Digital Commons Network^™

The Use Of Cognitive Biases In Russian Cyber Operations, Emma Manning

Honors Theses

This thesis examines how Russia has employed reflexive control through cyber operations to influence decision-making in foreign states, focusing on disinformation campaigns during the 2014 annexation of Crimea and the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Reflexive control, a concept rooted in Russian military doctrine, seeks to shape an adversary's perceptions and decision-making by providing carefully crafted information that leads targets to make choices favorable to the initiator. This research argues that while the fundamental objectives of reflexive control have remained consistent, technological advances have significantly expanded Russia's ability to conduct operations in developing cyber domains.

Using qualitative analysis of open-source intelligence, …

Mahkamah Kriminal Internasional Untuk Bekas Rwanda Dan Yugoslavia Ditinjau Dari Segi Hukum Internasional Publik, Sri Setianingsih Suwardi

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Abstract

Urgensi Keberadaan Hukum Antariksa Dalam Sistem Hukum Indonesia Dan Tantangan Pengembangannya, Anjar Supriadhie

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Abstract

Kissing Up, Kicking Down: How Brics Enables South African Sub-Imperialism, Karan Kuppa-Apte

Bates College Journal of Political Studies

South Africa has framed its BRICS membership as a strategic pivot from the West to the Global South. However, the country remains close to the Western-led order and reproduces unequal economic relations with its regional neighbors. This paper argues that South Africa's inability to break its dependency on the West and reorient itself towards BRICS is caused by an elite-driven approach to IPE that deepens longstanding dependencies, feeds into corruption, and encourages accumulation by dispossession. After establishing a theoretical framework based on dependency theory, world systems theory, and sub-imperialism, this paper identifies the minerals-energy complex (MEC), neoliberal post-apartheid reforms, and …

Weaknesses Of Opponents, Strengths Of The Taliban: The Success Of The Taliban Insurgency, Isabella Ryan

Bates College Journal of Political Studies

How did the Taliban insurgency succeed in gaining control of the Afghan state in 2021 following the collapse of the Taliban regime in 2001? This paper argues that the Taliban’s success resulted from two key dynamics: the weaknesses of opponents and strengths of the Taliban. The Afghan State was undermined by governance failures including the 2004 Constitution, overcentralization, lack of rural governance, corruption, and a dependence on foreign aid. These internal weaknesses were compounded by international policy failures, including the Bonn Agreement, inconsistent counterinsurgency (COIN) and counterterrorism (CT) strategies, the failed peace process design embedded in the Doha Agreement, and …

The Costs Of Selective Intervention: Why The Obama Administration Chose To Intervene In Libya Over Syria, Rayanne Attar

Bates College Journal of Political Studies

This paper examines the Obama administration’s selective military intervention during the Arab Spring, comparing case studies of Libya and Syria. I argue that the decision for the Obama administration to militarily intervene in Libya but not Syria was justified because intervention in Syria was far more costly in terms of risks. In Libya, Qaddafi’s regime lacked strong external support, relied on dated military systems, and faced a fragmented opposition, making intervention politically feasible. In contrast, in Syria, Assad’s alliance with Russia and Iran, threatening air defense capabilities, and internal sociopolitical divisions made military action highly risky and unlikely to produce …

Guerillas, Manpads, And How To Shift A Conflict In Favor Of The Weaker Side, Augustus Mfxu Giller

Bates College Journal of Political Studies

The Soviet Afghan War has emerged in popular culture and scholarship as a quintessential case of an innovative and superior technology being able to foil an enemy that would have otherwise emerged as the victor of a conflict. This is almost always in reference to the Afghan Mujahedin being able to counter technologically superior Soviet MI-24 Gunship Helicopters with American heat-seeking missiles. However, this assumption is largely shortsighted to the actual dynamics present in the Soviet Afghan conflict. Specifically, the failure to understand how an unconventional conflict like the Soviet Afghan war is fought, and an ineffective assessment of the …

Everybody Wants To Rule The World: How Ballistic Missile Defenses Can Reduce The Risk Of War, Aanya Ghosh

