This article introduces this special issue of The Journal of Strategic Studies by discussing the British model of counter-insurgency. General (later Field Marshal) Sir Gerald Templer associated the ...phrase 'hearts and minds' with Britain's apparently successful counter-insurgency campaign in Malaya (1948-60). The phrase 'hearts and minds' is generally associated with a less coercive approach to counter-insurgency which emphasises the importance of using 'minimum force' in order to win the 'hearts and minds' of the people. This article argues that the phrase 'hearts and minds' does not accurately describe Britain's highly coercive campaign in Malaya. The British approach in Malaya did involve high levels of force, was not fought within the law and led to abuses of human rights. Britain's counter-insurgency campaign in Northern Ireland did not deploy the same levels of coercion that were used in Malaya but, nevertheless, considerable levels of coercion were used which did not succeed in winning the 'hearts and minds' of the local people. The various interpretations of 'hearts and minds' leads to confusion about what degree of consent should be expected from the people and the implication of this for the use of force. While the term 'hearts and minds' does not accurately represent Britain's experience of counter-insurgency in the retreat from Empire; in the post-Cold War period the British military has been generally more 'political' and less coercive in its approach to counter-insurgency in Afghanistan and Iraq than the more conventional US approach to counter-insurgency. The British approach to counter-insurgency has influenced the recent development of US counter-insurgency doctrine but there are still considerable differences in the British and US approach to counter-insurgency which has led to severe tensions in the relationship between these allies. The 'hearts and minds' description of the British approach to counter-insurgency may be useful in public relations terms but it undermines the theory as a guide to operations because it can be interpreted in such divergent ways. The future may be to more carefully and practically specify in what contexts and circumstances the deployment of force is legitimate.
Abstract
The ‘Dominant Military Narrative’ (DMN) on the Iraq and Afghan wars defends the effectiveness of the British military and its use of force by deflecting responsibility for failure onto the ...politicians and ‘Whitehall’. The politicians are blamed for over-stretching the military by fighting two wars, resulting in a shortage of equipment, inadequate troop numbers and without a clear ‘Strategic Narrative’. This article critiques the DMN and provides evidence to suggest that it was the military elite that sought maximum involvement in the Iraq and Afghan wars. The problem is that the military has too much rather than too little power to shape policy.
Abstract Machado de Assis frequently relies on controlling metaphors, which provide a unifying plan for an entire work. His play Lição de botânica is an example of this practice, where human progress ...is compared to the life of plants or other simpler organisms. The play contains echoes of the seventeenth-century notion of vegetable love, as seen in Robert Burton and Andrew Marvell. It follows the norms of classical comedy, which has its roots in the celebration of fertility. It illustrates the central ideas of Henri Bergson's philosophy of laughter, which opposes the organic to the mechanical. From a national perspective, it exemplifies the cultural characteristics of cordiality and preference for the jeitinho. The common denominator for all these perspectives is the rejection of rigidity in favor of organic elasticity.
Resumo Machado de Assis frequentemente recorre a metáforas abrangentes, que providenciam um plano unificador de um texto inteiro. Sua peça teatral Lição de botânica é um exemplo de tal prática, comparando o progresso humano à vida de uma planta ou de outro organismo simples. A peça contém ecos da noção setecentista do amor vegetal, tal como aparece em Robert Burton e Andrew Marvell. Segue as normas da comédia clássica, que tem suas raízes na celebração da fertilidade. Ilustra as ideias centrais da filosofia do riso de Henri Bergson, que opõe o orgânico ao mecânico. Desde uma perspectiva nacional, o texto exemplifica as características culturais da cordialidade e da preferência pelo jeitinho. O que todas essas perspectivas têm em comum é uma rejeição da rigidez em favor de uma elasticidade orgânica.
"Performing the Northern Ireland Peace Process offers a nuanced and stimulating analysis which goes beyond standard explanations by exploring the motives and means used by those who made peace in ...Northern Ireland." (Professor Timothy White, Xavier University, USA) "Paul Dixon has produced an impressive and challenging book. Dixon defends the Northern Ireland peace process as a carefully-crafted, drawn-out episode in realist, pragmatic politics. However, he pulls few punches in highlighting the moral deceptions which have kept the process in play. Provocatively, Dixon also challenges a wide range of academic interpretations of the processes and their associated political prescriptions. Thoughtful and well-researched throughout, Performing the Northern Ireland Peace Process is an essential read for anyone interested in conflict management." (Professor Jon Tonge, University of Liverpool) "In this outstanding book, Dixon shows yet again the importance of the theatrical metaphor for Northern Ireland. More importantly still, he demonstrates that the adoption of a critically realist outlook actually enhances our capacity to think creatively about the political choices we face in international politics and the alternative policies and institutions we might construct." (Professor Adrian Little, The University of Melbourne) This book is exceptional in defending the 'dirty politics' of the Northern Ireland peace process. Political actors in Britain, Ireland and the United States performed the peace process and used 'political skills', often including deception and hypocrisy, in order to wind down the conflict and achieve accommodation. These political skills, it is argued, are often morally justifiable even as they are popularly condemned. The Northern Ireland peace process has been highly successful in reducing violence and an accurate understanding of its politics is an important contribution to international debates about managing conflict.
We assessed whether guidelines published by organizations based in the United States comply with published criteria for the use of the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and ...Evaluation (GRADE) approach.
We performed a cross-sectional study of all clinical practice guidelines that indicated the use of the GRADE approach, were published between 2011 and 2018, and listed in the National Guidelines Clearinghouse.
