Digital Commons Network^™

Urban Security: From High-Intensity Crime To Large-Scale Combat Operations And Everything In Between, John P. Sullivan, Ph.D., Nathan P. Jones, Ph.D., Daniel W. Argomedo, Ph.D.

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.

Artificial Intelligence And Urban Operations, Anthony King

Journal of Strategic Security

It is widely believed that AI is about to revolutionise military operations. Many scholars have claimed that AI-enabled lethal autonomous weapons, especially drone swarms, are about to take over the battlefield. This article assesses the merits of those claims in relation to urban operations. Examining the cases of the Joint Special Operations Command in Baghdad in 2004-08 and the IDF's Operation Guardian of the Walls in 2021, it argues that AI will primarily be for military intelligence and targeting, rather than lethal autonomy.

Understanding Urban Warfare. By John Spencer And Liam Collins. Hampshire, England: Howgate Publishing Limited, 2022., Amos C. Fox

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.

Civil Affairs In Antwerp 1944-1945: Critical Infrastructure And Civil Defense, Louise Tumchewics

Journal of Strategic Security

In the autumn of 1944, as the Allies moved through France and towards Germany, the city of Antwerp became a key logistics hub owing to its large, and for the time, modern port facilities. Owing to its strategic significance, it became a prime target for German V-1 and V-2 rocket strikes. In order to keep the population in the bombarded city, 1st Canadian Army Civil Affairs took on the challenge of Civil Defense to keep the population safe and the port operational.

Wide Area Motion Imagery And The Colonial Antecedents Of Surveillance, Dinesh Napal

Journal of Strategic Security

Wide area motion imagery (WAMI) technologies are procured by federal and state security institutions across the United States, due to their capacity to surveil at an extraordinary scale. Innovation in WAMI development seeks to make them more compact or convenient to use and employ in a variety of situations. The increased use of WAMI, particularly through uncrewed aerial combat vehicle (UCAV) systems and operations, is able to render visible people, communities, and behaviors at an unprecedented level. This has implications for individuals’ and communities’ perception of surveillance and the ontology of security. The experience of being secured or kept safe …

The Battles Of Hue: Understanding Urban Conflicts Through Wargaming, David J.H. Burden

Journal of Strategic Security

Recent years have seen increased interest in the professional use of wargames, and wargames are a potential tool to enable a better understanding of past urban conflicts and to plan for future urban security. Whilst access to professional wargames are limited, hobby wargames have been identified as useful and closely related areas to study. Previous work has identified around 214 manual hobby wargames that deal with urban conflict, but only 5 battles are covered by 5 or more wargames, and so provide a reasonable sample for comparative reviews. The Battle of Hue battle had many of the hallmarks of a …

Blood And Concrete: 21st Century Conflict In Urban Centers And Megacities. Edited By Dave Dilegge, Robert J. Bunker, John P. Sullivan, And Alma Keshavarz. Bloomington, In: Xlibris, 2019., Michael L. Burgoyne

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.

The Weekly Challenger, September 28, 2023, The Weekly Challenger, Et Al

Weekly Challenger Newspaper Collection

The September 28, 2023, issue of The Weekly Challenger.

From Counter-Strike To Counterterrorism: How The Cheater Reconfigures Our Understanding Of Asymmetric Warfare, Enya C. Silva

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Around the turn of the century, as the United States increased its military presence in the Middle East in what was widely known as the War on Terror, computer games were also rising in popularity. Military inspired narratives and settings are very common in video games, especially in the genre known as the first person shooter – characterized by a single player, first person point of view. Alexander Galloway provides a vocabulary for understanding the video game, and the first person shooter in particular, derived from the framework of game studies. Scholarship around video games usually either seeks to affirm …

Aotearoa New Zealand, The Forcible Transfer Of Tamariki And Rangatahi Māori, And The Royal Commission On Abuse In Care, David B. Macdonald

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article investigates to what extent the forcible transfer of tamariki and rangatahi Māori (Indigenous children and youth) in Aotearoa New Zealand can be considered genocide. First, I begin by exploring contemporary genocide theory as it relates to dolus eventualis in settler colonial contexts, before engaging with precedents for recognizing Indigenous genocides established by truth commissions in Canada (2015; 2019) and Australia (1997). I then explore the history around Indigenous child removal in Aotearoa from the onset of colonization to the present day, attentive to ways in which the UN Convention can apply to the forced removal of Māori children. …

Gnsi Decision Brief: The National Guard's State Partnership Program In Strategic Competition, Tad Schnaufer

GNSI Decision Briefs

Both the National Security (NSS) and National Defense Strategies (NDS) make it clear that the US is "in the midst of a strategic competition" with Russia and China. Both documents highlight the strengths the US has in this competitive environment, notably its allies and partners. The NSS states, "The United States' unrivaled network of allies and partners protects and advances our interests around the world--and is the envy of our adversaries." The US employs a variety of methods to maintain this invaluable network. One expanding method is the National Guard's State Partnership Program (SPP). The SPP establishes formal relationships between …

A Taxonomy Of Radiofrequency Jamming And Spoofing Strategies And Criminal Motives, Tegg Westbrook

Journal of Strategic Security

This article provides a taxonomy of radiofrequency (RF) jamming and spoofing tactics and strategies associated with specific criminal objectives. This is based on the fact that the motivations and strategies of cyber-attackers – predominantly financial – is well-known, but the motivations behind specific electromagnetic interferences is lacking in the current literature. Previous research has also overlooked the motivations of other actors using jamming and spoofing devices.

