5,071 research outputs found

    dms.sagepub.com

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    Downloaded from dms.sagepub.com at COLORADO STATE UNIV LIBRARIES on February 19, 2014JDMS Dynamic rescheduling heuristics for military village search environment

    Disrupt, Deny, Dismantle: A Special Operations Forces (SOF) Model for Combatting New Terrorism

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    Terrorism in the new millennium has morphed drastically since the 1970s. The terrorist organizations of today are a hybrid between the insurgent group models of the 1960s and modern terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda. This hybrid model has created what has become a transnational insurgency recruited, trained, and led by major terrorist networks such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Even smaller regional groups such as Boko Haram have surpassed merely conducting terrorist attacks. These smaller groups are also focused on controlling territory. Tan (2008) refers to this change as “New Terrorism”. To combat New Terrorism, a combination of counterinsurgency tactics and counterterrorism tactics must be employed. This study will examine the need to define roles and responsibilities for various organization and various echelons through the introduction of a new Special Operations Forces model; Disrupt, Deny, Dismantle. The acronym to be used for this model is D3. This model recommends different tactics, techniques, and procedures for forces not specifically assigned the counterterrorism mission. As new terrorism continues to change, only counterterrorism forces should be tasked with the Find Fix Finish, Exploit, Analyze, and Disseminate (F3EAD) model of targeting (Counterterrorism 2014). All other military and law enforcement elements should disrupt and deny the enemy in support of the counterterrorism effort. This study is based on extensive research and the author’s 23 years of experience serving in U.S. Army Special Forces. Throughout his career, the author interacted with people from various social, economic, and professional backgrounds throughout the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans

    Comparative analysis of spring flood risk reduction measures in Alaska, United States and the Sakha Republic, Russia

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    Thesis (Ph.D.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2017River ice thaw and breakup are an annual springtime phenomena in the North. Depending on regional weather patterns and river morphology, breakups can result in catastrophic floods in exposed and vulnerable communities. Breakup flood risk is especially high in rural and remote northern communities, where flood relief and recovery are complicated by unique geographical and climatological features, and limited physical and communication infrastructure. Proactive spring flood management would significantly minimize the adverse impacts of spring floods. Proactive flood management entails flood risk reduction through advances in ice jam and flood prevention, forecasting and mitigation, and community preparedness. With the goal to identify best practices in spring flood risk reduction, I conducted a comparative case study between two flood-prone communities, Galena in Alaska, United States and Edeytsy in the Sakha Republic, Russia. Within a week from each other, Galena and Edeytsy sustained major floods in May 2013. Methods included focus groups with the representatives from flood managing agencies, surveys of families impacted by the 2013 floods, observations on site, and archival review. Comparative parameters of the study included natural and human causes of spring floods, effectiveness of spring flood mitigation and preparedness strategies, and the role of interagency communication and cooperation in flood risk reduction. The analysis revealed that spring flood risk in Galena and Edeytsy results from complex interactions among a series of natural processes and human actions that generate conditions of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. Therefore, flood risk in Galena and Edeytsy can be reduced by managing conditions of ice-jam floods, and decreasing exposure and vulnerability of the at-risk populations. Implementing the Pressure and Release model to analyze the vulnerability progression of Edeytsy and Galena points to common root causes at the two research sites, including colonial heritage, unequal distribution of resources and power, top-down governance, and limited inclusion of local communities in the decision-making process. To construct an appropriate flood risk reduction framework it is important to establish a dialogue among the diverse stakeholders on potential solutions, arriving at a range of top-down and bottom-up initiatives and in conjunction selecting the appropriate strategies. Both communities have progressed in terms of greater awareness of the hazard, reduction in vulnerabilities, and a shift to more reliance on shelter-in-place. However, in neither community have needed improvements in levee protection been completed. Dialogue between outside authorities and the community begins earlier and is more intensive for Edeytsy, perhaps accounting for Edeytsy's more favorable rating of risk management and response than Galena's

    Capital as Artificial Intelligence

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    This article examines science-fictional allegorizations of Soviet-style planned economies, financial markets, autonomous trading algorithms, and global capitalism writ large as nonhuman artificial intelligences, focussing primarily on American science fiction of the Cold War period. Key fictional texts discussed include Star Trek, Isaac Asimov\u27s Machine stories, Terminator, Kurt Vonnegut\u27s Player Piano (1952), Charles Stross\u27s Accelerando (2005), and the short stories of Philip K. Dick. The final section of the article discusses Kim Stanley Robinson\u27s novel 2312 (2012) within the contemporary political context of accelerationist anticapitalism, whose advocates propose working with “the machines” rather than against them

    Furtive Encryption: Power, Trusts, and the Constitutional Cost of Collective Surveillance

