Digital Commons Network^™

Mitigating Non-Kinetic Asat Threats To Dual-Use Commercial Satellites: A U.S.-Japan Framework, Parker J. Brumleve, Tessa Leverman

Student Contributions

This policy brief examines vulnerabilities to ASAT weapons and their threatening effects on dual-use satellites. The brief highlights the currently lacking legal framework regarding ASAT weapons and proposes implementing a joint U.S.-Japan framework to coordinate legislation and enforce mandatory cybersecurity and resilience standards for dual-use satellite operations.

Winston Churchill's Crucial Role In Developing The Tank, Wesley Jones

Liberty University Research Week

The tank was a top-secret project in World War I and played a key role in helping put the war to an end. Its debut was not perfect as many had doubts on whether it could be a weapon of war in the future like the airplane had cemented itself to be. However, few people like Winston Churchill saw the tank project’s potential and was key to its development. As a result, the steps that it took for the tank to be a symbol of modern warfare that it is today would not have happened the way it needed to …

Guppy: From Fleet Boat To Modern Submarine, Nathaniel Estrada

Liberty University Research Week

World War II changed everything when it came to American submarine warfare. Before the war, American naval leaders and planners debated over what the purpose of their submarine fleet should be. The more progressive thinkers claimed the submarine would be in-of-itself a decisive combat asset, while the conservative naval minds saw their “fleet boats” as supplementary to the main battle line. When the war ended, the debate was no longer about what role the submarine would play in the great game on the sea. In the Atlantic, the German U-boat fleet of 1,131 submarines would sink 14,878,463 tons of Allied …

Taming The Spirits: How Late Antiquity Domesticated The Bible's Supernatural World, Brian Pepin

Liberty University Research Week

This study examines a major hermeneutical shift in the interpretation of the Bible’s supernatural worldview, arguing that a decisive transition occurred during late antiquity (ca. AD 250–430). The biblical text presents a cosmos populated by active spiritual beings, including angels, demons, and divine agents influencing nations and history, and early Christian readers largely accepted these elements as real. However, as Christianity increasingly engaged with Greco-Roman intellectual culture, pressures to present the faith as rational and philosophically credible led to growing discomfort with literal readings of supernatural texts.

Through historical-theological analysis of patristic literature, this study traces how influential figures such …

Distilled Identities: The History And Gender Politics Of The Perfume Industry, Emma Shaffer

Honors Projects

This paper analyzes the use of gendered perfume marketing in the West. Drawing upon the work of Joe Schwartz, Sarah Evrett, and others, I examine the history of this phenomenon and the politics keeping the perfume market segregated by gender. How long has perfume existed? Has it always been so strict on who wears what fragrance? My results found that perfume has only been gendered since the Victorian era, dispelling the myth that gendered fragrance is the only way to market perfume. However, I also found that when gender neutral fragrances have been introduced, they have not had much staying …

Globalization: Tensions Between National Sovereignty And Global Economy, Isabelle Camoin

Political Science Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Nazi Germany And Humanities Education As Propaganda, Sam Marie Smith

Honors Theses

One of the Third Reich’s most significant actions in their pursuit of the consolidation of power was the Gleichschaltung, in which all cultural, social, political, and economic goals were subordinated to that of the goals of the Nazi party. One of the most dramatic shifts to take place in the process of Gleichschaltung was in the realm of academia, where legitimate pedagogical and educational imperatives were overshadowed by an emphasis on perpetuating the Nazi regime’s agenda, especially racial ideology, even with the youngest students. While educators in the Third Reich carried this out in all subject areas, this project focuses …

Propaganda In America How To Recognize And Defend Against It, Chae Balistreri

Global Insight

Corporations and governments use modern propaganda techniques to influence and manipulate the public, incurring social and environmental consequences which are compounding over time. This paper provides both historical and modern examples of propaganda, then highlights key issues that arise as a byproduct, such as planned obsolescence, astroturfing, and the internet filter bubble. Companies like Google and Facebook use proprietary algorithms to shape the internet as well as their users’ minds through dopamine-driven feedback loops. The effects of a consumer driven culture spill over into the environment, with plastic pollution and e-waste littering the shores of distant countries. This paper details …