The objective is to identify the most desirable spoofing and jamming strategies, likely targets, and likely motivations. The article finds that (a) previous literature on the subject overlooks a number of non-state actor motives, …

How Putin's Cyberwar Failed In Ukraine, Austen D. Givens, Max Gorbachevsky, Anita C. Biernat

Journal of Strategic Security

As Russian military forces surged across the Ukrainian border in February 2022, cybersecurity analysts shared predictions about the ways in which the Russian government would use cyberattacks to thwart Ukrainian defenses. Some government agencies and private sector organizations forecast that the Russians would launch a blitz of devastating electronic attacks against Ukrainian critical infrastructure targets, such as electrical power plants and air traffic control networks, crippling the country. While Russian cyberattacks have played a role in the conflict, their effects to date have been significantly less than what some analysts anticipated. But why? This article examines how analysts’ most extreme …

A Church Of The People: Coptic Church Building And Direction In Central New Jersey, Bishoy Garis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Building off Michael Akladios’ work on early Coptic migration and the ad hoc institutionalization of the Coptic Orthodox Church in North America, this dissertation proposes that the construction and direction of Coptic churches in Middlesex County, New Jersey was laity driven, ad hoc, reactive, and dependent on local variables. Additionally, it reveals that the creation of St. Mary’s Coptic Orthodox Church in East Brunswick, New Jersey spurred migration to the Middlesex County area and transformed their small community into a domestic and international Coptic migration center. Unlike previous scholarship that places greater attention on urban Coptic communities and transnational networks, …

Gnsi Policy Dialogues: Hunger As A Weapon, Arman Mahmoudian, Funmi Odumosu, Tad Schnaufer Ii

GNSI Conference Reports

First GNSI Policy Dialogues Conference

May 24, 2023

University of South Florida

Towards A Mobile Ad-Hoc Mesh Network Establishing Emergency Drone System, Ryan Integlia

Florida Conference on Recent Advances in Robotics

A drone based mobile ad-hoc mesh network for emergency communications is discussed. The in-progress project seeks to improve emergency and disaster area communication systems by creating a mobile, ad-hoc wireless network with an array of microcomputers, a GPS receiver, IMU, network adapter and drone. The Linux based platform includes network management, data collection, and integration with visualization. The expected outcome of this project is the establishment of a wireless mesh network capable of self-healing to support emergency response.

Gnsi Decision Brief: Hunger As A Weapon, Tad Schnaufer, David Himmelgreen

GNSI Decision Briefs

Overview

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs places physiological needs as the foundation of all others.i The needs of food, water, and shelter are referred to as objects indispensable to survival (OIS). A person will think of little else until these basic needs are met, hence the power OIS have over populations. The concept of hunger as a weapon dates to the beginning of written history with Homer’s Iliad describing the siege of Troy. In war, military leaders often consider foodstuffs as it relates to their war effort while analyzing ways to use this basic need against their foe. As the quote …

Enhancing The Battleverse: The People’S Liberation Army’S Digital Twin Strategy, Joshua Baughman

Military Cyber Affairs

No abstract provided.

What Senior U.S. Leaders Say We Should Know About Cyber, Dr. Joseph H. Schafer

Military Cyber Affairs

On April 6, 2023, the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative hosted a panel discussion on the new National Cybersecurity Strategy. The panel featured four senior officials from the Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD), the Department of State (DoS), the Department of Justice (DoJ), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The author attended and asked each official to identify the most important elements that policymakers and strategists must understand about cyber. This article highlights historical and recent struggles to express cyber policy, the responses from these officials, and the author’s ongoing research to improve national security cyber policy.

Operationalizing Deterrence By Denial In The Cyber Domain, Gentry Lane

Military Cyber Affairs

No abstract provided.

Modern Cognitive Operations And Hybrid Warfare, Yuriy Danyk, Chad M. Briggs

Journal of Strategic Security

Concepts of cognitive warfare and operations are explored in the context of hybrid warfare, including how cyber technologies promote greater asymmetric opportunities for influence, control, and undermining of one’s adversary. Research areas are analyzed in the interconnection with hybrid cognitive operations. The purpose of the article is to study the features and theoretical and applied substantiation of cognitive actions in cyberspace and through cyberspace and their possible consequences within the framework of hybrid conflicts.

