The central proposition of this work is that a battlefield’s location sits at the intersection of three interlinked variables of terrain, tactics, and force composition, which exist in a symbiotic relationship. Furthermore, this intersection can be located through qualitative modelling within GIS against an informed digital landscape reconstruction. The hypothesis assumes that tactics and force composition are culturally relative. Moreover, they are temporally constrained aspects of a tri-poled dialectic, and state changes in the nature of these aspects will result in correlative shifts in the types of terrain that are chosen for conflict. To analyse these aspects, a theoretical framework of human agency in the selection of terrain for conflict, was developed. This theoretical position utilises a modified version of the military terrain analysis KOCOA for the purposes of visualising abstract theory, and highlighting Key Terrain aspects as a means of predicting conflict locations. To apply this theoretical framework, a phased methodology for historic landscape reconstruction within GIS was created, allowing the modelling of possible locations as a desk-based assessment approach. To model likely battlefield locations within the wider landscape, the theoretical framework posits a culturally and temporally relative habitus, experientially formed through regular experience with conflict. By analysing the digitally reconstructed battlescapes with the theoretical approach, we can model and highlight the Key Terrain an agent’s habitus would have inculcated them to choose. This Key Terrain will be distinct for each time period, reflecting culturally and temporally distinct ways of warfare, and reflexive choices of ideal terrain. The theory and method were tested through application to Scottish battlefields, with general locations known, from each major period of warfare. A study of the praxis of warfare for each period was undertaken, to fully understand the underlying structure of the habitus of conflict for each period. The historic battlescapes were reconstructed, and analysed within GIS using Culturally Relative KOCOA, projecting the agent’s habitus onto the landscape, modelling areas that were probable as focuses for conflict. This modelling process was applied to the medieval battles of Dunbar (1296), Roslin (1302), Bannockburn (1314), the Post-Medieval battles of Flodden (1513), Ancrum (1545), Pinkie (1547), and the Early Modern battles of Kilsyth (1645), Philiphaugh (1645), and Dunbar II (1650). After the modelling process was completed in GIS, selecting the most likely location of conflict within the battlescape, distributions of battle-related artefactual evidence—where available—were used to check the locations suggested by the model against artefact data. Based on these results, I argue that the theoretical and methodological approach herein can be utilized as a desk-based approach to find forgotten fields. It is a modelling process that can be performed utilizing the theoretical and methodological framework as a desk-based assessment, prior to any fieldwork, and would function to focus any investigations-on-high-priority-areas.

This thesis examines how middle class Pakistani young people construct contemporary international conflicts. Little previous research has been conducted in this area, and none in Pakistan. This investigation is of interest because young people like the ones who participated in my research may become future leaders. Therefore, their perceptions and understanding of these issues may influence the way these are addressed in the future. This thesis draws on literature about the just war tradition – what are the just causes of war or jus ad bellum and how ethical warfare must be conducted or jus in bello. The theoretical framework used is that of social constructionism, especially drawing on the ideas of Jonathan Potter, Margaret Wetherell, Kenneth Gergen and Michel Foucault. The research involved six focus groups with Pakistani young people aged 17-18 years. The study found that the participants talked enthusiastically about issues related to international conflicts. They drew on a range of discourses and evidence to construct their arguments, some of which were grounded in not very reliable evidence. They argued that terrorism, whether perpetrated by state or non-state actors, was wrong, and they were highly critical of US policies and actions in the wider world. These findings are important because Pakistani society faces a serious challenge from militancy and terrorism. The thesis suggests that changes to the content and delivery of school curricula can help young people to develop a more informed and morally active sense of citizenship and world affairs.

M.A. / The dissertation topic is the comparison of pixel-based and object-oriented image analysis approaches for camouflaged object detection research. A camouflage field trial experiment was conducted during 2004. For the experiment, 11 military vehicles were deployed along a tree line and in an open field. A subset of the vehicles was deployed with a variety of experimental camouflage nets and a final subset was left uncovered. The reason for deploying the camouflaged objects in the open without the use of camouflage principals was to create a baseline for future measurements. During the next experimental deployment, the camouflaged targets will be deployed according to camouflage principals. It must be emphasised that this is an experimental deployment and not an operational deployment. Unobstructed entity panels were also deployed and served as calibration entities. During the trial, both airborne (colour aerial photography) and space borne (multi-spectral QuickBird) imagery were acquired over the trial sites, and extensive calibration and ground truthing activities were conducted in support of these acquisitions. This study further describes the processing that was done after acquisition of the datasets. The goal is to determine which classification techniques are the most effective in the detection of camouflaged objects. This will also show how well or poor the SANDF camouflage nets and paint potentially perform against air and space based sensors on the one hand and classification techniques on the other. Using this information, DPSS can identify the nets and paints that need to be investigated for future enhancements (e.g. colour selection, colour combinations, base material, camouflage patterns, entity shapes, entity textures, etc.). The classification techniques to be used against SANDF camouflaged objects will also give an indication of their performance against camouflaged advesarial forces in the future.

