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The Iwar Range + 21 Years: Cyber Defense Education In 2022, Joseph H. Schafer, Chris Morrell, Ray Blaine

Military Cyber Affairs

Twenty-one years ago, The IWAR Range paper published by CCSC described nascent information assurance (now cybersecurity[1]) education programs and the inspiration and details for constructing cyber ranges and facilitating cyber exercises. This paper updates the previously published work by highlighting the dramatic evolution of the cyber curricula, exercise networks and ranges, influences, and environments over the past twenty years.

[1] In 2014, DoD adopted “cybersecurity” instead of “information assurance.” [34:1]

Hypergaming For Cyber: Strategy For Gaming A Wicked Problem, Joshua A. Sipper

Military Cyber Affairs

Cyber as a domain and battlespace coincides with the defined attributes of a “wicked problem” with complexity and inter-domain interactions to spare. Since its elevation to domain status, cyber has continued to defy many attempts to explain its reach, importance, and fundamental definition. Corresponding to these intricacies, cyber also presents many interlaced attributes with other information related capabilities (IRCs), namely electromagnetic warfare (EW), information operations (IO), and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), within an information warfare (IW) construct that serves to add to its multifaceted nature. In this cyber analysis, the concept of hypergaming will be defined and discussed in …

Data-Driven Design And Analysis Of Next Generation Mobile Networks For Anomaly Detection And Signal Classification With Fast, Robust And Light Machine Learning, Muhammed Furkan Küçük

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research focuses on machine (and deep) learning applications (including clustering,anomaly detection and signal classification) for self-organizing and next generation mobile networks in wireless communications. Specifically, this dissertation document will address the three different topics.

First, in the study titled “Performance analysis of neural network topologies and hyperparameters for deep clustering”, we explore the relationship between the clustering performance and network complexity. Deep learning found its initial footing in supervised applications such as image and voice recognition successes of which were followed by deep generative models across similar domains. In recent years, researchers have proposed creative learning representations to utilize …

Host-Pathogen Coevolution Between Tasmanian Devils (Sarcophilus Harrisii) And Devil Facial Tumor Disease, Dylan Garret Gallinson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Coevolution is a driving force of rapid evolution, yet the complexity of coevolutionary interactions has made it difficult to characterize the genomic basis of traits mediating such relationships. Coevolutionary dynamics are especially important in host-pathogen systems where the host and pathogen must constantly adapt to one another. The Tasmanian devil and its species-specific transmissible cancer, devil facial tumor disease (DFTD), provide the rare opportunity to study host-pathogen coevolution in a complex natural system. Extensive spatiotemporal devil sampling, high linkage disequilibrium in devils, and a large selective pressure imposed by DFTD facilitate a system tractable for study. Here, we characterized devil …

Never Mind Betrayal: America’S Indifference To The Kurds Is A Strategic Blunder, Jonathan Honigman

Journal of Strategic Security

Although they have proven themselves to be loyal and capable U.S. partners, America has refused to endorse either independence for Iraqi Kurds or autonomy for Syrian Kurds. That policy has been academically underscored by several Realism-based concepts including an offshore balancing approach to the Middle East. This paper argues that America can adjust to new realities in the region without having to forsake its worthwhile Kurdish partnerships. I first compare and contrast the costs of American support for Kurds and then refute the notion that Kurdish independence in Iraq or autonomy in Syria would cause instability or be nonviable. I …

Cultural Intelligence In The Study Of Intelligence, Brian L. Alcorn, Beth Eisenfeld

Journal of Strategic Security

Intelligence officers often interact in culturally diverse settings different from the settings in which they grew up. Yet, there is a lack of academic research about the integration of culture and the study of intelligence. Researchers have made Cultural Intelligence (CQ) measurable via the Cultural Intelligence Scale (CQS) and successfully applied it in the business world as a predictor of success in multi-cultural environments. This article describes an application of the CQS, using the Observer Report questionnaire to assess the memoirs of three successful intelligence officers to ascertain the degree that CQ applies to the success of officers in United …

A Comparative Analysis Of The "Mexican Drug Violence: Hybrid Warfare, Predatory Capitalism And The Logic Of Cruelty" And "The Rise Of The Narcostate (Mafia States), Daniel Argomedo Weisz

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.