Social Hierarchy And Purity Of Blood In New Spain, Paula Currie

Global Insight

Racial inequality, white superiority, and socialized economic poverty are issues currently affecting the world. These problems plaguing our nation seem hopeless with no apparent end in sight. All these issues have been repeated time and again throughout history. When the Spanish colonized the New World, they brought with them an ideology known as limpieza de sangre or purity of blood. This rigid ideology was based on the premise of White Spanish superiority, which was imposed upon the people of New Spain. Limpieza de sangre influenced nobility, socio-economic racial hierarchy, life, and art in New Spain. To fully understand the effects …

Russian Political Warfare: What It Is, What It's Not, And Why It Isn't Working, Lance Bokinskie

Global Insight

This article defines Russia’s multifaceted approach to political warfare and analyzes its effectiveness in achieving foreign policy objectives. The ongoing conflict in Ukraine is an exemplary case study to define the aspects of 21st-century Russian political warfare and analyze its efficacy as an approach to foreign policy. This case study will lend meaningful support to the claim that the utility of Russian political warfare is severely limited by the adhocratic foreign policy encouraged by the Kremlin—specifically, the lack of an overarching proscriptive foreign policy strategy and a functioning bureaucracy to enforce the pursuit of outlined objectives, definitive organizational purviews, and …

Full Issue, Global Insight Editorial Team

Global Insight

No abstract provided.

"Of Good Blood In Good Standing”: Nation-Building And The Politics Of Belonging In The Stockbridge-Munsee Community, Caleb Molseed

Honors Theses

Between 1734 and 1856, the Stockbridge Mohicans and Munsee Lenape endured five major displacements from their ancestral homelands in Massachusetts and New York to their present-day reservation in Wisconsin. Despite shifting federal structures and nation-to-nation policies, these two distinct peoples formed a unified political entity: the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. This thesis examines the colonial systems that enabled, complicated, and recorded how this community engaged in their own nation-building through their interpretation and production of religious, economic, and political documents. This documentary culture is highlighted by the exclusion of John Lewis from the nation following his 1856 killing of a fellow tribal …

China Maritime Report #52: Everything Everywhere All At Once: The Growing Complexity Of Pla Amphibious Exercises, Jason Wang, Marvin Hamor Bernardo, Pei-Jhen Wu, Andrew S. Erickson

CMSI China Maritime Reports

Main Findings

• In August 2025, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) conducted a large-scale exercise to simulate an invasion of Taiwan. This “capstone” amphibious exercise suggests that People’s Liberation Army (PLA) training and preparations for a future Taiwan campaign are becoming more focused, realistic, and sophisticated.
• The exercise consolidated elements from previous years into a single simulated operation. It integrated a floating causeway system, anti-landing barriers and obstacles, and amphibious Landing Craft Tank (LCT) vessels that landed forces directly onto beachheads.
• For the first time observed, the PLA conducted a phased exercise with simultaneous amphibious landings in three distinct locations. …

Prinsip Kebebasan Di Ruang Angkasa Menurut "Outer Space Treaty 1967" Dan Perkembangannya, Marthinus Ombe

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Abstract

Lights Out: Energy Resilience In The Air Force, Carolyn Mattingly

Oil and Gas, Natural Resources, and Energy Journal

No abstract provided.