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    Recent revelations of heretofore secret U.S. government surveillance programs have sparked national conversations about their constitutionality and the delicate balance between security and civil liberties in a constitutional democracy. Among the revealed policies asserted by the National Security Agency (NSA) is a provision found in the “minimization procedures” required under section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. This provision allows the NSA to collect and keep indefinitely any encrypted information collected from domestic communications—including the communications of U.S. citizens. That is, according to the U.S. government, the mere fact that a U.S. citizen has encrypted her electronic communications is enough to give the NSA the right to store that data until it is able to decrypt or decode it. Through this provision, the NSA is automatically treating all electronic communications from U.S. citizens that are hidden or obscured through encryption—for whatever reason—as suspicious, a direct descendant of the “nothing-to-hide” family of privacy minimization arguments. The ubiquity of electronic communication in the United States and elsewhere has led to the widespread use of encryption, the vast majority of it for innocuous purposes. This Article argues that the mere encryption by individuals of their electronic communications is not alone a basis for individualized suspicion. Moreover, this Article asserts that the NSA’s policy amounts to a suspicionless search and seizure. This program is therefore in direct conflict with the fundamental principles underlying the Fourth Amendment, specifically the protection of individuals from unwarranted government power and the establishment of the reciprocal trust between citizen and government that is necessary for a healthy democracy

    Toward Informational Privacy Rights

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    In this paper I will offer several arguments in support of the view that individuals have moral claims to control personal information. Coupled with rights to control access to one\u27s body, capacities, and powers, or physical privacy rights, we will have taken important steps toward a general right to privacy. In Part I, a definition of privacy is offered along with an account of the value of privacy. Simply put, privacy - defined as control over access to locations and information - is necessary for human well-being. In Part II, an attempt to move beyond claims of value to claims of obligation is presented and defended. Policies that sanction the capturing, storing, and trading of personal information about others is something we each have reasons to avoid. In the final part, the tension between privacy and security is considered. It is argued that privacy rights may be set aside only if specific procedural conditions are followed

    Security Analysis: A Critical Thinking Approach

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    Security Analysis: A Critical-Thinking Approach is for anyone desiring to learn techniques for generating the best answers to complex questions and best solutions to complex problems. It furnishes current and future analysts in national security, homeland security, law enforcement, and corporate security an alternative, comprehensive process for conducting both intelligence analysis and policy analysis. The target audience is upper-division undergraduate students and new graduate students, along with entry-level practitioner trainees. The book centers on a Security Analysis Critical-Thinking Framework that synthesizes critical-thinking and existing analytic techniques. Ample examples are provided to assist readers in comprehending the material. Newly created material includes techniques for analyzing beliefs and political cultures. The book also functions as an introduction to Foreign Policy and Security Studies.https://encompass.eku.edu/ekuopen/1005/thumbnail.jp

    Review of emergent behaviours of systems comparable to infrastructure systemsand analysis approaches that could be applied to infrastructure systems

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    This paper makes contributions to the understanding of emergent failure in economic infrastructure by considering case studies and approaches from sectors comparable to infrastructure. The review starts by identifying existing ways of thinking about emergent failure and narrows down the scope to system-of-systems’ failures which are unexpected and arise when systems appear to be working normally. In order to target sectors similar to infrastructure, the characteristics of infrastructure sectors were characterised

    In the Name of Diversity: Why Mandatory Diversity Statements Violate the First Amendment and Reduce Intellectual Diversity in Academia

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    In the 1950s and 1960s in many parts of the country, a professor could be fired or never hired if he refused to denounce communism or declare loyalty to the United States Constitution. The University of California system took the lead in enforcing these loyalty oaths. These loyalty oaths were challenged all the way up to the United States Supreme Court and were soundly rejected, establishing the centrality of academic freedom and open inquiry on the university campus. So why are loyalty oaths making their resurgence in the form of mandatory diversity statements? Universities have begun requiring faculty members to declare fealty to a particular worldview and approach towards matters of diversity. In an irony that appears to be missed on campus diversity bureaucrats, these statements are being deployed in the name of diversity. And in another historical irony, this trend has once again been spearheaded in the University of California system. While these diversity statement were initially conceived of as just an additional factor to be weighed along with academic merit, teaching, and service, the purpose and use of these statements has radically morphed over the past few years. At some of the campuses today, a prospective professor who does not produce a diversity statement that will satisfy diversity bureaucrats, will be excluded from consideration without a review of any other aspect of his application. And the rubrics that are being deployed engage in blatant viewpoint discrimination, as well as a viewpoint based evaluation of the applicant’s research. At these campuses, it is unlikely, for instance, that an aspiring professor who shares the viewpoint Chief Justice Roberts that “[t]he way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” could be hired. Can a university employ such viewpoint based criterion in its hiring process, or do the First Amendment rights of individual professors foreclose such viewpoint based discrimination? This article examines this question in the context of the long standing debate over the First Amendment rights of Professors, and trends in academia that have undermine professorial academic freedom. It argues that diversity statements must be carefully scrutinized by Courts and that if they are being used as ideological litmus tests, as they clearly are at the University of California, they must be struck down as unconstitutional

    Arguing about the World

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    This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. 'The breadth of Meghnad Desai's research interests is awe-inspiring. Hence it is no surprise to see so many who are at the forefront of their respective areas represented in this volume . . . a real treat.' Sunil Wadhwani, CBE, former member of the Monetary Policy Committee, Bank of England Meghnad Desai's work in the social sciences and his contributions to broader political and intellectual life span more than half a century. His multidisciplinary thinking and commitment to social justice, and his efforts in both the academic and political spheres, have inspired many and have highlighted the urgent need for global reforms. This volume is a celebration of Lord Desai's life and legacy from scholars and thinkers who have shared Desai's interests and who are leading contributors in their fields. The book does justice to the diversity and originality of Desai's thought, engaging with the key themes of his life's work and pointing to their relevance in understanding and tackling the challenges of the future
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