Cyber Cases: The Picca Framework For Documenting Geopolitically Relevant Cyber Action, Chris Bronk, Nathan Jones

Journal of Strategic Security

This article presents a novel framework called the Policy Informative Cyber Case Analysis for cyberattack incidents. The aim of this framework is to provide a structured documentation and translational assessment tool for cyber incidents of geopolitical significance to a broader policy audience. The article discusses case study method as applied to cyber incidents, situates the framework amongst other useful methods, discusses the application of structured analytic techniques (SAT) such as “chronologies and timelines” and “devil’s advocacy,” presents the framework, and provides conclusions. Cyber incident cases, primarily the 2015 attack on the Ukrainian electric-grid is used throughout to elucidate the utility …

Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles: Current Types, Ordnance And Operations. By Dan Gettinger. Wien, Austria: Harpia Publishing, 2021., James M. Duggan, Ph.D.

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.

Military Advisors, Service Strategies, And Great Power Competition, Mike Anderson

Journal of Strategic Security

United States professional military advisors play a critical role across the spectrum of conflict within the various services’ strategies in support of the overall National Defense Strategy. In an era of great power competition, the role of advisory forces within the shadow of large-scale conflict, provide a crucial edge for the US military services fulfilling their strategic role. Within each of the services’ unique strategies - the Army’s multidomain operations, the Marine Corps expeditionary advanced base operations nested within the Navy’s broader littoral operations in a contested environment, and the Air Force’s forward projecting agile basing concept - advisors from …

The Russia Conundrum: How The West Fell For Putin’S Power Gambit – And How To Fix It. By Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky With Martin Sixsmith. New York: St. Martin’S Press, 2022., Edward M. Roche, Ph.D., J.D.

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.

Pillage As The Political Economy Of The Kurdish Anfal Genocide, Kaziwa Salih

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Scholars are critical of how economists overlook “the questions of genocide,” and of how legislatures have not paid adequate attention to the subject of looting, except in the case of the Armenian genocide. This article, informed by interdisciplinary perspectives, uses government documents, data, and semi-structured interviews to discuss the overlooked triangle of looting, economics, and the Anfal genocide of the Kurds in Iraq. The study refuses to limit itself only to the eight stages of the Anfal genocide that started in 1988, and instead offers data on its preliminary phases which occurred earlier in the 1980s. It then discusses the …

China's Strategic Devaluing Of American Social Capital, Garrett Martin

Journal of Strategic Security

The information technology era has opened a myriad of new battlespaces through which nations engage each other. China has advanced their “three warfares” doctrine – political warfare, public opinion warfare, and legal warfare – behind a robust and aggressive economic agenda. Direct financial investment and tightly controlled access to both their large consumer market and cheap labor force has given them considerable leverage in key sectors of American industry, particularly those in the communication sphere. The narrative crafting capabilities increasingly acquired by China are beginning to appear as genuine cultural hegemony. This indicates an ability to shape the American collective …

Proud And Mischievous Designs: Elizabethan Propaganda Of The Dutch Revolt, Michael Swierczynski

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the late sixteenth century, England’s political culture was engaged in a heated debate over that kingdom’s participation in the Dutch Revolt. Across the Channel, predominantly Protestant Dutch rebels had risen up in revolt against their Catholic overlord, King Philip II of Spain. The English people, linked to the Dutch by longstanding cultural, economic, and religious ties, largely sympathized with the rebels. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and, after his death, his stepson, Robert Deveraux, Earl of Essex, sponsored extensive campaigns of print propaganda to influence their fellow subjects to support an active English military intervention in the Revolt. They …

Summit Report: Current Rise Of The Great Powers, Tad Schnaufer

GNSI Summit Reports

Overview

The inaugural Global and National Security Institute (GNSI) Tampa Summit convened at the University of South Florida campus in Tampa, Florida March 7-9, 2023. The GNSI Tampa Summit is a new platform created to bring together the best strategists, analysts, academics, and policy influencers. The summit consisted of two conferences. First, the Central and South Asia Directors of Military Intelligence Conference focused on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and included representatives of the directors of military intelligence from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The second event was the 7th Great Power Competition Conference: Current Rise of Great …

Karl Marx On Human Flourishing And Proletarian Ethics, Sam Badger

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation will show that Marx’s philosophy contains a notion of human “second nature” centered on the activity of labor with a corresponding class-centered theory of flourishing and emancipation. This notion shares important similarities with that of Aristotle but also differs in significant ways. Second nature for Marx is created and habituated through education and social labor. Moreover, human nature is molded into different forms as history progresses and modes and means of production change. In a class society everyone becomes is alienated from their nature in a way that inhibits their flourishing. This contrasts with an emancipated society, where …