The current structural sizing process used to design military aircraft was developed when the emphasis was on the design of the most advanced products possible, with the customer bearing the associated risks of its development. However the marketplace has evolved into where the customer expects ‘better, cheaper, faster’ products and at a lower degree of risk. It is not clear if the current structural design processes meet the needs of this type of market. This work argues that the current proprietary process should be replaced by one that is more flexible, allowing the company to adapt its current structural sizing process to meet the needs of a particular product. It includes a study of the current and future engineering environment within a ‘typical’ airframe design organisation. It looked at the current use of structural optimisation technology throughout the design lifecycle and identified barriers to the potential benefits of wider use. Two existing elements of the organisation’s in-house toolset were adapted to size components and the results compared against the literature. This provided an insight into the toolset and the development of proprietary tools. Finally a multilevel ‘global-local’ sizing approach was developed and studied as an alternative to the current, more tightly coupled, somewhat ‘monolithic’, sizing system. Strength, stability and stiffness design criteria were considered. Automation of the process was also considered and compared against the existing sizing process. It was found that the current labour intensive sizing process could be improved upon using some simple techniques. Based on this a future structural sizing process is suggested which could be implemented using in-house or commercially available tools.

How do technologies that remove warfighters from the front lines affect the frequency and intensity of military confrontations between states? Many scholars and policymakers fear that weapons that reduce the risks and costs of war – in blood and treasure – will lead states to resort to force more frequently during crises, destabilizing the international security environment. These concerns have featured prominently in debates surrounding the proliferation and use of remote warfighting technologies, such as drones. This project sets out to evaluate whether and how drones affect crisis escalation. Specifically, do drones allow decisionmakers to deploy military forces more frequently during interstate crises? Once deployed, how do these systems affect escalation dynamics? I argue that drones can help control escalation, raising questions about scholarly theories that suggest the world is more dangerous and less stable when technology makes conflict cheaper and less risky. At the core of this project is a theory of technology-enabled escalation control. The central argument is that technologies like drones that remove friendly forces from the battlefield may lead states to use force more frequently, but decrease the likelihood of escalation when used in lieu of inhabited platforms. More specifically, these technologies lower the political barriers to initiating military operations during crises, primarily by eliminating the risk of friendly force casualties and the associated domestic political consequences for launching military operations. At the same time, removing personnel from harm’s way may reduce demand for escalatory reprisals after remotely operated systems are lost to hostile action. Drones can also help to mitigate escalatory spirals by collecting intelligence that overcomes information asymmetries that often contribute to armed conflict, helping facilitate more measured decision-making and tailored targeting of enemy forces. By more fully considering how technology affects escalatory dynamics after the initial use of force, technology-enabled escalation control theory advances our understanding of the link between technology and conflict. I test the theory using a multi-method approach that combines case studies with original experiments embedded in surveys fielded on public and military samples. The dissertation also introduces a new research method for international relations research: experimental manipulations embedded in wargames with military participants. In Chapter 1 and 2, I define the concept of crisis escalation and review the literature that examines the effect of technology on escalation and conflict dynamics. I then introduce the theory of technology-enabled escalation control and outline four mechanisms that undergird the theory – increased initiation, tempered/tailored targeting, restrained retaliation, and amplified aggression. Each of these hypothesized mechanisms describes ways in which emerging technologies can prevent crises from escalating into broader or more intense conflicts. Chapter 3 describes each component of the multi-method research design that I use to test the theory in Chapters 4 through 7. Chapter 4 uses experiments embedded in surveys and wargames to assess whether and how drones allow states to more frequently initiate military operations. Chapter 5 tests whether drones enable decisionmakers to control escalation by restraining retaliation after attacks on a state’s drones. Chapter 6 and 7 test the theory in the context of U.S drone use during the Cold War and Israeli drone use from the 1960s through late-2010s. The findings of these empirical tests provide strong support for technology-enabled escalation control. In Chapter 8, I conclude with a summary of the analysis and test the generalizability of the theory beyond the state use of drones. I find that tenets of technology-enabled escalation control explain escalation dynamics associated with U.S. cyber operations against North Korea and Hezbollah’s use of drones against Israel and during the Syrian Civil War. The chapter also maps out pathways for future research and identifies policy implications. My findings suggest the growing proliferation of drones will increase the frequency of military confrontations during crises, yet these confrontations are unlikely to escalate. Even though drones may help control escalation, clearer doctrine, rules of engagement, and international agreements to govern their use will help to further avoid crisis escalation and conflict.

