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A Social Network Analysis Of Mexico’S Dark Network Alliance Structure, Nathan P. Jones, Irina A. Chindea, Daniel Weisz Argomedo, John P. Sullivan Jan 2022

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 Jan 2022

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 Jan 2022

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 Jan 2022

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 …


Networks Of Threats: Interconnection, Interaction, Intermediation, Julien Theron Oct 2021

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 Oct 2021

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. Oct 2021

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.


This Is How They Tell Me The World Ends: The Cyber-Weapons Arms Race. By Nicole Perlroth. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing; 1st Edition, 2021. Isbn-13 : 978-1635576054. Pp. 528. $30.00., Edward M. Roche , Phd, Jd Jul 2021

This Is How They Tell Me The World Ends: The Cyber-Weapons Arms Race. By Nicole Perlroth. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing; 1st Edition, 2021. Isbn-13 : 978-1635576054. Pp. 528. $30.00., Edward M. Roche , Phd, Jd

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.


National Security As A Public Interest Consideration In Uk Merger Control, Ioannis Kokkoris Jul 2021

National Security As A Public Interest Consideration In Uk Merger Control, Ioannis Kokkoris

Journal of Strategic Security

The article will discuss the boundaries of UK merger control set by national security concerns against the background of public interest considerations in the decisional practice of the competent authorities. The article will first present an overview of the existing legal framework for considering public interest when reviewing mergers and acquisitions in strategic industries or companies. It will then present the main precedents where issues of national security were raised and will discuss how the CMA and the Secretary of State assessed these transactions from both a competition and national security angle. Finally, the article will present the recent legislative …


Covid-19, Gangs, And Conflict. Edited By John P. Sullivan And Robert J. Bunker. Bloomington: Xlibris, 2020. Isbn: 978-1-6641-2434-9. 200 Pages. $3.99 (E-Book), $44.99 (Paperback)., Gus Frias , Edd Jul 2021

Covid-19, Gangs, And Conflict. Edited By John P. Sullivan And Robert J. Bunker. Bloomington: Xlibris, 2020. Isbn: 978-1-6641-2434-9. 200 Pages. $3.99 (E-Book), $44.99 (Paperback)., Gus Frias , Edd

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.


Strategic Relationships, Risk, And Proxy War, Amos C. Fox Jul 2021

Strategic Relationships, Risk, And Proxy War, Amos C. Fox

Journal of Strategic Security

Proxy wars dominate modern war fighting. Despite the frequency of proxy wars on today's battle field, the strategic studies community lacks sufficient models and strategic theories to frame proxy wars from the strategic level. This works seeks to build on the limited amount of preexisting theoretical work on proxy war by introducing five models of proxy relation - coerced, transactional, cultural, exploitative, and contractual. This models help policymakers, strategists, and practitioners understand and navigate through the strategic workings of today's proxy wars.


The Magnitude Of Warfare Revisited – System Polarity And War Duration, Marco Nilsson Jul 2021

The Magnitude Of Warfare Revisited – System Polarity And War Duration, Marco Nilsson

Journal of Strategic Security

One of the intractable debates in the study of international conflict is the linkage between polarity and magnitude of interstate warfare. Speculations about the effects of the structure of the international system can be traced back to the Treaty of Westphalia. This article revisits this debate with a focus on war duration, which has received little attention in the literature, and presents the first theoretical discussion of the connection between polarity and war duration. It also uses a hazards model to statistically test whether five different measures of polarity are associated with war duration (1816-1992). The results provide initial support …


Training Foreign Militaries For Peace – U.S. Imet And Militarized Interstate Disputes 1976-2007, Sandor Fabian Apr 2021

Training Foreign Militaries For Peace – U.S. Imet And Militarized Interstate Disputes 1976-2007, Sandor Fabian

Journal of Strategic Security

How do U.S. International Military Education and Training programs affect the recipient states` behavior in militarized interstate disputes? While the relationship between U.S. military aid in the form of arms and equipment transfer and MID involvement has been studied extensively in international relations literature the effects of U.S. IMET programs on the same phenomena has been largely ignored. This study intends to fill some of this gap. This paper proposes that American educated and trained foreign military personnel return home with a better understanding about the role of the military as an instrument of national power, civil-military relations, and the …


Russian Cyber Operations: Coding The Boundaries Of Conflict. By Scott Jasper. Washington, Dc: Georgetown University Press, June 2020. Isbn: 978-1-626-16797-1. Hardcover. 232 Pages. $32.95, Chris Bronk Apr 2021

Russian Cyber Operations: Coding The Boundaries Of Conflict. By Scott Jasper. Washington, Dc: Georgetown University Press, June 2020. Isbn: 978-1-626-16797-1. Hardcover. 232 Pages. $32.95, Chris Bronk

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.