Bates College Journal of Political Studies

Debates over ballistic missile defense often assume that defensive capability inherently destabilizes deterrence by eroding mutual vulnerability. This article challenges that assumption by arguing that the strategic effects of missile defense are neither predetermined nor uniform. Limited and layered defensive systems generate two simultaneous pressures: stabilizing deterrence-by-denial effects against limited coercive threats and destabilizing uncertainty regarding long-term retaliatory viability. Which mechanism prevails depends not on defensive technology alone, but on policy design—specifically system scale, doctrinal framing, and integration within the broader offense-defense relationship. Drawing on classical deterrence theory, offense-defense scholarship, and contemporary analyses by Roberts, Wilkening, and Daalder, Goldgeier, and …

Communist Yugoslavia: Non-Alignment, Solidarity, And Webs Of Diplomacy, Morgan Dillon

Honors Projects

The Non-Alignment Movement has been covered extensively in Cold War scholarship, yet the relationship between Yugoslavia and Indonesia is often underexplored, especially in the realm of IR theory. This project examines Yugoslavia and Indonesia between 1945 and 1966 to propose an imagined community, as conceptualized by Benedict Anderson, that serves as a microcosm for a wider Non-Aligned community in the Third World. This is achieved by using Social Constructivism to synthesize the histories, foreign policies, and national/political identities of these two nations, and then placing the theoretical community against Yugoslavia’s relationships with the U.S and the USSR for contrast. Through …

Shu World Review- April 27th 2026, Diplolab, Seton Hall University

SHU World Review

No abstract provided.

Partnership For Observation, Leadership, And Arctic Resilience (Polar): Strengthening Eu–Us Cooperation Through Technology, Trade, And Arctic Governance, Nikki Quartuccio, Emily White

Pepperdine Journal of Communication Research

This speech was presented at the EU Delegation to the United States’ 2026 Schuman Challenge. The Schuman Challenge is an academic competition for U.S. undergraduate students to debate transatlantic issues, judged by a panel of stakeholders. The prompt for this speech was to create a policy that analyzes a current issue area in the E.U.-U.S. transatlantic relationship and suggests ways to strengthen it in the years ahead. Our policy, POLAR, the Partnership for Observation, Leadership, and Arctic Resilience, establishes a neutral, AI-enabled early-warning and consultation mechanism hosted within the International Maritime Organization (IMO). By institutionalizing shared situational awareness, structured clarification …

Asymmetrical Nuclear Deterrence, Alan W. Clouse

Research & Creative Achievement Day

This article reviews the state of nuclear deterrence between two different types of cold conflict. The first being the United States and the USSR/Russia, then also India-Pakistan. This will explore how the two different types of conflict result in different types of deterrence theory developed due to the nature of their relations.

Du Statut Juridique De L’Embryon Humain En Droit Libanais, Roula El-Husseini Begdache

Proche-Orient, Études juridiques

The legal status of the human embryo has not been specifically studied in Lebanon and is the subject of an uncertain regime resulting from scattered texts and very few court decisions. As the moment marking the beginning of human life remains debated, the recent issues relating to bioethics accompanying scientific advances, particularly in relation to reproductive medicine techniques and their corollaries, including surplus embryos, do not find clear-cut answers in Lebanese law. As scientific progress is at the heart of concerns relating to human life before birth, an abdication of legal experts in favour of doctors and ethics committees can …

How Should The U.S.-Japan Alliance Define Armed-Attack Thresholds To Effectively Respond To Gray Zone Threats In The Space Domain?, Michael O. Reedy, Michael L. Mclawhorn, Keelan Brenninkmeijer, Alexander B. Ross

Student Contributions

This policy brief outlines the need for a cohesive U.S.-Japan response framework to address gray-zone threats in the space domain. Interference with space assets is increasing in frequency and complexity, yet the alliance lacks a clearly defined joint escalation framework to guide responses. The brief recommends adopting a Space Conditions Matrix to identify conflict thresholds and strengthen coordinated decision-making in space operations.

