This paper focuses on examining the quality and competitiveness of Serbian defense industry in the global market for weapons and military equipment, with the aim to perform a structural and ...functional analysis of the global market of weapons and military equipment, to review its characteristics and to determine the place and role of the defense industry of the Republic of Serbia on it. The Covid-19 pandemic along with active and intense armed conflicts between Russia and Ukraine, Armenia and Azerbaijan, in the Middle East, in the north of the African continent and in the Sahel contributed to the sale of weapons and military services reaching record amounts in 2020. The activities of the USA, China and India on the international political scene and in the development and improvement of defense technologies will influence them to be dominant forces on the market of weapons and military equipment by 2030. The paper also gives a review of the quality and competitiveness of the Serbian defense industry.
Social conditions can alter the allocation of resources to reproductive traits. For example, an increase in social density during development is frequently associated with an increase in the testes ...mass of males. Sperm competition theory assumes that increased investment in testes should come at the expense of investing into precopulatory traits, such as sexually selected weaponry. However, much remains unknown about the role of the social context on the concurrent, relative investment in both testes and weapons. We found that the leaf‐footed cactus bug, Narnia femorata (Hemiptera: Coreidae), grew nearly 20% larger testes when raised in high social densities. In addition to manipulating social density, we used autotomy (limb loss) to limit investment in their hindlimb weapon during development. At low densities, we found that those that lost a weapon during development grew larger testes by adulthood, supporting previous work demonstrating a weapons–testes trade‐off. However, at high social densities, males that dropped a hindlimb did not grow larger testes, though testes were already large at this density. These results underscore the importance of the social context to resource allocation patterns within the individual.
At low social densities, males that were prevented from growing a sexually selected weapon grew larger testes. At high social densities, males grew large testes whether or not the weapon received full investment.
This article is devoted to the distinguished commander of the Polish mercenary army, Aleksander Sieniawski (c. 1490—1568) and his horse unit (rota) from 1557. A. Sieniawski was officer in the Polish ...mercenary army in 1512—1563. The main part of the text is an overview of the composition and armament of the detachment commanded by the captain in 1557. The analysis of information on the equipment of soldiers allows us to recreate the actual condition of the troops guarding the Ruthenian lands of the Kingdom of Poland. Most of the riders in this unit were soldiers armed in Hussar style, the second group were riders armed in the Cossack manner. The equipment of soldiers shows the influence of the eastern art of war, manifested by the use of such elements of armament as, for example, bechter, sahajdaks, helmets of the eastern type, etc. In terms of the composition and armament of soldiers, A. Sieniawski’s rota should be considered a unit typical of this period serving in the Ruthenian lands of The Kingdom of Poland.
This article focuses on the identification of key factors of material resources in the field of equipment, armaments and military vehicles within the Czech state needed for effective mobilization. ...The primary goal is to answer the question of whether the Army of the Czech Republic still has adequate supplies of these key resources and whether it has the ability to increase these resources in crisis situations without significant dependence on foreign imports. The above analysis revealed mostly sufficient stocks, but at the same time significant limitations were identified in some categories, especially in their technical and moral quality (obsolescence, respectively), especially in most types of military vehicles. The issue of dependence on foreign imports concerning raw materials then changes considerably, from the minimum (combat dress) to the almost maximum (ballistic helmet) level.
The evolution and function of female trait exaggeration in species with traditional sex roles are poorly understood. Competition for social and ecological resources, rather than mating opportunities, ...may be a key selection pressure in females of socially monogamous species. Moreover, such pre-existing resource competition-selected traits (armaments) may become the object of mating preferences (ornaments); however, the benefits that males may gain in choosing more ornamented females remain unclear. Here, using observational data on free-living female great tits (Parus major), we explore whether tie size, a well-known melanin-pigmented plumage trait, covaries with intrasexual aggressiveness during the breeding season and the investment in current reproduction (fledgling number and mass). We found consistent individual differences (i.e. personality variation) in most of the aggressiveness parameters studied. Moreover, we found support for a signalling role of tie size with respects to how close females approached intruders. Interestingly, this relationship was only evident in older females, not first-year breeding females, suggesting age-related changes in the information content of tie size in the context of samesex aggressiveness. Additionally, although first-year breeding females, on average, produced fledglings with lower body mass compared to older females, tie size was positively associated with fledgling mass, suggesting that males could potentially gain benefits by choosing females with larger tie size. Experimental studies are now necessary to confirm whether females with larger tie size have a selective advantage in female competition (i.e. armament), as well as whether males base their mate choice on female tie size (i.e. ornament).
