Abstract: Introduction: Many deployed soldiers have children who may be affected by the parent’s absence. Extensive studies on child mental health during deployment exist. Few focus on the reintegration period which can be challenging if the veteran suffers from physical or mental post-deployment effects. To gain knowledge on child consequences of living with a veteran parent and identify strategies/interventions that may relieve strain the first step is to characterize existing publications/research.Aim: To identify, report main findings, and characterize contemporary scientific publications on mental health among children living with a veteran parent.Method: Literature search (MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and SocINDEX) and systematic mapping of mental health among children living with veterans after deployment (published 1990–2015). Inclusion criteria: Iraq, Balkan, Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon, or Libya deployments; child mental health outcome; peer-reviewed primary research from NATO/NATO-associated countries. Languages: English, German, or Scandinavian. Literature was coded after veteran post-deployment effects, deployment country, study nationality, publication type/methods, observational vs. experimental study, study design, and outcome categories. Mental health was divided into internalizing, externalizing, ADHD symptoms, secondary traumatization, and other mental health outcomes.Results: Publications included (n = 16) were mainly American reporting on children living with veteran parents deployed to Iraq/Afghanistan. A minority reported on post-deployment effects and focused solely on psychological injuries. Child internalization and externalization were the most frequent mental health outcomes addressed. Publications predominantly reported on quantitative longitudinal or cross-sectional study designs.Conclusion: This mapping suggests a need for high-quality publications based on European and Scandinavian samples, reports of post-deployment effects, and experimental studies. Published on 2019-09-05 09:16:56
Abstract: This special issue aims to foster new thinking into the Russian strategic and military challenge in the Baltic Sea region. The ultimate aim of this scholarship is not to promote offensive actions, such as the further expansion of NATO’s sphere of influence or any interference in Russian internal affairs. Rather, the hope is that Russia and NATO will be able avoid further escalation of tensions that could lead to war. Published on 2019-08-21 09:44:04
Abstract: Anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) has turned very recently into a buzzword to define Russian strategy to limit, disrupt or even interdict NATO forces to reinforce the Baltic states in the case of an escalation between the alliance and Russia. This article puts in context how these discussions have re-emerged since 2014 and how Russia has developed a comprehensive defense system that effectively give the impression of impenetrable ‘bubbles’. Yet, NATO has to cope with a not-so-new threat, being caught between two extremes: on the one hand, being serious and credible – maintaining its superior technological military edge and show-casing it by deploying troops and materials in contested areas, and on the other hand, being a defensive alliance, not giving any credit to the Russians by creating a dangerous spiral. This paper argues that it is time to develop a truly comprehensive counter-A2AD strategy, which would take several aspects: maintaining and expanding the reassurance measures (in the air, on the seas and on the ground), improve our doctrines to think big again (by recreating divisions and corps as maneuver units) and consider the need to be seen as a credible deterrent. These military aspects would be complemented by political and diplomatic considerations to ensure possible retaliatory measures, if Russia would further destabilize its neighborhood through an aggressive policy. What is at stake is NATO’s being not just a resilient and adaptive organization facing todays’s complex challenges, but its core ability to maintain, 70 years after its birth, the very notion of collective defense in which all the allies trust. Published on 2019-08-21 09:35:04
Abstract: Questions about the nuclear balance have resurfaced in Europe after a long hiatus. NATO members in the Baltic region especially worry that Russia might use nuclear weapons to gain a strategic advantage at their expense. I draw on the political science literature on nuclear coercion to investigate whether Russia can successfully use nuclear coercion. I argue that NATO defense planners have more cause for optimism than they might realize. First, Russia will continue to suffer an unfavorable nuclear balance at the strategic level and so will never fully be confident that it can escape unacceptable costs meted out by the United States. Second, although their record of behavior suggests that Russian leaders might believe that nuclear weapons are useful for compellence, an alternative explanation is possible. That is, they may simply be compensating for their own relative inferiority with bluster. Third, nuclear coercion is only effective under very stringent circumstances: when the user is facing a large-scale conventional military attack that it cannot handle. Far from being cowed, NATO members located in the Baltic region are responding to Russia’s nuclear saber rattling with efforts to bolster their defense and deterrence measures. Published on 2019-08-21 09:24:05