Emotional And Rational Decision-Making In Strategic Studies: Moving Beyond The False Dichotomy, Samuel Zilincik

Journal of Strategic Security

It is common, though erroneous, to think of rational and emotional decision-making as being opposed to each other. The binary distinction originated in Western philosophy and subsequently spread to other fields, including strategic studies. Strategic studies scholarship has nurtured this binary in two mainstream traditions, classical strategic theory and the coercion school. The distinction is fallacious because all strategically relevant decisions are emotional, and many of these decisions can be rational. Abandoning the false dichotomy is necessary for the field to remain relevant and for strategists to better understand their choices and the decisions made by their adversaries. Accordingly, this …

Revisiting Domestic Intelligence, John P. Sullivan, Genevieve Lester

Journal of Strategic Security

This article looks at the evolution of US domestic intelligence prior to and since 9/11 in light of the Capitol attacks. It also reviews the literature and practice of intelligence reform in the context of foreign comparative experience (France, UK, Canada, Australia). It looks at the promise of fusion centers, cocontemporay domestic intelligence models, and the continuing need for domestic intelligence reform.

Additional Keywords: Domestic Intelligence, Intelligence Reform, Intelligence Fusion

Interpreting 9/11: Religious Or Political Event?, Fadime Apaydin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Terrorism or violence can be triggered by a variety of circumstances, including the religious, cultural, political, or economic conditions of the social environment, as well as the perpetrator’s personal characteristics. However, studies conducted in the aftermath of 9/11 have largely described the attacks as religious events, arguing that religion inherently causes violence or that religion is the main motivation for violence. The primary argument for the approach adopted by such studies is that secular institutions are inclined to be less violent than religious ones. A second approach, on the other hand, fundamentally opposes the arguments that led to describing the …

Silence And Silhouettes: An Army Reservist's Year In Iraq The Ghosts Of War, Ryan Smithson

Hipple Collection of Young Adult Literature Manuscripts

A manuscript of the book, Silence and silhouettes: An Army reservist's year in Iraq.

Hepatitis C Virus Infection And Intrinsic Disorder In The Signaling Pathways Induced By Toll-Like Receptors, Elrashdy M. Redwan, Abdullah A. Aljadawi, Vladimir N. Uversky

Molecular Medicine Faculty Publications

In this study, we examined the interplay between protein intrinsic disorder, hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, and signaling pathways induced by Toll-like receptors (TLRs). To this end, 10 HCV proteins, 10 human TLRs, and 41 proteins from the TLR-induced downstream pathways were considered from the prevalence of intrinsic disorder. Mapping of the intrinsic disorder to the HCV-TLR interactome and to the TLR-based pathways of human innate immune response to the HCV infection demonstrates that substantial levels of intrinsic disorder are characteristic for proteins involved in the regulation and execution of these innate immunity pathways and in HCV-TLR interaction. Disordered regions, …

Domains Of Peace: Cyberspace And The First Global Expression Without War, Matt Flynn

Journal of Strategic Security

The ongoing war in Ukraine appears to validate war as it always is. A look at the evolution of domains offers something different. When this step is taken, it becomes clear that humanity chooses the violence defining war. Cyber realities today reveal how technological innovation has stymied war, taking humanity into a pre-existing condition repudiating war and leaving cyberspace as the first global expression without war. Once accepting that truth, nations can contemplate the discovery of a domain offering an expression of peace as a cognitive battlespace overrides the physical application of use of force. This feat means peace finds …

Fifth Generation Warfare, Hybrid Warfare, And Gray Zone Conflict: A Comparison, Armin Krishnan