Didactic Aspects Of Education Of Primary Teachers With A Focus On Strengthening Their Media Literacy And Fighting Disinformation. Experience From The Czech Republic, Kamil Kopecký, Veronika Krejčí

Journal of Media Literacy Education

The paper describes specific experiences with educational activities aimed at strengthening media literacy in the field of combating disinformation among primary and secondary school teachers, which were implemented in 2022-2023 through the Central European Digital Media Observatory. A total of 3633 primary and secondary school teachers from all over the Czech Republic participated in the education and evaluated the educational events. The article presents examples of specific educational activities oriented to the development of knowledge, skills and attitudes of students through teaching in primary or secondary school.

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 …

Effect Of Some Organic Fertilizers On Yield And Quality Of Olive Oil In Semiarid Conditions, İshak Bayyi̇ği̇t, Ebru Sakar

Turkish Journal of Agriculture and Forestry

This two-year field experiment evaluated the effects of different organic fertilizers on olive oil quality of the Gemlik cultivar grown under semiarid conditions in Mardin, Türkiye. Treatments of olive pomace (P1: 4, P2: 8, P3: 12 kg tree⁻¹), leonardite (L1: 1.5, L2: 3.0, L3: 4.5 kg tree⁻¹), and vermicompost (SG1: 3, SG2: 6, SG3: 9 kg tree⁻¹) were applied in a randomized complete block design with three replicates. Oils were analyzed for free acidity (FA), peroxide value, and phenolic profile using high-pressure liquid chromatography. FA ranged from 0.27% to 0.42% (as oleic acid), remaining well below the International Olive Council …

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 Impact Of The Protracted Conflict In Ukraine On Communication And Cultural Strategies For Refugees And Other Stakeholders, Kimberley Barker, David A. Victor, Christine R. Day

Global Advances in Business Communication

The Impact of the Protracted Conflict in Ukraine on Communication and Cultural Strategies for Refugees and Other Stakeholders

This research analyzes the complex challenges related to the impact of the protracted conflict in Ukraine on communication and cultural strategies for refugees and other stakeholders. The scope of those involved include the refugees, host families, related communities, paid or volunteer staff from governmental and non-governmental agencies, educational professionals, prospective employers, and colleagues.

On February 24, 2022, Russian armed forces enter Ukraine at the eastern border, their common border with Russia. This precipitates a massive refugee movement of millions of Ukrainians fleeing …

Weapons Of Belief (How Ai Quietly Rewrites Reality Before Systems Even Realize They’Ve Been Attacked), Pranav Bhatnagar Mr

Defensive Publications Series

Modern cybersecurity assumes that systems fail when they are breached. This paper challenges that assumption. A new class of threats is emerging one that does not attack systems directly, but instead targets what systems believe to be true. These “perception-layer attacks” operate without intrusion, without malware, and without triggering alarms, yet they can produce outcomes as impactful as traditional cyberattacks. Through analysis of AI-driven decision systems, real-world ransomware negotiations, misinformation propagation, and predictive feedback loops, this work demonstrates how belief can be manipulated at scale. The result is a shift where systems do not need to be compromised to fail …

The Indiana Statesman, April 16, 2026, Indiana State University

Student Newspaper

Charlotte's Web: Indiana State theater performs Charlotte's Web

Socially Constructing ‘Climate Change’ In Fishing Communities Of Sarangani, Philippines, Samantha Geraldine G. De Los Santos, Ma. Larissa Lelu P. Gata

Journal of Public Affairs and Development

The intensifying impacts of climate change have become more evident in recent years. While policies and programs have been implemented in the Philippines for decades, questions remain about how climate change is understood and experienced by fishing communities, the country’s poorest sector. By applying the Ecological-Symbolic Approach, this paper inquired into the fisherfolk’s social definition of climate change. A Qualitatively Driven Sequential Explanatory (QualDSE) mixed-methods design guided the study in developing an informed, substantiated, and context-based definition of climate change. This definition was also analyzed vis-a-vis the widely held definitions in national climate policy.