The paper presents a review on a monograph by O.S. Likhacheva, concerned with the analysis of different types of weapons and reconstruction of some aspects of the warfare of the tribes of the ...Forest-Steppe Altai in the 8th–1st centuries B.C., which contains a representative album of illustrations, including photographs and drawings of artifacts, artistic interpretations of weapons and images of warriors, made by the author. O.S. Likhacheva carried out a meticulous analysis of numerous categories of weapons and their fragments. However, in the opinion of the author of this review, for a considerable part of the presented inventory there is a lack of context description of the finds in the ceremonial burial complexes. This leads to the description of the votive weapons as combative, ceremonially broken items as intact, and fragmentary separate armor-clad plates as a complete armor suit. Certain selectivity of the author in writing the historiography section narrows the attention of the researcher on only one region under consideration, thus ignoring the trans-cultural nature of some types of the weapons of short-range and long-range combat among the nomads of the Central Asia in the 8th–1st centuries B.C., as well as the body of the material from the monuments of the Novosibirsk Ob region which fit in the topic area of the research. The author recommends the book of O.S. Likhacheva to all interested in the history and archaeology of Altai Krai and Upper Ob region.
In the course of his career, Günter Grass repeatedly invoked the works of Albert Camus, above all the 1942 essay "Le Mythe de Sisyphe" ("Der Mythos von Sisyphos"). This article examines Camus' ...influence on Grass, arguing that Grass validates his own political and literary efforts, beginning in Aus dem Tagebuch einer Schnecke (1972), as part of a productive Sisyphean struggle. Yet the legacy of Sisyphus in Kopfgeburten (1980) and Die Rättin (1986) shifts, increasingly being framed as a persistent humanistic effort to oppose consumerism, nuclear armament, and environmental destruction. Comparing Camus' novel La Peste (1947) with Die Rättin, the article underscores the evolving views in Europe on politics and writing, biology and mortality, as well as technology and the environment. Whereas Camus is concerned with existential suffering in an absurd universe and imagines a heroic savior-protagonist, Grass addresses more specific political concerns, blaming humanity - including the ineffectual narrator of Die Rättin - for endangering life on the planet.
THE ROLE OF THE MILITARY Barany, Zoltan
Journal of democracy,
10/2011, Letnik:
22, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
... ethnoreligious differences within the armed forces may mean much in one country and little or nothing in another. ... these factors may be reinforced or weakened by circumstances that have a ...bearing on revolutionary outcomes in some contexts but not in others. ... I expect the nexus between the governments of Bahrain and Syria and their armed forces to become even closer, because events in those two countries have reminded the political elites there of just how much they rely on the loyalty of their troops.
During the 1950s, as leaders across the African continent organised campaigns for political independence from European colonial powers, the international spiritual movement Moral Re-Armament (MRA) ...invited African trade unionists and politicians to its headquarters - a renovated hotel building in Caux, Switzerland. In light of recent recognition of MRA's global reach and Cold War entanglements, this article uses the account of a visit to Caux by Ugandan student Abu Mayanja to shift our gaze towards the cultural. MRA's attempt to curate a transformational experience within Mountain House elaborates the role of religious internationalism in the decolonising Cold War world.
The article is devoted to the participation of the Bashkir army on the Sterlitamak front during the Civil War. The author set the task to consider in detail the events on this front. He gave a brief ...overview of the participation of the Bashchast in the battles against the Red Army on the side of the Whites. The events on the Sterlitamak front, where fierce battles took place between the White Bashkirs and the Red units, were particularly carefully analyzed. The study of this problem helps to reveal in more detail the little-known pages of the Civil War in Bashkortostan. The forces, condition and equipment of the Bashkir troops participating in the battles on this front are described in detail. The author focuses on the Bashkir troops, despite their serious condition, which successfully held the defense at the front, attracting large forces of the Red Army. On the basis of the report of the Chief of staff of the Sterlitamak Front, the winter events of 1919 were restored. The characteristic features of the Bashkir troops are highlighted and described. The actions on this front were one of the decisive moments of the Civil War on the territory of Bashkortostan. In conclusion, it is concluded that the fighting on this front partially led to the process of transition and further choice of the path to create the autonomy of Bashkortostan. The chronological framework of the events covered in this publication covers the period from the second half of 1918 to the beginning of 1919, the period of active battles of the Civil War on the territory of Bashkortostan.
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