Journal of Strategic Security

Strategists have noted substantial changes in warfare since the end of the Cold War. They have proposed several concepts and theories to account for the fact that the practice of war has largely departed from a Clausewitzian understanding of war and the centrality of physical violence in it. Emerging modes of conflict are less focused on the instrumental use of force to achieve political objectives and are more centered on notions of perception management, narratives, asymmetry or irregular conflict, the adversarial uses of norms, and covert and ambiguous uses of force. This article aims to systematically compare three more recent …

A Social Network Analysis Of Mexico’S Dark Network Alliance Structure, Nathan P. Jones, Irina A. Chindea, Daniel Weisz Argomedo, John P. Sullivan

Journal of Strategic Security

This article assesses Mexico’s organized crime alliance and subgroup network structures. Through social network analysis (SNA) of data from Lantia Consultores, a consulting firm in Mexico that specializes in the analysis of public policies, it demonstrates differential alliance structures within Mexico’s bipolar illicit network system. The Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación’s (CJNG) alliance structure is top-down and hierarchical, while the Sinaloa Cartel is denser, particularly in the broader Tierra Caliente region. Additionally, our analysis found a sparse overall network with many isolates (groups with no relations to other groups) and disconnected components. Further, we identified organized crime networks that …

Technology, Data, & The Future Of Warfare: A Review Essay By James Torrence, James Torrence, Dss

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.

Securing Elections Through International Law: A Tool For Combatting Disinformation Operations?, İrem Işik, Ömer F. Bi̇ldi̇k, Tayanç T. Molla

Journal of Strategic Security

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, in 2014, the Russian government-connected Internet Research Agency (IRA) initiated an information operation on social media platforms to manipulate the U.S. population concerning the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. This has revealed that social media platforms enable the spread of fake news among the masses globally and can thus become a means of disrupting the electoral process for foreign actors. This article addresses state-sponsored disinformation operations on social media that target foreign voters. It considers it crucial to counter such operations to protect the security and integrity of the elections in the digital age, …

Military Leadership By Intellectual Officers: A Case Study Of The Idf, Haim Yogev, Ronen A. Cohen, Eyal Lewin

Journal of Strategic Security

Morris Janowitz believed that for an army to be victorious it needs to be led by as many intellectual forces as possible, just as any organization needs organizational intellectualism to prosper. It is agreed in scholarly literature that the intellectual must author various articles and manifestos to express their viewpoints, mindset, and philosophy in the public sphere. Based on Janowitz’s belief and using the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) as a case study, this research offers a model for a generic research methodology that can be practiced elsewhere. The mission was to find the extent to which the higher echelons of …

Book Review: Scorched Earth: Environmental Warfare As A Crime Against Humanity And Nature, Jeremy Ritzer

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

The subtitle of Emmanuel Kreike’s Scorched Earth foreshadows the goal of this impressive and comprehensive contribution to the field. His goal is to chip away at the Nature-Culture dichotomy that he argues drives, and limits, much of the analysis that is produced of historical, and modern, warfare. Kreike uses the concept of environcide, which he defines as “intentionally or unintentionally damaging, destroying, or rendering inaccessible environmental infrastructure”, and argues that the traditional assumptions about nature and culture in the study of warfare obscure the importance of the natural world in determining who lives and who dies. For the field of …

Table Of Contents

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Collective Healing: Towards A Conceptual Framework, Garrett Thomson

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

To understand what kind of collective healing practices might be most effective following mass atrocity, we need to comprehend better what counts as collective healing, and in what ways group healing processes differ from individual ones. We need clear and well-argued answers to these conceptual questions as a basis for deriving the criteria by which we might evaluate various practices in different contexts. Because means are valuable only in relation to ends, judging their effectiveness requires a definition of the ends in question and what is good about them. So, what counts as a good collective healing process? This conceptual …

Book Review: An Indigenous Peoples' History Of The United States, Judith B. Cohen

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's, An Indigenous Peoples' History Of The United States, confronts the reality of settler-colonialism and genocide as foundational to the United States. It reconstructs and reframes the consensual narrative from the Native Indian perspective while exposing indoctrinated myths and stereotypes. This masterful and riveting journey provides truth and paths towards the future progress for all peoples. It is a must read and belongs in every classroom, home, library, and canon of genocide studies.

