The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend… The Dynamics of Self Defense Forces in Irregular War: The Case of the Sons of Iraq

This paper assesses the effect that leveraging civilian defense force militias has on the dynamics of violence in civil war. We argue that the delegation of security and combat roles to local civilians shifts the primary targets of insurgent violence towards civilians, in an attempt to deter future defections, and re-establish control over the local population. This argument is assessed through an analysis of the Sunni Awakening and ancillary Sons of Iraq paramilitary program. The results suggest that at least in the Al-Anbar province of Iraq, the utilisation of the civilian population in counterinsurgent roles had significant implications for the targets of insurgent violence

How to buy a submarine: part 2

This paper describes some of the approaches that could be taken to replace Australia\u27s Collins class submarines and outlines their pros and cons. Executive summary The building of a replacement for Australia\u27s Collins class submarines will be the country\u27s most expensive defence project to date. It\u27s also likely to be the most complex, with a myriad of capability, commercial and industrial issues to be managed: the expertise for the design and construction of conventional submarines resides in Europe and Asia while Navy\u27s preference is for American combat and weapon systems. Pulling those elements together while managing the technical risks is no easy task. Local construction of the future submarine has been a bipartisan position for several years, and it has the support of industry and the bureaucracy. But there\u27s no simple or fast way to produce a unique Australian submarine. If the government decides to go down that path, it will have to do so in the knowledge that it\u27s a high stakes venture. This paper describes some of the approaches that could be taken and outlines their pros and cons. Despite claims to the contrary, there\u27s little doubt that the merger of a European design and American combat system is possible—after all, that\u27s what the Collins is. But a sensible early step in the process would be to have government-to-government discussions with the potential players—especially in Washington—to determine what the actual constraints are, and what\u27s merely unsubstantiated folklore. Surveying the world market, conventional submarine design capability with the experience and maturity required for our purposes can be found in France, Germany, Japan and Sweden. The UK hasn\u27t designed or built a conventional submarine in over two decades, but the trusted nature of the \u27five eyes\u27 intelligence relationship and its ongoing nuclear submarine programs means that it\u27s also a potential partner

An enterprise-level naval shipbuilding plan

Overview: This paper reviews the past performance of Australian naval shipbuilding, describes the pros and cons of a rolling production model, and unpicks the issues that the government will have to take into account. It concludes that we’re likely to see a bigger surface navy—potentially a much bigger one—as well as the sell-off of at least part of the currently government-owned ASC Pty Ltd. The paper also looks at strategies to manage the risks in the likely course of action and recommends mitigation strategies

One Defence: one direction? The First Principles Review of Defence

Overview: The recently released report of the First Principles Review of Defence, Creating One Defence, is set to reshape the Defence enterprise over the next few years. This ASPI special report explains the review’s recommendations and analyses the consequences for Defence. It provides three perspectives on the forthcoming reforms: Peter Jennings, ‘One Defence–root causes, risks and values’; Andrew Davies, ‘The capability development life cycle’; Mark Thomson, ‘One Defence in two parts’

Characterisation and optimisation of PECVD SiNx as an antireflection coating and passivation layer for silicon solar cells

In this work, we investigate how the film properties of silicon nitride (SiNx) depend on its deposition conditions when formed by plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD). The examination is conducted with a Roth & Rau AK400 PECVD reactor, where the varied parameters are deposition temperature, pressure, gas flow ratio, total gas flow, microwave plasma power and radio-frequency bias voltage. The films are evaluated by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy to determine structural properties, by spectrophotometry to determine optical properties, and by capacitance–voltage and photoconductance measurements to determine electronic properties. After reporting on the dependence of SiNx properties on deposition parameters, we determine the optimized deposition conditions that attain low absorption and low recombination. On the basis of SiNx growth models proposed in the literature and of our experimental results, we discuss how each process parameter affects the deposition rate and chemical bond density. We then focus on the effective surface recombination velocity S eff, which is of primary importance to solar cells. We find that for the SiNx prepared in this work, 1) S eff does not correlate universally with the bulk structural and optical properties such as chemical bond densities and refractive index, and 2) S eff depends primarily on the defect density at the SiNx-Si interface rather than the insulator charge. Finally, employing the optimized deposition condition, we achieve a relatively constant and low S eff,UL on low-resistivity (≤1.1 Ωcm) p- and n-type c-Si substrates over a broad range of n = 1.85–4.07. The results of this study demonstrate that the trade-off between optical transmission and surface passivation can be circumvented. Although we focus on photovoltaic applications, this study may be useful for any device for which it is desirable to maximize light transmission and surface passivation.This work was supported by an Australian Research Council Linkage between The Australian National University and Braggone Oy under Grant LP0989593

Church Courts and the People in Seventeenth-Century England: Ecclesiastical justice in peril at Winchester, Worcester and Wells

Religion meant far more in early modern England than church on Sundays, a baptism, a funeral or a wedding ceremony. The Church was fully enmeshed in the everyday lives of the people; in particular, their morals and their religious observance. The Church imposed comprehensive regulations concerning such matters as sex before marriage, adultery, bastardy and receiving the sacrament on its flock. It employed an army of informers and bureaucrats, headed by a diocesan chancellor, to enforce these rules in its courts. The courts lay, thus, at the very intersection of Church and people but analysis of their performance in the uniquely turbulent seventeenth century has, surprisingly, had to wait until now. Church Courts and the People in Seventeenth-Century England offers a detailed survey of three dioceses across the whole of the century, examining key aspects such as attendance at court, completion of business and, crucially, the scale of guilt to test the performance of the courts. While the study will capture the interest of lawyers, clergymen, local historians and even sociologists, its primary appeal will be to specialists in Church history. For students and researchers of the seventeenth century, it provides a full account of church court operations. It measures the extent of their control, challenging orthodoxies about excommunication, penance and juries, contextualising ecclesiastical justice within major societal issues of the times and, ultimately, presenting powerful evidence for a ‘church in danger’ by the end of the century

Cattle production in the Gascoyne and interior regions of Western Australia; a report on the Cunyu demographic study (1990-1998) and the Mt Clere Producer Demonstration Site (1993-1997)

Although Producer Demonstration Sites have been staged widely in the northern parts of Australia, the events at Cunyu and Mt Clere herald a first for such an in-depth investigation in the mulga shrub lands of Western Australia

Bishop Morley of Winchester 1598-1684

An authoritative account of the life and achievements of George Morley, who was for years a teacher at Christ Church, Oxford, before becoming Dean of the College, and then ultimately the Bishop of Worcester and then Winchester. He was as such an important C17th figure, even beyond the University of Oxford and Dioceses of Worcester and Winchester, and fundamentally entwined nationally in the heightened political and religious controversies of his time. He was involved in the restoration of the monarch in 1660, as well as in the consequent deliberations regarding a settlement with a view to establishing church unity in the subsequent decades. He was also a man who straddled cultures and political epochs, born at the end of the C16th and living through much of the C17th, thus a life that began in the era of the Gunpowder plot and which ended in the run-up to the so-called Glorious Revolution. This meant that Morley’s personal and professional evolution touches on moments of extraordinary tumult and contention, requiring him to develop profound skills of negotiation, compromise, and bridge-building. As such he become a skilled mediator, a diplomat at a time when this was most in demand