No description available.

The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the six special military units which were authorized and created by the War Department under the direction of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. In relating the military history of such special units the study determines what contributions and significance they made to the Union war effort.

There is a common theme at play in our talk of data generally, of digital earth data more specifically, and of environmental monitoring most specifically: more data leads to more action and, ultimately, to societal good. This data-to-action framework is troubled. Its taken-for-grantedness prevents us from attending to the processes between data and action. It also dampens our drive to investigate the contexts of that data, that action, and that envisioned societal good. In this dissertation, I deconstruct this data-to-action model in the context of Landsat, the United States' first natural resource management satellite. First, I talk about the ways in which Landsat's data and instrumentation hold conflicting narratives and values within them. Therefore, Landsat data does not automatically or easily yield action toward environmental preservation, or toward any unified societal good. Furthermore, I point out a parallel dynamic in STS, where critique is somewhat analogous to data. We want our critiques to yield action, and to guide us toward a more just technoscience. However, critiques—like data—require intentional, reconstructive interventions toward change. Here is an opportunity for a diffractive intervention: one in which we read STS and remote sensing through each other, to create space for interdisciplinary dialogue around environmental preservation. A focus on this shared goal, I argue, is imperative. At stake are issues of environmental degradation, dwindling resources, and climate change. I conclude with beginnings rather than endings: with suggestions for how we might begin to create infrastructure that attends to that forgotten space between data, critique, action, and change. / Doctor of Philosophy / I have identified a problem I call the data-to-action paradigm. When we scroll around on Facebook and find articles –– citing pages and pages of statistics –– on our rapidly melting glaciers and increasingly unpredictable weather patterns, we are existing within this paradigm. We have been offered evidence of looming, catastrophic change, but no suggestions on what to do about it. This is not only happening with climatological data and large-scale environmental systems modelling. Rather, this is a general problem across the field of Earth Remote Sensing. The origins of this data-to-action paradigm, I argue, can be found in old and new rhetoric about Landsat, the United States’ first natural resource management satellite. This rhetoric often says that Landsat — and other natural resource management satellites’ — data is a way toward societal good. The more data we have, the more good will proliferate in the world. However, we haven’t been specific about what that good might look like, and what kinds of actions we might take toward that good using this data. This is because, I argue, Earth systems science is politically complicated, with many different conceptions of societal good. In order to be more specific about how we might use this data toward some kind of good we must (1) explore the history of environmental data, and figure out where this rhetoric comes from (which I I do in this dissertation), and (2) encourage interdisciplinary collaborations between Earth Remote Sensing scientists, social scientists, and humanists, to more specifically flesh out connections between digital Earth data, its analyses, and subsequent civic action on such data.

The major objectives of this study were to examine electrical and electromechanical properties of SBR filled with carbon black in the 0-70 phr range. The experiments were divided into four parts: dielectric measurement, loss modulus and phase angle measurements, temperature rise measurement during stress cycling, and dynamic conductivity measurement. It is established that there are three distinct conduction regimes existing at carbon black loadings below, at, and above the percolation threshold. Characteristics of dielectric dispersion depend strongly on carbon black loading and frequency. Dielectric and AC conductivity measurements are shown to provide a nondestructive method to explore the carbon black network inside the rubber. Both loss modulus and phase angle are related to hysteresis properties, and to temperature rise due to compressive cycling. Measurements of these parameters will be discussed in detail, as functions of carbon black loading, stress and strain amplitudes, and oscillation frequency. These and other results can be understood in terms of the mechanics of the carbon black network. The variation of conductivity with strain amplitude is related directly to the interplay between the "persistent" and "transient" fractions of carbon black network. It is shown that, owing to its experimental accuracy and great sensitivity to carbon black network changes, the dynamic conductivity measurement is preferable to traditional modulus measurements for determining certain dynamic properties of carbon black filled rubbers. / Master of Science