The terminology “climate change” remains unknown …

Book Review: Gsg 9: From Munich To Mogadishu: The Birth Of Germany's Counterterrorism Force, Lester W. Grau

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Author: Martin Herzog

Reviewed by: Lester W. Grau, Russian analyst, Foreign Military Studies Office

In the wake of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, Germany forged GSG 9—an elite counterterrorism unit that would stun the world with its daring 1977 rescue mission in Mogadishu. Martin Herzog’s gripping account traces the unit’s evolution from humble beginnings to global renown, drawing on exclusive interviews and archival research. This book tells the untold story of how one covert force reshaped modern counterterrorism—and inspired the creation of America’s Delta Force.

From Punishment To Public Health: Rethinking Addiction In The U.S And Portugal, Kenna Hall-Hoyt, Sarah Denin, Shelby Jenkins

INSPIRE Student Research and Engagement Conference

Portugal's approach to combat substance use disorder has been a commonly discussed public health strategy over the last decade because it challenges the idea that punishing the drug user detours the drug issue. In 2001, the country decided to decriminalize substance use disorder and change addiction services to be under the Ministry of Health. The approach that Portugal is using in its research looks very different from places like the U.S., who over-medicate and then criminalizes drug users. Portugal, instead, steers individuals to local groups comprising of psychologists, social workers, and health professionals who work with them to find the …

Attention To Their Uniqueness: Differentiation In A University Classroom, Robin Gingerich

MITESOL Journal: An Online Publication of MITESOL

University students come to campus with unique gifts and individual challenges. To meet the needs of diverse learners, one solution is differentiation. Differentiation involves deliberately planning lessons that address the unique learning styles of diverse learners by offering pedagogy informed not only by content, but also by the students themselves. While differentiation in elementary and secondary classrooms is considered best practice, professors in higher education face unique challenges when it comes to implementing differentiation. This paper examines definitions of differentiation, research on differentiation in universities, and, from the author’s personal experience, offers suggestions for university writing instructors.

Dual History Enhancement With Hybrid Hypergraph-Graph Networks For Temporal Knowledge Graph Reasoning, Kailun Ye, Xiangjie Kong, Yuchao Zhang, Xuan Wang, Linan Zhu, Jiaxin Du, Guojiang Shen, Jianxin Li

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Temporal Knowledge Graph (TKG) reasoning seeks to predict future events by analyzing historical data, where the effective leverage of both local and global historical facts proves crucial. Existing approaches employ graph neural networks (GNNs) and recurrent neural networks (RNNs) for local evolution patterns, complemented by statistical methods to enhance attention to global facts, demonstrating efficient predictive capabilities. However, traditional GNNs, constrained by their low-order neighborhood aggregation design, inherently fail to model potential high-order dependencies among facts. Furthermore, existing global history modeling approaches may introduce irrelevant historical information that interferes with prediction tasks. To address these limitations, we propose a Dual …

Mister President & May It Please The Executive: Causal Barriers To Court-Packing, Mason Smith

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

As attacks on democracy have become increasingly ubiquitous, scholarship has begun to shed light on a common, effective, and inimical means of subverting governments accountable to the masses: court-packing. So, how can democracies prevent court-packing? Among many implicit causal theories taken from the extant research, which hasn’t directly tackled this problem, two seem the most plausible and ripe for analysis, suggesting that court-packing’s success turns on either the strength (i) of institutional constraints or (ii) of domestic judicial norms. To see which theory works better in practice, I use a narrowly tailored iteration of comparative process tracing, as it best …

Security Risks Of Ai-Generated Code In Software Development, Maame Agyekum

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

Artificial Intelligence(AI) has recently forced change globally, public Institutions and as well as national security. Advancement in machine learning, mixed datasets have enabled significantly powerful systems while being capable of operating at a large scale. As innovation and technological advancement increases at rapid pace, issues like a regulation gap where scientific development far exceeds the government’s ability to regulate and establish an effective oversight. As a result, Artificial Intelligence has been controlled by private companies, leading to an industry where speed and profit often outweigh safety and ethical responsibility.

The Indiana Statesman, April 9, 2026, Indiana State University

Student Newspaper

Give to Blue; U.S.-Iran ceasefire announced, some fighting continues

Quaker Campus, April 9, 2026 (Vol. 24, Issue 11), Whittier College

Quaker Campus

No abstract provided.