Abstract: The former Soviet military bastion, Russia’s westernmost region, the Kaliningrad Oblast, has again re-gained its military strength. The process of re-militarization that was initiated after 2009, resulted in transformation of the area into Russia’s Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD) zone. In the aftermath of the Ukrainian crisis (started in the late 2013) and growing alienation between Moscow and its Western partners, the oblast has stepped onto a qualitatively new level of militarization. At the same time, following changing nature of warfare, aside from military-related steps, the Russian side has heavily invested in non-military aspects as well. The analysis yields three policy implications. First, Russia’s understanding of the A2/AD concept is different from the Western reading, and Kaliningrad exemplifies this supposition. Second, Russia will continue using Kaliningrad as a part of its growing reliance on asymmetricity. Third, underestimation of Russia’s resolve and/or Kaliningrad capabilities will have largely negative conclusions for the Baltic Sea region and countries that comprise it. Published on 2019-08-21 09:13:25
Abstract: Current study is motivated by the special role of the Kaliningrad region for both Russia and the NATO Alliance. The aim of the study is to discuss how likely is the conflict in the Suwalki gap; which factors either hinder or support the escalation of the tensions between Russia and the Alliance in the region; and how far the potential conflict could go should it break out in the future. Both the NATO Alliance and Russia have different advantages and disadvantages with respect to any future escalation in the Suwalki corridor and the Kaliningrad region. The main weakness of NATO is its reliance on public opinion, which limits its ability to counter Russian escalation. Conceptually, at least, the Alliance has much deeper pockets, although it is an entirely different matter whether the superiority of resources could be realized in practice. Russia enjoys a public affairs advantage in that it has few requirements to justify its military actions, which may allow it to outlast NATO in a conventional-force brinkmanship scenario despite having many fewer resources. Published on 2019-08-21 08:21:52
Abstract: While Unconventional Warfare (UW) remains a viable, low-cost method of indirect warfare, some of the assumptions underpinning traditional UW have diverged from reality in the last two decades. These include the idea that UW occurs mostly within denied areas; the categorisation of resistance movements into underground, auxiliary and guerrilla components; the model of a pyramid of resistance activities becoming larger in scale, more violent and less covert until they emerge ‘above ground’ into overt combat; and the assumption that the external (non-indigenous) component of UW primarily consists of infiltrated Special Forces elements, or support from governments-in-exile. Arguably these assumptions were always theoretical attempts to model a messy reality. But since the start of this century the evolution of resistance warfare within a rapidly changing environment has prompted the UW community to reconsider their relevance. This article examines that evolution and its implications. It begins with a historical overview, examines how drivers of evolutionary change are manifested in modern resistance warfare and considers the implications for future UW. Published on 2019-06-20 14:04:32
Abstract: This article discusses whether the arrival of Artificial Intelligence will fundamnetally change the character of war It argues that until such time as machines gain self-connsciousness will continue to be what Thucydides called ‘the human thing’. Published on 2019-04-30 10:01:40
Abstract: This article begins by considering current English as second language (EL2) teaching in Norwegian professional military education (PME) and reflecting on how reading narrative life-writing texts written by former military personnel supports interdisciplinary learning and contributes to the development of English language skills. It then shows how, by building on this current practice, narrative may be developed into a method of critical reading and communication for junior officers. Situating the use of life-writing texts in the context of military interest in narrative in the twenty-first century, and building on insights from life-writing and literacy research, the article argues that the reading of life-writing texts in military EL2 classes should be accompanied by teaching material and reading approaches designed to develop knowledge of narrative structures and techniques and awareness of how the text seeks to affect the reader. It further argues that this knowledge is a transferable skill of use to the military as a flexible communication tool: a narrative method. Published on 2019-04-24 13:12:27
Abstract: Future warfare is frequently imagined through the prism of technological change. Because our era is dominated by information technology it follows that future warfare will be also. This article argues differently, that the key drivers of conflict nowadays are actually non-technological, or at best secondarily technological in origin. The practice of warfare now is in fact highly static, positional, exceedingly cautious and characterised on the ground above all by new forms of traditional military technology—fortifications. If we understand present trends correctly and they continue then the future of warfare looks less like the manoeuvrist visions of extant doctrine and more like the patterns of warfare of centuries past. Published on 2019-04-17 06:09:32
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