounds? The Legality And Morality Of Humanitarian Intervention, Paul Pepi

Graduate Research Conference (GSIS)

This article will be broken into four separate parts. The first section will be whether or not there were legitimate legal grounds for the humanitarian intervention broadly. The second section will explore the moral justifications of humanitarian intervention and attempt to distinguish between cases that had a legitimate moral justification for the decision to militarily invade. That being said, there are no certain immoral thresholds for a crisis to reach that immediately prompts humanitarian intervention. The crimes against humanity in Bosnia and Herzegovina paled in comparison to that of the Rwandan genocide; however, humanitarian intervention was practiced far quicker and …

Public Diplomacy And Foreign Policy Analysis In The 21st Century: Navigating Uncertainty Through Digital Power And Influence, Amber Brittain-Hale

Graduate Research Conference (GSIS)

In an era defined by digital networks and geopolitical risk, public diplomacy is gaining traction for global leaders to address uncertainty. This paper investigates the use of decentralized politics in public discourse and its implications for leadership. Individual global actors have increased public diplomatic efforts as a focus due to political uncertainty, particularly since 2016. The case of Ukraine and its President Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's use of digital and public diplomacy in the conflict with Russia emphasizes the importance of looking at individual actor impacts in international relations rather than just states. The study should concentrate on how digital …

Choices For U.S. Contributions To Nato: Stability Policing In The Age Of Multi-Domain Operations, Nathan M. Colvin

Graduate Research Conference (GSIS)

The United States Army claims they are a “force out of position” and must transform for large-scale combat operations (LSCO). The current narrative toward LSCO warfighting comes at the expense of lessons hard-won over decades of small wars and stability operations. The focus on LSCO is an oversimplification of the complexity and ambiguity of the future operating environment. The Army is trading clarity of narrative at the expense of a force balanced for both LSCO and non-LSCO operations. LSCO perspective assumes a worst-case scenario of war over more likely scenarios of continuous disruptions across a spectrum of conflict, which may …

Global Security: Russia, Ukraine, And What Comes Next, Kateryna Koval, Ekaterina Kravchenko (Editor)

Graduate Research Conference (GSIS)

February 24, 2022, changed the lives of all Ukrainians. People throughout the country woke up to the sounds of bombings in the cities, and all soon knew that the full-scale war had begun. That morning Ukrainians realized that Russians could never become “brothers and sisters” again. Russia is a terrorist state that is continuing to commit war crimes. Crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity. Russia has now challenged the entire world with bombings, murder, and acts against civilians - including women and children.However, these unthinkable circumstances now allow Ukraine to change the situation together with the rest of the …

Nato Persistence & The Iron Law Model, Ronald Okoye

Graduate Research Conference (GSIS)

The centrality of NATO to the progression of the war is one of the fundamental issues in the current Russia-Ukraine conflict. Analysts generally agree that Russia's motivations for starting the conflict stem from Ukraine’s ambitions to join NATO, as Moscow sees such a move as a flagrant encroachment of Western Europe onto its territory. Special scrutiny of NATO as a regional alliance and its ongoing stability that has survived the cold war is necessary in light of the developments in Ukraine. In order to justify the scientific study of NATO's persistence, one must consider the war vis-a-vis the Ukraine-NATO issue …

2023 Conference Schedule, Gpis Department, Old Dominion University

Graduate Research Conference (GSIS)

Schedule for ODU's 2023 Graduate Research Conference: Rising Uncertainty in World Politics.

[Review Of The Book The Soviet Union And Cold War Neutrality And Nonalignment In Europe, Edited By M. Kramer, A. Makko, And P. Ruggenthaler]., Austin Jersild

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Anti-American Stance In Turkey: A Twitter Case Study, Gowri Prathap, Alex Korb, Luke Palmieri, Ekrem Kaya, Saltuk Karahan, Hamdi Kavak

School of Cybersecurity Faculty Publications

The availability of social media and biased actors exacerbated Anti-American and Anti-Western views to extremes. In this paper, we report our efforts in analyzing anti-American views on Twitter. We have collected over three years of Turkish tweets related to the US, translated them into English, and analyzed these tweets using various computational social science tools. We found that Turkish tweets related to the US are significantly negative, and emotions reflect disgust and anger. Furthermore, we found that the source of the negative views stems from political actors like Trump or Biden rather than general hatred. Our results shed light on …

S-400s, Disinformation, And Anti-American Sentiment In Turkey, Russell "Alex" Korb, Saltuk Karahan, Gowri Prathap, Ekrem Kaya, Luke Palmieri, Hamdi Kavak, Richard L. Wilson (Ed.), Major Brendan Curran (Ed.)

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

As social and political discourse in most countries becomes more polarized, anti-Americanism has risen not only in the Middle East and Latin America but also among the U.S. allies in Europe. Social media is one platform used to disseminate anti-American views in NATO countries, and its effectiveness can be magnified when mass media, public officials, and popular figures adopt these views. Disinformation, in particular, has gained recognition as a cybersecurity issue from 2016 onward, but disinformation can be manufactured domestically in addition to being part of a foreign influence campaign. In this paper, we analyze Turkish tweets using sentiment analysis …