Molecularly Imprinted Polymers For Sensitive And Selective Binding Of Pfoa, Nadia Costescu

Liberty University Research Week

This study aims to progress the synthesis of novel fluorinated polymers to detect poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the environment. PFAS are released into the atmosphere as a result of industrial processes and consumer production, and are persistent in the environment. Bioaccumulation in animals and humans occurs through exposure via air, water, and soil, and leads to toxic health effects. Due to their resistance to environmental degradation, alternate methods are needed to detect and remove PFAS from the environment. Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) are synthetic polymers that are designed with regions that bind to specific molecules. They have shown …

Shadow Networks The Hidden Infrastructure Behind Global Cyber Attacks, Pranav Bhatnagar Mr

Defensive Publications Series

Beneath the visible layer of the internet that supports communication, commerce, and daily digital interaction exists a far more complex and less understood ecosystem of interconnected systems, covert infrastructures, and distributed networks that enable, sustain, and amplify modern cyber operations, forming what can be described as shadow networks, an invisible backbone of global cyber conflict where attacks are not simply launched but orchestrated, routed, disguised, and sustained across borders, jurisdictions, and technological layers, and these networks are not confined to isolated hacker groups but are often embedded within legitimate infrastructure, cloud environments, compromised devices, and anonymization frameworks that make attribution …

Mind The Gap: An Empirical Analysis Of India's National Cybercrime Framework And Its State-Level Implementation In Kerala, Raju Narayana Swamy

Journal of Law and Public Policy

India’s cybercrime framework, under the Information Technology Act 2000, is marked by a gap between national policy design and state-level enforcement. While the existing literature primarily examines legislative provisions, this paper delves into how the national cyber law actually functions within India’s federal structure, focusing on the critical divergence between de jure design and de facto enforcement outcomes. This paper unpacks this implementation gap with the example of Kerala. It is a state characterized by high literacy (94 per cent, as against the all-India literacy rate of 74.04 per cent) and high digital penetration yet plagued by an abysmally low …

Reading List: U.S.-Japan Space Security Cooperation, Alice Dell'era

Course Materials

This document provides suggested readings for a course introducing U.S.–Japan security cooperation in the space domain within the existing governance of space. It includes both foundational texts that establish the context of cooperation and competition, as well as country- and region-specific readings.

Cmsi Translations #29: Can “Armchair Strategizing” Secure Victory From A Thousand Miles Away?, Huang Lin, Xu Ting, Deng Xiaotu

CMSI Translations

In 440 BC, Mozi and Lu Ban—using a belt to represent a city wall and wooden tablets as weaponry—launched a "paper confrontation" in front of the palace of the King of Chu that changed the trajectory of warfare. This simulation of nine victorious battles not only neutralized the power of the State of Chu’s siege ladders in an abstract strategic contest, but also revealed the ultimate value of wargaming: utilizing simulated combat to anticipate the realities of the battlefield and employing logical deduction to avert the calamities of war.

The Truth, Owen R. Kruger

The Alembic

No abstract provided.

The Causes And Consequences Of Territorial Disputes, Amaan Charaniya

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines how external actors and events shape territorial disputes and their influence on domestic public opinion. While traditional approaches to international relations treat territorial conflicts as isolated bilateral interactions, I argue that disputes are interconnected across international actors and domestic arenas. Thus, external actors and proximate disputes influence how conflicts start and domestic foreign policy attitudes. The first chapter shows how borders imposed by third-party actors capture unstable political and geographical features that lead to border instability. Using original historical data and a unique typology of borders, I find that borders imposed by external actors increase the likelihood …

Psychosocial Characteristics Of North American Male Cannibals, Sheila A. Murphy

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Criminal cannibalism is a rare form of violent offending that remains understudied despite public attention. This gap limits understanding of the psychosocial characteristics and life experiences of individuals who engage in cannibalistic behavior. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore psychosocial characteristics within the life experiences of North American males who engaged in cannibalistic behavior and identify common themes. Grounded in social control theory and self-control theory, the study examined how weakened social bonds and diminished self-regulation may relate to extreme deviance. The guiding research question focused on identifying common psychosocial characteristics within this population. A descriptive phenomenological …