We included 67 guideline documents from 44 of 135 (32.6%) US-based organizations that indicated the use of the GRADE approach. The majority (60/67, 89.6%) of guidelines defined the certainty of evidence consistent with GRADE, but only approximately 1 in 10 (7/67, 10.4%) explicitly reported consideration of all eight criteria to assess the certainty in the evidence for rating down and up. A majority of guidelines (36/67, 53.7%) provided a summary of the evidence, described explicit consideration of all four central domains (36/67, 53.7%), and rated the strength of recommendation consistent with GRADE (36/67, 53.7%).
Approximately one in three US-based organizations developing evidence-based guidelines report the use of GRADE, but adherence to published criteria is inconsistent. As uptake of the GRADE approach increases in the United States, continued efforts to train guideline methodologists and panel members are important.
Both Eça de Queirós and Machado de Assis wrote stories about Adam and Eve, defamiliarizing in different ways the original Biblical narrative. Their deviations from the source are consistent with the ...general esthetic programs they established in their overall production. Through masterful detail, Eça creates a kind of Darwinian Garden of Eden, which continually tests the original parents, threatening their survival, and in the process facilitates their slow development into the capable human beings we recognize. Machado’s story is neither romantic nor naturalistic, but rather a quirky philosophical and metaliterary entertainment that plays with narrative devices. A frame story, in which the narrator of the interior story ends up denying the validity of tale he has offered, creates an ungrounded narrator. The sense of confused giddiness produced in the narrator’s audience suggests by implication an expected reader’s reaction to the short story itself. In different ways, the Edenic narratives of the Portuguese and Brazilian masters disturb readers’ comfortable assumptions regarding Adam and Eve, and encourage them to question this received wisdom.
Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is an attractive method for clinically monitoring patients during mechanical ventilation, because it can provide a non-invasive continuous image of pulmonary ...impedance which indicates the distribution of ventilation. However, most clinical and physiological research in lung EIT is done using older and proprietary algorithms; this is an obstacle to interpretation of EIT images because the reconstructed images are not well characterized. To address this issue, we develop a consensus linear reconstruction algorithm for lung EIT, called GREIT (Graz consensus Reconstruction algorithm for EIT). This paper describes the unified approach to linear image reconstruction developed for GREIT. The framework for the linear reconstruction algorithm consists of (1) detailed finite element models of a representative adult and neonatal thorax, (2) consensus on the performance figures of merit for EIT image reconstruction and (3) a systematic approach to optimize a linear reconstruction matrix to desired performance measures. Consensus figures of merit, in order of importance, are (a) uniform amplitude response, (b) small and uniform position error, (c) small ringing artefacts, (d) uniform resolution, (e) limited shape deformation and (f) high resolution. Such figures of merit must be attained while maintaining small noise amplification and small sensitivity to electrode and boundary movement. This approach represents the consensus of a large and representative group of experts in EIT algorithm design and clinical applications for pulmonary monitoring. All software and data to implement and test the algorithm have been made available under an open source license which allows free research and commercial use.
Machado showed a fascination with homeopathic medicine, an indirect form of treatment that uses agents to stimulate reactions similar to the symptoms of the condition to be cured. Several of the ...author’s texts show a pattern of projects realized by indirect means, by "like curing like", which suggests a homeopathic logic in Machado’s worldview. Certain narrators, such as those inMemórias póstumas de Brás Cubas, Dom Casmurro, and in short stories such as "O segredo do bonzo" and "Adão e Eva", are notable for denouncing themselves, that is, for undermining their own validity. This curious situation has implications for Machado’s overall project, which seems more interested in posing questions than providing answers. It also suggests a particular relationship with the reader, which affords as much independence as possible.
Machado demonstrou fascínio pela medicina homeopática, uma forma indireta de tratamento que usa substâncias para estimular reações semelhantes aos sintomas da condição a ser curada. Vários textos do autor apresentam um padrão em que os projetos são realizados por meios indiretos, pelo "semelhante que cura o semelhante", o que sugere uma lógica homeopática na visão do mundo machadiano. Alguns narradores, tais como os de Memórias póstumas de Brás Cubas, Dom Casmurro, e de contos como "O segredo do bonzo" e "Adão e Eva", são notáveis por se denunciarem a si mesmos, ou seja, por atacarem sua própria validez. Essa situação curiosa contribui para uma noção do projeto geral de Machado, que parece ter mais interesse em colocar perguntas do que em fornecer respostas. Também sugere uma certa relação com o leitor, que lhe dá um máximo de independência.
President George W. Bush required only symbolic British participation in the invasion of Iraq, so why did the Labour government deploy their maximum military effort when this was unnecessary and ...considerably increased the political risk to Prime Minister Tony Blair?
The Chilcot Report
(2016) provides considerable evidence of the military elite’s role, in pursuit of their perceived organisational interests, not only lobbying but also manipulating the Labour government into a maximum military role. Shortly after the invasion, the military elite began to pursue their next war, again pressuring and manipulating the government into Britain’s deployment to Helmand, Afghanistan, in 2006. While fighting wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the military elite were overstretched and in crisis, yet they successfully empowered themselves by deflecting responsibility onto the Labour government. Consequently, it is argued that the lack of democratic control over the military makes Britain particularly disposed to belligerence and fighting further unnecessary wars.
Consociationalists have claimed nearly 50 successful cases of conflict management. This article argues that Classic Consociationalism has been constantly revised so that the theory has become ...ambiguous, incoherent, and even contradictory. Consociationalists have entered Wonderland in the sense that their theory now appears to be anything that they want it to be. Paradoxically, theoretical incoherence has made Consociationalism academically powerful because the theory can be marketed as all things to all people. Consociational theorists have revised their theory to claim a successful Northern Ireland case study and used its academic prestige to advance an anti-unionist political agenda.
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