Missions in a changing world: the Bundeswehr and its operations abroad

Military operations abroad by the German Armed Forces are always a con­troversial instrument of German crisis management. Yet, such foreign deployments are likely to remain necessary for the foreseeable future while, at the same time, they are undergoing noticeable change. The conditions shaping this transformation can be captured in three dimensions of change: the change in war and violent conflict; the transformation of the inter­national political and legal context; and the shifting institutional frame­works for these operations. German policy-makers must address the related challenges - whether setting normative anchors and formats for operations, contributing to sta­bilisation in a context of continuing insecurity, building partners’ military capacities, dealing with transnational threats or using benchmarks for exiting. Yet, they only have limited influence over the described changes. Fundamentally, decisions about military operations abroad are taken within the triangle of pressing problems (crises and conflicts), responsibility (obli­gations under international law, alliances, political commitments), and the political situation and available capabilities in Germany itself. It is hard to predict the developments which will dictate the scope for action within this triangle. However, the worst possible approach would be to address the described challenges only from a short-term and ad-hoc perspective, especially since they do not exclusively concern operations abroad. In its 2017 Guidelines on crisis prevention and conflict resolution and 2016 White Paper, the German federal government outlined a frame­work for German engagement that it now has to fill. Furthermore, the expectations of Germany's partners within the EU, NATO and UN have grown - which will also require further military contributions. (author's abstract

Mandat verlängern - Abzug vorbereiten: die Folgen des Abkommens der USA mit den Taliban vom Februar 2020

Am 29. Februar 2020 einigten sich die Vereinigten Staaten und die Taliban in Doha auf ein "Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan". In Verbindung damit gaben die USA und die afghanische Regierung am selben Tag eine gemeinsame Erklärung ab. Es handelt sich indes noch nicht um ein umfassendes Friedensabkommen, son­dern lediglich um eine Art "Türöffner" zum Einstieg in innerafghanische Verhand­lungen. Damit ist ein wichtiger erster Schritt hin zu einem möglichen Frieden in Afghanistan getan. Der Weg dahin wird allerdings steinig sein und birgt erhebliche Risiken. Erfolg oder Misserfolg dieses Abkommens werden nicht zuletzt auch über Umfang und Dauer des deutschen Afghanistan-Einsatzes entscheiden. (Autorenreferat

Der Wandel der amerikanischen Afghanistan-Politik: Folgen für die "Resolute Support Mission" der Nato

Im Dezember 2018 wurde durch Medienberichte aus den USA bekannt, dass der amerikanische Präsident Trump das Pentagon beauftragt hat, eine erhebliche Redu­zierung der US-Truppen in Afghanistan vorzubereiten. Details zu Umfang, Zeitpunkt und betroffenen militärischen Fähigkeiten wurden bis­lang nicht offiziell mit­geteilt. Übereinstimmenden Pressemeldungen zufolge plane Trump, in den kommenden Monaten etwa die Hälfte der 14 000 in Afghanistan stationierten US-Soldaten ab­zu­ziehen. Weitreichende Konsequenzen hätte diese Ent­scheidung nicht nur für die Sicherheitslage in Afghanistan und die politische Stabi­lität dort. Vor allem wirft sie die Frage auf, ob und unter welchen Umständen die Resolute Support Mission (RSM) der Nato fortgeführt werden kann. Weitere Dynamik erhält das internatio­nale Afgha­nistan-Engagement durch den Abschluss eines Rahmenabkom­mens zwischen den USA und den Taliban, an dessen Umsetzung Trump mög­liche Truppenreduzierungen koppelte. Die fällige Verlängerung des Mandats durch den Deutschen Bundestag zum 1. April 2019 wird stark davon abhängen, wie Washington seine Entscheidung aus­gestaltet. Neben Zielen, Instrumenten, Kosten und Erfolgen des deut­­schen Afghani­stan-Einsatzes wird künftig auch intensiver debattiert werden, ob, wann und wie sich die Nato aus dem Land zurückziehen wird. (Autorenreferat