Thesis (MMil (Military Strategy))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Military intervention remains controversial when it happens, as well as when it fails to. Since the end of the Cold War, military intervention has attracted much scholarly interest, and it was demonstrated that several instances of the use of force or the threat to use force without Security Council endorsement were acceptable and necessary. Matters of national sovereignty are the fundamental principle on which the international order was founded since the Treaty of Westphalia. Territorial integrity of states and non-interference in their domestic affairs, remain the foundation of international law, codified by the United Nations Charter, and one of the international community’s decisive factors in choosing between action and non-intervention. Nonetheless, since the end of the Cold War matters of sovereignty and non-interference have been challenged by the emergent human rights discourse amidst genocide and war crimes. The aim of this study is to explain the extent to which military intervention in Africa has evolved since the end of the Cold War, in terms of theory, practice and how it unfolded upon the African continent. This will be achieved, by focusing on both successful and unsuccessful cases of military intervention in Africa. The unsuccessful cases being Somalia in 1992, Rwanda in 1994, and Darfur in 2003; and the successful cases being Sierra Leone in 2000 and the Comoros in 2008. The objective of this study is fourfold: firstly it seeks to examine the theoretical developments underpinning military intervention after the end of the Cold War; secondly, to describe the evolution of military intervention from a unilateral realist to a more multilateral idealist profile; thirdly, to demarcate the involvement in military intervention in Africa by states as well as organisations such as the AU and the UN and finally, discerning the contributions and the dilemmas presented by interventions in African conflicts and how Africa can emerge and benefit from military interventions. The intervention in Somalia produced a litmus test for post-Cold War interventions and the departure point for their ensuing evolution. Rwanda ensued after Somalia, illustrating the disinclination to intervene that featured during this episode. Darfur marked the keenness of the AU to intervene in contrast with the ensuing debates at the Security Council over naming the crime whether or not “genocide” was unfolding in Darfur. Positively though, the intervention by Britain in Sierra Leone and the AU intervention in the Comoros are clear illustrations of how those intervening, were articulate in what they intend to do and their subsequent success. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Militêre intervensie, of die afwesigheid daarvan wanneer nodig, bly ‘n twispunt binne internasionale verhoudinge. Namate die impak van die Koue Oorlog begin vervaag het, het militêre intervensie besonder prominent in die literatuur begin figureer en is soms so dringend geag dat dit soms sonder die goedkeuring van die Veiligheidsraad van die Verenigde Nasies (VN) kon plaasvind. Aspekte van nasionale soewereiniteit bly nietemin ‘n grondbeginsel van die internasionale orde soos dit sedert die Verdrag van Wesfale beslag gevind het. Territoriale integriteit van state en die beginsel van geen-inmenging in die binnelandse aangeleenthede van ‘n staat nie bly ook ‘n grondslag van die Internasionale Reg soos deur die VN erken word en dit rig steeds standpunte van die internasionale gemeenskap vir of teen intervensie. Sedert die einde van die Koue Oorlog het soewereiniteit en beginsel van geen-intervensie egter toenemende druk ervaar met groeiende klem op menseregte midde in ‘n opkomende diskoers oor volksmoord en oorlogsmisdade. Die klem van hierdie studie val op militêre intervensie en veral hoe dit na die Koue Oorlog ontvou het in terme van teorie en praktyk, in die besonder op die Afrikakontinent. Die bespreking wentel om suksesvolle en onsuksesvolle gevalle van militêre intervensie in Afrika. Die onsuksesvolle gevalle wat bespreek word is Somalië (1992), Rwanda (1994), en Darfur (2003). Die meer suksesvolle gevalle wat bespreek word is Sierra Leone (2000) en die Komoro Eilande in (2008). Die studie omvat vier aspekte van bespreking: eerstens, die teoretiese ontwikkelinge wat militêre intervensie na die Koue Oorlog onderlê, tweedens, die ewolusie van militêre intervensie vanaf ‘n eensydige realisme tot ‘n meer multilaterale idealistiese verskynsel, derdens, die betrokkenheid in militêre intervensie in Afrika deur state en organisasies soos die VN en Afrika-Unie (AU) en laastens, die bydraes en dilemmas van intervensies in Afrika. Die betrokkenheid in Somalië was ‘n kritieke toets vir intervensies na die Koue Oorlog en het baie stukrag verleen aan die daaropvolgende debat. Rwanda het die huiwerigheid ontbloot om in te gryp waar dit werklik nodig was. Darfur vertoon weer die gewilligheid van die AU om in te gryp in weerwil van lang debatte in die VN oor volksmoord en die gebeure in Darfur. Aan die positiewe kant figureer die Britse optredes in Sierra Leone en optredes deur ‘n AU-mag in die Komoro Eilande as gevalle wat toon hoe die vasberadenheid van partye om in te gryp en bedreigings in die kiem te smoor, suksesvolle militêre intervensies kan bevorder.