Contextualizing Caves Within An Animate Maya Landscape: Caves As Living Agents In The Past And Present, Brent K. S. Woodfill

KIP Articles

After groundbreaking work by multiple archaeologists in the latter half of the 20th century, caves in the Maya world are currently acknowledged as fundamentally ritual rather than domestic spaces. However, a more nuanced read of the anthropological literature and conversations with Indigenous collaborators in the past and present pushes us to move still farther and see caves not as passive contexts to contain ceremonies directed elsewhere but animate beings with unique identities and personalities in their own right. This article combines archaeological, ethnohistoric, and ethnographic documentation of Maya cave use in central Guatemala to build a foundation for examining caves …

The Weekly Challenger, December 9, 2021, The Weekly Challenger, Et Al

Weekly Challenger Newspaper Collection

The December 9, 2021, issue of The Weekly Challenger.

Effects Of Exogenous Ketone Therapy On Performance, Cardiorespiration, And Seizure Genesis During Exposure To Hbo2 In The Sprague Dawley Rat, Nicole M. Stavitzski

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Hyperbaric oxygen (HBO2) is used for clinical HBO2 therapy and in undersea and aerospace medicine. HBO2 is a humanmade extreme environment and protracted exposures can cause several adverse physiological effects on the body. For example, HBO2 increases the partial pressure of oxygen (PO2) in the body leading to redox stress. Redox stress is, in part, a cause of oxygen toxicity that manifests as seizures in its most severe form (central nervous system oxygen toxicity, CNS-OT). This dissertation focuses on strategies to be employed specifically for the warfighter breathing HBO2. Currently, the only way to prevent CNS-OT is to lower the …

Synthesis And Characterization Of Moo2 Nanoparticles And Their Ability To Decontaminate Water, Michael Scott Mccrory, Manoj Kumar Ram

USF Patents

The disclosure provides a decontaminant comprising MoO2. The disclosure also provides methods to produce a decontaminant comprising MoO2 and methods for decontamination of a fluid comprising us of a decontaminant comprising MoO2.

Usft Digital Scholarship Services Annual Report: Fy 2020-2021, Digital Scholarship Services

Digital Commons @ USF Publications

This is the annual report for FY 2020-2021, the fifth full year of Digital Scholarship Services (DSS).

Networks Of Threats: Interconnection, Interaction, Intermediation, Julien Theron

Journal of Strategic Security

The rapidly changing global security environment requires to constantly adapt our understanding of threats. The findings of this paper confirm that threats interact with each other on three levels. Security, conflict, war, and strategic studies converge to build a new qualitative theoretical framework for threat analysis. Shaping the global security environment, threats communicate on three levels. Firstly, the interconnection of agents with similar ideological and/or strategic motivations connects threats. Secondly, interaction exacerbates incidental threats through cooperation, competition, and convergence. Thirdly, intermediation occurs between antagonistic threats trying to achieve common intermediary objectives. These networks are driven by agents maximizing their impact …

Shrinking Civic Space For Human Rights Defenders In Afghanistan Following The U.S. Military Drawdown In 2014, Abdul Rahman Yasa

Journal of Strategic Security

Civic space, an imperative to a democratic society where citizens can exercise their basic rights, is now under attack in Afghanistan. The fall of the Islamic Emirate in 2001 by a coalition of the U.S.-led military intervention grounded the rise of a vibrant environment for civil society and human rights defenders (HRDs). Promoting and safeguarding democratic values, mainly freedom of speech, assembly, and association, enshrined within a progressive constitutional framework, had turned to the topic of the day. The heavy presence of foreign troops with the money influx put strong support behind the nascent Afghan CSOs, HRDs, and democracy advocates …

1939: A People’S History Of The Coming Of The Second World War. By Frederick Taylor. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 2019., Edward J. Hagerty, Ph.D.

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.