Die Auslandseinsätze der Bundeswehr im Wandel

Die Auslandseinsätze der Bundeswehr sind ein immer wieder kontrovers diskutiertes Instrument des deutschen Krisenmanagements. Wie in einem Brennglas lassen sich an den Diskussionen die "Reifungsprozesse" sowie die Bruchlinien deutscher, europäischer und transatlantischer Sicherheitspolitik ablesen. Zwar dürften Auslandseinsätze noch lange notwendig bleiben, sie sind jedoch einem erkennbaren Wandel unterworfen. Die Rahmenbedingungen für ihre Weiterentwicklung lassen sich entlang von drei Dimensionen nachzeichnen: dem Wandel des Kriegsgeschehens, den Veränderungen des internationalen politischen und rechtlichen Kontexts sowie schließlich dem Wandel des institutionellen Rahmens für diese Einsätze. Mit all diesen Herausforderungen muss die deutsche Politik umgehen und kann gleichzeitig nur begrenzt Einfluss auf den beschriebenen Wandel nehmen. Grundsätzlich werden Entscheidungen über Auslandseinsätze in einem Dreieck aus Problemdruck (Krisen und Konflikte), Verantwortung (völkerrechtliche Verpflichtungen, Bündnisse, politische Bindungen) sowie der politischen Situation und Stimmung in Deutschland selbst getroffen. Die Entwicklungen, welche die Handlungsspielräume in diesem Dreieck bestimmen, mögen schwer abzusehen sein. Doch die schlechteste aller Lösungen wäre, sich nur anlassbezogen und kurzfristig mit den beschriebenen Herausforderungen auseinanderzusetzen, zumal sie nicht allein Auslandseinsätze betreffen. Mit den Leitlinien zum Krisenmanagement von 2017 und dem Weißbuch 2016 hat die Bundesregierung einen Rahmen für das deutsche Engagement gesetzt, den es nun zu füllen gilt. Zudem sind die Erwartungen der Partner Deutschlands in EU, Nato und UNO größer geworden, was auch weitere militärische Beiträge erfordern wird. (Autorenreferat

Ecological succession of a Jurassic shallow-water ichthyosaur fall.

After the discovery of whale fall communities in modern oceans, it has been hypothesized that during the Mesozoic the carcasses of marine reptiles created similar habitats supporting long-lived and specialized animal communities. Here, we report a fully documented ichthyosaur fall community, from a Late Jurassic shelf setting, and reconstruct the ecological succession of its micro- and macrofauna. The early 'mobile-scavenger' and 'enrichment-opportunist' stages were not succeeded by a 'sulphophilic stage' characterized by chemosynthetic molluscs, but instead the bones were colonized by microbial mats that attracted echinoids and other mat-grazing invertebrates. Abundant cemented suspension feeders indicate a well-developed 'reef stage' with prolonged exposure and colonization of the bones prior to final burial, unlike in modern whale falls where organisms such as the ubiquitous bone-eating worm Osedax rapidly destroy the skeleton. Shallow-water ichthyosaur falls thus fulfilled similar ecological roles to shallow whale falls, and did not support specialized chemosynthetic communities

Mass spectrometry of B. subtilis CopZ: Cu(I)-binding and interactions with bacillithiol

CopZ from Bacillus subtilis is a well-studied member of the highly conserved family of Atx1-like copper chaperones. It was previously shown via solution and crystallographic studies to undergo Cu(I)-mediated dimerisation, where the CopZ dimer can bind between one and four Cu(I) ions. However, these studies could not provide information about the changing distribution of species at increasing Cu(I) levels. To address this, electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry using soft ionisation was applied to CopZ under native conditions. Data revealed folded, monomeric CopZ in apo- and Cu(I)-bound forms, along with Cu(I)-bound dimeric forms of CopZ at higher Cu(I) loading. Cu4(CopZ)2 was the major dimeric species at loadings >1 Cu(I)/CopZ, indicating the cooperative formation of the tetranuclear Cu(I)-bound species. As the principal low molecular weight thiol in B. subtilis, bacillithiol (BSH) may play a role in copper homeostasis. Mass spectrometry showed that increasing BSH led to a reduction in Cu(I)-bound dimeric forms, and the formation of S-bacillithiolated apo-CopZ and BSH adducts of Cu(I)-bound forms of CopZ, where BSH likely acts as a Cu(I) ligand. These data, along with the high affinity of BSH for Cu(I), determined here to be β2(BSH) = ∼4 × 1017 M−2, are consistent with a role for BSH alongside CopZ in buffering cellular Cu(I) levels. Here, mass spectrometry provides a high resolution overview of CopZ–Cu(I) speciation that cannot be obtained from less discriminating solution-phase methods, thus illustrating the potential for the wider application of this technique to studies of metal–protein interactions

Dissociable effects of age and Parkinson’s disease on instruction-based learning

The cognitive deficits associated with Parkinson’s disease vary across individuals and change across time, with implications for prognosis and treatment. Key outstanding challenges are to define the distinct behavioural characteristics of this disorder and develop diagnostic paradigms that can assess these sensitively in individuals. In a previous study, we measured different aspects of attentional control in Parkinson’s disease using an established fMRI switching paradigm. We observed no deficits for the aspects of attention the task was designed to examine; instead those with Parkinson’s disease learnt the operational requirements of the task more slowly. We hypothesized that a subset of people with early-to-mid stage Parkinson’s might be impaired when encoding rules for performing new tasks. Here, we directly test this hypothesis and investigate whether deficits in instruction-based learning represent a characteristic of Parkinson’s Disease. Seventeen participants with Parkinson’s disease (8 male; mean age: 61.2 years), 18 older adults (8 male; mean age: 61.3 years) and 20 younger adults (10 males; mean age: 26.7 years) undertook a simple instruction-based learning paradigm in the MRI scanner. They sorted sequences of coloured shapes according to binary discrimination rules that were updated at two-minute intervals. Unlike common reinforcement learning tasks, the rules were unambiguous, being explicitly presented; consequently, there was no requirement to monitor feedback or estimate contingencies. Despite its simplicity, a third of the Parkinson’s group, but only one older adult, showed marked increases in errors, 4 SD greater than the worst performing young adult. The pattern of errors was consistent, reflecting a tendency to misbind discrimination rules. The misbinding behaviour was coupled with reduced frontal, parietal and anterior caudate activity when rules were being encoded, but not when attention was initially oriented to the instruction slides or when discrimination trials were performed. Concomitantly, Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy showed reduced gamma-Aminobutyric acid levels within the mid-dorsolateral prefrontal cortices of individuals who made misbinding errors. These results demonstrate, for the first time, that a subset of early-to-mid stage people with Parkinson’s show substantial deficits when binding new task rules in working memory. Given the ubiquity of instruction-based learning, these deficits are likely to impede daily living. They will also confound clinical assessment of other cognitive processes. Future work should determine the value of instruction-based learning as a sensitive early marker of cognitive decline and as a measure of responsiveness to therapy in Parkinson's disease