Psychological Casualties As A Source Of Friction During War And A Mediator Of Coerced Peace Efforts, Karl Umbrasas Apr 2021

Psychological Casualties As A Source Of Friction During War And A Mediator Of Coerced Peace Efforts, Karl Umbrasas

Journal of Strategic Security

The United States homeland does not enjoy sanctuary in the twenty-first century geopolitical environment. Near-peer rivals, such as China and Russia, have capabilities that can impact the United States homeland during a high-end war. Adversaries’ aerospace capabilities have the potential to cause large volumes of psychological casualties among the United States population. Psychological casualties during a high-end war could serve as the basis for a mass call to end a war due to the altered information processing seen among traumatized people. Such a call to end a war could result in unfavorable peace settlements. The United States homeland must improve …


A Flying Threat Coming To Sahel And East Africa? A Brief Review, Håvard Haugstvedt Apr 2021

A Flying Threat Coming To Sahel And East Africa? A Brief Review, Håvard Haugstvedt

Journal of Strategic Security

Non-state actors have been experimenting with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for two decades. This has become widely known over the 5 years, as both ISIS and the Houthis have adapted weaponized UAVs into their repertoires. As the Sahel and East Africa regions experience a rise in violence from non-state actors, and given that groups here are affiliated with groups in the Middle East, this paper seeks to explore the possibility and likelihood of weaponized UAVs being used on the battlefield in these regions. By utilizing both scholarly work and other reporting from these regions, this paper finds that there is …


International Competition Below The Threshold Of War: Toward A Theory Of Gray Zone Conflict, Javier Jordan Apr 2021

International Competition Below The Threshold Of War: Toward A Theory Of Gray Zone Conflict, Javier Jordan

Journal of Strategic Security

Drawing on existing literature, this research offers a theoretical delineation of the gray zone conflict, that is, conflict below the threshold of armed conflict. It begins by identifying the characteristic features attributed to the gray zone to propose a definition of the concept. It then situates gray zone conflict within the framework of the International Relations theory of Realism before setting out the main lines of strategic action used. Lastly, it examines the various levels of escalation that can arise in conflict of this nature.


Strategic Security In Northern Europe: The Implications Of Russian Anti-Access/Area Denial Strategies In Developing Complex Threat Environments, Herb Kemp Phd Apr 2021

Strategic Security In Northern Europe: The Implications Of Russian Anti-Access/Area Denial Strategies In Developing Complex Threat Environments, Herb Kemp Phd

Journal of Strategic Security

Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) is a term that came into use to describe an environment in which an air and air defense force could use a combination of surface-launched ballistic missiles, surface and air launched cruise missiles and long-range surface-to-air missiles to prevent an opposing force from accessing or operating within a large airspace effectively. The descriptions and subsequent analyses of the penetrability of these environments often rests on assessments of the capabilities of just a few newly developed missiles and may fail to consider the additional complexity induced by the large array of the entire complement of air, land and …


What Is The Role Of Cyber Operations In Information Warfare?, Emilio Iasiello Jan 2021

What Is The Role Of Cyber Operations In Information Warfare?, Emilio Iasiello

Journal of Strategic Security

Much attention has been focused on the potential consequences of cyber attacks against critical infrastructure and the use of cyber weapons as an asymmetric equalizer. However, as a capability considered to be under the larger umbrella of an information operations (IO)/information warfare (IW) campaign, how significant a weapon is cyber for the strategist in an information environment? As observed in recent IO/IW campaigns targeting U.S. elections in 2016 and 2020, lack of any discernable disruptive cyber attacks may have provided an answer to this, as a cyber power purposefully elected not to implement attacks. Instead, cyber espionage was used, and …


Les Opérations D’Influence Chinoises: Un Moment Machiavélien Paul Charon And Jean-Babtiste Jeangéne Vilmer Paris: Institut De Recherche Stratégique De L’École Militaire (Irsem), 2021., Edward M. Roche Phd, Jd Jan 2021

Les Opérations D’Influence Chinoises: Un Moment Machiavélien Paul Charon And Jean-Babtiste Jeangéne Vilmer Paris: Institut De Recherche Stratégique De L’École Militaire (Irsem), 2021., Edward M. Roche Phd, Jd

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.


The Gray Legion: Information Warfare Within Our Gates, Jeffrey Baptist, Julian Gluck Jan 2021

The Gray Legion: Information Warfare Within Our Gates, Jeffrey Baptist, Julian Gluck

Journal of Strategic Security

The information environment, once viewed as an unassailed common for human knowledge, has revealed itself to be a vector for malicious narratives in the ongoing battle for global hegemony. Since 2014, the United States has been under siege from information attacks on multiple fronts, from cyber infrastructure and goods to the cognitive outlooks of its citizenry. Disinformation as a social media tool represents a novel and grave danger to democracy; it serves as a means for sowing unrest and influencing policy changes while enabling conventional conflict or—in the best case for those who would exploit and manipulate narratives—avoiding it entirely. …


New Under The Sun? Reframing The Gray Zone In International Security, Joshua Adam Hastey, Adam Knight Jan 2021

New Under The Sun? Reframing The Gray Zone In International Security, Joshua Adam Hastey, Adam Knight

Journal of Strategic Security

Interstate war has been on the decline since the end of the Second World War. After the Cold War ended without a grand conflagration, civil conflicts and the war on terrorism have appeared to displace interstate war as the most pressing loci of security studies. Interstate aggression has become untenable, some have argued. Cooperative grievance resolution and the powerful incentives of economic interdependence have produced a decline in the outbreak of war. Revered scholars of international security have even asked whether we should bother studying the phenomenon anymore. Intrastate conflicts, it seems, are the order of the day. We argue …


On Contested Shores: The Evolving Role Of Amphibious Operations In The History Of Warfare. Edited By Timothy Heck And B.A. Friedman. Quantico, Va: Marine Corps University Press, 2020., John P. Sullivan, Hal Kempfer Jan 2021

On Contested Shores: The Evolving Role Of Amphibious Operations In The History Of Warfare. Edited By Timothy Heck And B.A. Friedman. Quantico, Va: Marine Corps University Press, 2020., John P. Sullivan, Hal Kempfer

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.


Winning The Digital War: Cyber Ideology And The Spectrum Of Conflict, Matthew Flynn Jan 2021

Winning The Digital War: Cyber Ideology And The Spectrum Of Conflict, Matthew Flynn

Journal of Strategic Security

Cyberspace allows ideology to dictate who wins a war. That technological medium has marginalized violence to such an extent that a belligerent must make a cognitive effort a priority. That focus means humanity has at last reached a coveted threshold where ideas determine a war’s outcome. This article traces that evolution along the “spectrum of conflict,” a military categorization encompassing all of war. This act of reductionism must confront cyber realities that alter an understanding of war as one driven by acts of violence. This feat means a digital peace finds an equal footing with war arising from a cyber …


Russo-Ukrainian Patterns Of Genocide In The Twentieth Century, Amos Fox Jan 2021

Russo-Ukrainian Patterns Of Genocide In The Twentieth Century, Amos Fox

Journal of Strategic Security

Russo-Ukrainian relations in the 20th Century are dominated by genocide. Using Raphel Lemkin and Martin Shaw as a guide, one finds that Russo-Ukrainian relations during the 20th Century was a long period of genocidal action, linked by periods of punctuated genocides. These genocides included several political genocides that quelled Ukrainian nationalism and independence and kept it subjugated to Soviet Russia. Soviet Russia's genocide during the 20th Century was a carryover from Imperial Russia treatment of Ukraine, the arch of which carries over into today's relations between the two countries. Understanding this long period of genocide helps make sense of the …


Nonstate Warfare: The Military Methods Of Guerillas, Warlords, And Militias. By Stephen Biddle. Princeton, Ct: Princeton University Press, April 2021., Robert J. Bunker Jan 2021

Nonstate Warfare: The Military Methods Of Guerillas, Warlords, And Militias. By Stephen Biddle. Princeton, Ct: Princeton University Press, April 2021., Robert J. Bunker

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.


Mexico’S Drug War And Criminal Networks: The Dark Side Of Social Media. By Nilda M. Garcia. New York: Routledge, 2020., Sabrina S. Laroussi Oct 2020

Mexico’S Drug War And Criminal Networks: The Dark Side Of Social Media. By Nilda M. Garcia. New York: Routledge, 2020., Sabrina S. Laroussi

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.


Reshaping U.S. Smart Power: Towards A Post-Pandemic Security Architecture, Iskren Ivanov Sep 2020

Reshaping U.S. Smart Power: Towards A Post-Pandemic Security Architecture, Iskren Ivanov

Journal of Strategic Security

COVID19 turned out to be one of the deadliest diseases in history. The United States faced a series of new challenges after the Coronavirus spread throughout the world. China is taking advantage of the pandemic to challenge the U.S. global dominance. The main purpose of this article is to analyze the role of the United States in the postpandemic security architecture at a global level. The basic claim of the article is that Washington should reshape U.S. smart power in order to preserve the American global dominance. The article’s claim rests on the assumption that smart power is the most …


Finnish Defence Intelligence Agency - An Actor In National Security?, Mikael Lohse Jul 2020

Finnish Defence Intelligence Agency - An Actor In National Security?, Mikael Lohse

Journal of Strategic Security

One disparate feature between Finnish civilian and military intelligence is their express relationship to national security. The Finnish Security and Intelligence Service prominently declares to be an expert in national security whereas no corresponding public territorial claim has been made by its counterpart – the Finnish Defence Intelligence Agency (FDIA). This observation leads to the question: are the tasks of the FDIA limited solely to the military defence of Finland or has it any more comprehensive role in safeguarding national security. This article aims to examine this question by comparing the provisions governing the purpose of civilian and military intelligence …


Iran: Asymmetric Strategy And Mass Diplomacy, Pierre Pahlavi, Eric Ouellet Jul 2020

Iran: Asymmetric Strategy And Mass Diplomacy, Pierre Pahlavi, Eric Ouellet

Journal of Strategic Security

This paper presents an analysis of Iran’s information and mass diplomacy efforts in terms of its use of traditional written and audio-visual media, as well as through internet-based ones. Iran’s information efforts are both at the centre of its national strategy in dealing with its adversaries and its domestic policies to maintain and protect the regime. Furthermore, it is also well-aligned with the overall Iranian doctrine to take 360 degree approach to security, while avoiding direct military confrontation. A better understanding of Iran’s approach and inherent logic behind its information warfare can help anticipating the country’s next move.