Losing The Loop: Iteratively Autonomous Artificial Intelligence And The Question Of Human Operational Involvement, Elise Annett, James Giordano

Strategic Insights

As AI systems evolve from analytic tools to iteratively autonomous systems, they assume greater roles in filtering information, structuring decision pathways, and shaping operational outcomes. This transition alters human involvement, moving operators from direct decision-makers to supervisors, while distributing authority across designers, commanders, and operators. Growing reliance on AI introduces cognitive and behavioral shifts, including reduced critical scrutiny and increased dependence on machine-generated outputs. These dynamics can create self-reinforcing decision loops in which AI-generated data and assessments are recursively validated without sufficient grounding in real-world conditions. Such conditions risk obscuring attribution, degrading command and control, and increasing the likelihood of …

Resuscitating Old Methods: How Executions By Nitrogen Hypoxia Violate The Eighth Amendment, Hannah Caldwell

Seton Hall Law Review

No abstract provided.

Awareness, Protest, And Action: Women Science-Fiction Writers As Writer Activists, Carolyn Nolte

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Following the end of World War II, science-fiction literature, which was mostly dominated by white male writers, experienced an increase in stories written by women writers. Of these postwar stories written by women, the three women writers in this dissertation imagined how their present-day experiences informed the future by exploring their concerns about humanity’s collective trajectory. By analyzing how their stories dramatize possible future social, psychological, biological, and environmental harms, this dissertation argues that these women writers’ works distinguish them as writer-activists, a concept I borrow from Rob Nixon’s work Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor.

I …

Shepherds In The Great War: The Evolution Of The U.S. Army Chaplaincy And The Service Of Malcolm Taylor In World War I, Sydney Gilbert

Liberty University Research Week

No abstract provided.

Standing Firm: The Theological Significance Of Στήναι / Στῆτε In Ephesians 6:10–20, Angela Brown

Liberty University Research Week

Building upon prior research that examined the armor of God as an expression of divine empowerment in Ephesians 6:10–20, this study offers a focused syntactical and discourse analysis of Paul’s repeated use of ¿st¿µ¿ (st¿¿a¿ / st¿te). Particular attention is given to the aorist infinitive st¿¿a¿ (6:11, 13) within purpose constructions (p¿¿¿ t¿ d¿¿as¿a¿ ¿µ¿¿ st¿¿a¿) and the aorist imperative st¿te (6:14), evaluating their aspectual force and imperatival nuance. Rather than conveying punctiliar or once-for-all action, the aorist forms are interpreted within current verbal aspect theory as undefined in internal temporal structure but rhetorically urgent, summoning decisive, covenantal resolve. The …

The War On War: Desensitization's Effects On Society's Moral Fabric, Chelsea E. Johnson, Andrew J. Cudden

The Penguin Review

In an era of constant connectivity, violence is no longer distant or intermittent. Wars, political repression, mass shootings, and humanitarian crises now unfold in real time, shared instantly through twenty-four-hour news cycles and social media. Never before has global suffering been so visible. Yet this unprecedented access has failed to produce sustained moral urgency or collective responsibility. Instead, violence becomes increasingly utilised as fleeting content–viewed, shared, and then displaced by the next trending event. This paradox raises a pressing ethical question: how can a world more informed of suffering become so morally disengaged from it?

The Algorithmic Battlefield - How Ai Is Redefining Modern Warfare, Pranav Bhatnagar Mr

Defensive Publications Series

Modern warfare has entered a phase where conflict is no longer initiated or decided solely through visible force, territorial aggression, or human-led strategy, but through the continuous operation of Artificial Intelligence systems that process intelligence, predict behavior, and influence decisions at a scale and speed beyond human comprehension, transforming the battlefield into a persistent, invisible domain where actions are shaped long before they are executed, as seen in real-world geopolitical tensions such as those between Russia and Ukraine, where cyber operations, satellite interference, and AI-assisted intelligence systems have become as critical as physical military deployments, and in the strategic competition …