Contact Force and Scanning Velocity during Active Roughness Perception

Haptic perception is bidirectionally related to exploratory movements, which means that exploration influences perception, but perception also influences exploration. We can optimize or change exploratory movements according to the perception and/or the task, consciously or unconsciously. This paper presents a psychophysical experiment on active roughness perception to investigate movement changes as the haptic task changes. Exerted normal force and scanning velocity are measured in different perceptual tasks (discrimination or identification) using rough and smooth stimuli. The results show that humans use a greater variation in contact force for the smooth stimuli than for the rough stimuli. Moreover, they use higher scanning velocities and shorter break times between stimuli in the discrimination task than in the identification task. Thus, in roughness perception humans spontaneously use different strategies that seem effective for the perceptual task and the stimuli. A control task, in which the participants just explore the stimuli without any perceptual objective, shows that humans use a smaller contact force and a lower scanning velocity for the rough stimuli than for the smooth stimuli. Possibly, these strategies are related to aversiveness while exploring stimuli

Structural factors controlling the spin-spin exchange coupling: EPR spectroscopic studies of highly asymmetric trityl-nitroxide biradicals

Highly asymmetric exchange-coupled biradicals, like the trityl-nitroxides (TN), possess particular magnetic properties opening new possibilities for their application in biophysical, physicochemical and biological studies. In the present work, we investigated the effect of the linker length on the spin-spin coupling interaction in TN biradicals using the newly synthesized biradicals CT02-GT, CT02-AT, CT02-VT and CT02-PPT as well as the previously reported biradicals TNN14 and TN1. Results show that the magnitude of the spin-spin interaction (J) can be easily tuned from ~ 4 G (conformer 1 in CT02-PPT) to over 1200 G (in TNN14) using various linkers separating the two radical moieties and with varying temperature. Computer simulation of EPR spectra was carried out to directly estimate J values of the TN biradicals. In addition to the spin-spin coupling interaction of TN biradicals, their g, hyperfine splitting and zero-field splitting interactions were explored at low temperature (220 K). Our present study clearly shows that the spin-spin interaction variation as a function of linker distance and temperature provides an effective strategy to develop new TN biradicals which can find wide applications in relevant fields

A new Late Pliocene large provannid gastropod associated with hydrothermal venting at Kane Megamullion, Mid-Atlantic Ridge

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2011. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Taylor & Francis for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 10 (2012): 423-433, doi:10.1080/14772019.2011.607193.A new gastropod, Kaneconcha knorri gen et sp. nov., was found in marlstone dredged from the surface of Adam Dome at Kane Megamullion on the flank of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in an area of former hydrothermal activity. The snail is interpreted as a large provannid similar to the chemosymbiotic genera Ifremeria and Alviniconcha. This is the first record of presumably chemosymbiotic provannids from the Atlantic Ocean and also the first fossil record of such large provannids associated with hydrothermal venting. Extant Alviniconcha and Ifremeria are endemic to hydrothermal vents in the Pacific and Indian oceans. Kaneconcha differs from Ifremeria in having no umbilicus and a posterior notch, and it differs from Alviniconcha in having the profile of the whorl slightly flattened and having no callus on the inner lip. A dark layer covering the Kaneconcha shell is interpreted here as a fossilized periostracum. The shell/periostracum interface shows fungal traces attributed to the ichnospecies Saccomorpha clava. We hypothesize that large chemosymbiotic provannids (i.e., Kaneconcha, Ifremeria, and Alviniconcha) form a clade that possibly diverged from remaining provannids in the Late Jurassic, with the Late Jurassic/Early Cretaceous Paskentana being an early member.R/V Knorr Cruise 180- 2 to Kane Megamullion was supported by National Science Foundation grant OCE- 0118445. A. Kaim acknowledges support from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. B. Tucholke acknowledges support from an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Award for Innovative Research and from the Deep Ocean Exploration Institute at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution