IR Village

We are performing a lot of research these days in order to map and understand what’s available online for International Relations students, scholars and related subject experts. The web is loaded with excellent websites dedicated to showcase research centers, NGO’s, faculties and other organizations, professional magazines, lots of free books and publications and primary sources of various kinds. These sources worth a series of separate articles and more modern way for sorting them in a directory like fashion, as many of the sites showing high on Google’s search list, are outdated and filled with tiring link lists which leads to none existing pages.  

The problem is that there are no dedicated virtual meeting spots for International Relations students, scholars and researchers. Current sites are usually built around organizational or topical identity, for obvious reasons. Information, knowledge, people and organizations introduced under this constraint are therefore isolated, not integrated.

Using IR Village may help tackling some aspects of this problem. Here are some uses we have in mind for enhancing research and work processes

What are you working on – use the Magazine to introduce other community members with your current research/initiative highlights, in a less Twitterish manner – which its extreme brevity makes it inapplicable for the job. This can also be used the other way around – once enough researchers are sharing their interests and current studies, other users are able to find out who is working on related or similar issues.

For that matter, Magazine may be used for uploading text with endnotes. It comes useful for those who wish to upload research abstracts and still be able to include all references. Linking is an option as well, more favorable when the actual source is available online.

Events – IR Village offers its users with the option to list their events, track RSVP and find events listed by others. This is especially useful stage for small organizations – yet another place to showcase an event and drive attention of prospects. Even if people will not participate in the event – i.e. for geographical limitations, knowing of the event allows them to download available presentations and publications.  

Students – while professional subject experts and scholars find their way easily in the maze of online research and source lookup, methods and shortcuts, for new students this could be a mess. Much of the posts are dedicated for introducing tools, sources and research methods available for students. Additionally, the web is constantly and rapidly evolving. New tools are always available. That is why we feel we need to cover this aspect on a regular basis in our Magazine category Online Tools for IR Research we introduce new tools, sources, services and methods related to research and study practices.

Papers and publications are being uploaded to research centers and magazines on a daily basis. Having a central hub for covering some of the abundance may be worthwhile for busy researchers, decision makers and students who lack the time to scan the immense number of relevant sites.

Of course, we cannot do these tasks alone and remain effective. Therefore we envision a crowd-source based model to fill us up, enlighten us and suggest more tools, sources, methods and direct us to relevant publications. The offering is near endless; we try our best to cover the pick of the litter. 

A common delusion related to the current revolution in military is that given sufficient technological cutting edge over the enemy, war may be simpler to handle. With regards to this faulty assumption two important convictions should be voiced: one, we are indeed in the midst of an unprecedented technological revolution. Two, war will always remain a phenomenon whereby (at least) two opposing actors try as hard as they possibly can to derail the other side’s plans and action while pursuing their own.  In other words, technology will eventually change many of the fundamentals of war but at the same time, it will remain as difficult to predict the outcome of war, calculate and navigate armed conflicts toward desired strategic goals.

A book by Peter Warren Singer, “Wired for War” makes an attempt to evaluate where are we going with all that technology around us, with emphasis on robotics as a platform that is already replacing human soldiers in the battlefield. Singer reviews this phenomenon in a somewhat broader perspective, including several related ripple effects – how would things look like once thousands of billion times more powerful than presently active robots are deployed in the battlefield? How will it affect the culture, the tendency to use force, what message will it send to the enemy and many other questions. Singer’s research portrays the paradoxical nature of war. For however it is certain that future robots will be much more capable and powerful, it means nothing on one’s ability to attach this notion to a future balance of power or to be able to set thumb rules for predicting the outcomes of armed conflicts in the future. To name a few of the reasons in Singer’s words:

• No long term first mover advantage is guarantied
• The future war is an “open source”, highly commercialized and non state actors get to benefit too from the heavily funded state efforts.

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One noteworthy quote: as you moved humans out of danger, it also potentially made them more willing to use force” (taken from the welcome video on the author's webiste)

A transcript of a session on the book held in Saban Center, January 2009 is available here.

Research Center: Brookings - Saban Center

Author: Peter Warren Singer

Author’s website: www.wiredforwar.com

 

We are soon to launch a new Magazine category all dedicated to reviewing papers and publications from research centers, think tanks and the like within the wide scope of International Relations / International Affairs.
The purpose is to bring to readers and members as wide overview on key publications as possible, given the extensive number of such papers released on a daily basis.

We will try to keep it short, similarly structured and cover as many issues as possible. As always, suggestions are welcome, both on structure and on which research centers should be regularly watched for.

IR Village Team 

On current Revolution in Military Affairs in brief, related to previous post on Post Heroic Warfare.

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The underlying thoughts and ideas of current Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) were translated into operational concepts in a long, ongoing process. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was an adamant champion the transformation process in the defense establishment and armed services.[i] Transformation was the translation of the revolutionary concepts from theory to practice. As such, it was perceived as an all-inclusive effort which meant to occur across the entire US military establishment. Therefore, tracing the process and evaluating it in light of the harsh consequences as portrayed, mostly in Operation Iraqi Freedom, may add another component to the knowledgebase dealing with strategic dialectics and paradoxes. The phenomena which strategic efforts bring unexpected opposite results is well known and was explored in realms such as arms race, missile defense, and many other aspects.[ii] Given the extent and importance of the phenomena in question, an in-depth exploration is in order.

Whether a given military advancement is entitled to be considered as revolutionary is at debate: according to Alvin and Heidi Toffler there were only two revolutions apart from the current revolution,[iii] while Krepinevich counts as many as ten revolutions; one way of resolving the conflict is distinguishing the “small” revolutions from the “large” ones.[iv] A widely accepted definition for what is a revolution in military affairs describes the phenomena as a “discontinuous increase in military capability and effectiveness”.[v] Such increase is originated from simultaneous and mutually supportive change in technology, systems, operational methods and military organizations.[vi] According to Owens, “the Revolution in Military Affairs seeks to use new technology to transform the way in which military units can wage war”.[vii] Military paradigms tend to evolve gradually and incrementally over cycles of decades. Richard Simpkin pointed out that major advancements in military affairs occur in cycles of roughly 50 years.[viii] At the end of the cycle lays a fundamental shift in the way warfare is conducted. Revolutionary change, as opposed to incremental changes, is recognized by its permanence, rapidity and fundamental manner it is applied.[ix]

Echoing older ideas conceived by Soviet thinkers in the 1920’s,[x] the RMA slowly evolved over a period of almost four decades, from the narrow domain of military thinkers and strategists. Initial writing on a “Military-Technical Revolution” by members in the Soviet General Staff during the 1970’s was introduced to the west at about the same time while extensive efforts to reorganize the US military services after the Vietnam debacle took place.[xi] According to multiple sources, current RMA centerpieces are described as “integrating long-range precision strike capabilities, information warfare, unmanned aerospace vehicles, global employment capability, stealth technology integration, decrease in collateral damage through precision, and deterrence vice direct action.”[xii]

Given the outstanding technological advancement and capabilities made available in recent decades, developing capabilities which may enable US forces to obtain “information superiority” seemed promising. Therefore, considerable effort was and still is dedicated to research and develop both technological and organizational devices and methods respectively, which would ultimately provide the much desired information related dominance/superiority in the battlespace.[xiii] The most far reaching attempts were made while pursuing to minimize, if not eliminate, the “fog of war”. The fog of war may be described as the inherent uncertainty in war caused by what Clausewitz called “friction” – a variety of unpredictable factors which often derail combat plans off their course:

This enormous friction… is therefore everywhere brought into contact with chance, and thus incidents take place upon which it was impossible to calculate, their chief origin being chance. As an instance of one such chance take the weather. Here the fog prevents the enemy from being discovered in time, a battery from firing at the right moment, a report from reaching the General[xiv]

One example out of many for this far reaching attempt may be found in a small office which was established within DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) named “Information Exploitation Office”. The purpose of this office was to “exploit… technology in every way we can think of, to lift the fog of war for our side and thicken it for the enemy”.[xv]

Just how much such task is logically and practically feasible is questionable, as was pointed out by Barry D. Watts, in his essay “The Clausewitzian Friction and Future War”.[xvi] At times, the pursuit to “lift” the fog of war (in Adm. William Owens’s own words) was brought to the extreme:

This technology would allow our Country the capability for the first time in history of man, to be able to “see” a very large strategic battlefield with great definition. That means that 24 hours a day, in real-time, all weather, we could have the ability in a “strategic” battlefield... And what is important is that if we are able to view a strategic battlefield this way and prevent an enemy from doing so, we have dominant battlefield awareness, and we are certain to prevail in a conflict (emphasis added).[xvii]

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We’ve already reviewed post heroic warfare in brief. There’s more to be done on how these two concepts correlate one to another.

 

 

Post Heroic Warfare

The following post addresses the evolution of two parallel, interrelated processes which shaped the western way of making war in recent decades. It describes the emergence of the concept of Post Heroic Warfare, coined by Eduard Luttwak, alongside the evolution of current Revolution in Military Affairs in the West (mostly in USA, which is at the center of this and following related posts). The RMA will be dealt with in more detail in the following post, both posts will serve as ground for further developing the interrelation between the two concepts/processes.  

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Post heroic warfare is a concept coined by Eduard Luttwak in an article published on Foreign Affairs (May/June 1995). Such warfare is defined as a type of war where force is used with great restraint, in an attempt to minimize casualties on both sides while pursuing relatively modest war goals. This in contrast to heroic, all-out great wars fought while pursuing great causes and unconditioned surrender of enemies. 

 “Given the performance of certain modern weapons, if military planning is appropriately modified to fully exploit their technical potential, it may be possible to emulate the casualty-avoiding methods of eighteenth-century warfare and thus conduct armed yet virtually bloodless interventions.”

What stood behind Luttwak’s term was a rationalization of the rising perceptions which by and large ceased to regard use of force as a legitimate policy unless strict limitations applied. Moreover, it echoed social evolutions – such as the steady decline of birth rates in western countries. Luttwak reasoned that through technological advancement on one hand and the unique conditions of the post cold war era on the other hand a new crossbreed of warfare may be endorsed.

The emergence of the Post Heroic Warfare concepts and ideas was accompanied by a parallel processes, revolutionary in part, of significant technological and doctrinal advancement in military thought and force design. Hence a bidirectional influence between both trends gradually commenced during the 1990’s. On one hand, post heroic warfare could not emerge, let alone thrive, unless certain technological advancements evolved and supported its key maxims. On the other hand, social change compelled that technology, doctrine and operational emphasis be put in order to further develop “post heroic” capabilities such as none lethal weapons and casualty saving gear, such as bullet-proof body-armor and precision weapon of various kinds (aimed at limiting collateral damage and casualties). This mutual influence served as one of the most important factors which shaped the course of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) and its actual derivatives and by-products in force design (military transformation), national security strategy and actual use of force.

In pursuit of modus operandi which would allow use of force while taking into account social and cultural transformations, RMA was perceived by national policy makers as an opportunity to maintain military freedom of action. At the same time it was shaped and influenced by the mentioned above post modern cultural stances toward war. Post September 11^th era’s circumstances where unique: the extent and brutality of the assault compelled appropriate reaction; however, post heroic warfare patterns and practices became integral part of public opinion, military and government. The Kosovo operation, conducted in 1999, served as a proof of concept for those who prompted the endorsement of the post heroic warfare: goals of the operation where allegedly achieved with no casualties in combat to NATO forces, while taking the utmost minimal risks possible, exclusively relying on air power operations with virtually no boots on the ground. Policy makers, especially those who were in the executive branch, were keen to maintain their ability to act forcefully against designated enemies, yet secure domestic support and public consensus for launching violent operations. 

There was an important exception to the pattern of the post heroic warfare roadmap: great causes of war were declared: Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) unequivocal purpose was to militarily remove Saddam Hussein’s regime.  Those goals were strongly sought-after during the war, thus created a “neo-conservative” like variant to the original post heroic concept, adding democratization and nation building goals to the post war construction.

 

 

Too much information is as bad as too little information. Sometimes a simple Google search is not enough. Try searching this post test phrase "Balance of Power" with Google and you get results that are pretty much based on search engine optimization (SEO) methods, especially obtaining to use the exact phrase inside the url. For someone who tries to start researching a topic, this may be tedious and unusable. Problem is that even with more dedicated and sophisticated tools for such end, there are too many results. Two things are sure:
1. You don't need 200 results, let alone 2,000,000.
2. You don't have the capacity to read all this stuff, not even to browse the 2oth page of the above results.
Being able to perform effective search is therefore crucial for enhancing the stages of material gathering and crafting the literature review.
Alongside dedicated tools available in libraries and subscription based databases (such as JSTOR), the web is loaded with free, sophisticated tools which sometime outperform the more traditional tools, especially for those who don't have access for paid databases for security or budget reasons.
Google Web search enables sophisticated users to perform more accurate searches using advanced tools. 
Pros may know it all too well to benefit from this article but newbies may gain valuable tools for their ongoing student assignments.
We begin searching Google web with a simple phrase "Balance of Power". 
Number of search results -69M obviously calls for refinement.
Looking at the search results shows that in addition to the well known IR concept, there is a game by that name. Omitting the term "game" using advanced search narrows the results down to 59M, still not enough, but now we can be sure that the first few pages can serve as a starting point for our quest. 
Underneath the search box, we can click the "more options" link which opens various options for refining the search or showing the results using different methods, screenshot bellow:


Clicking the "more text" results view adds more descriptive text to each results, making it easier to decide which of the results worth clicking or saving for later review. For research purposes, the most interesting options may be sorting search results by date and using the other two views available: Wonder Wheel and Timeline. Clicking the Wonder Wheel option opens a wheel whereby the term under question is at the center, surrounded by various options for exploration. Hitting one of the option will open another sub "wonder wheel" and so on. The right side of the page will have updated search results based on current wonder wheel you explore. Screenshot bellow:

Clicking the timeline option will sort results on a chronological timeline bringing together historical events, news and publications into one surface. The timeline may be further explored by clicking each of the blocks - this will open a sub-timeline. Results bellow change accordingly. Such results always require hand picking and knowledgeable refining but they empower users with the ability to perform a true in-depth search over key phrases and central concepts. Screenshot bellow:


We skip reviewing the Advanced Search options assuming that by now this is widely known and used by frequent users.

 

 

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We've added some features for a better user experience.
1. Video Page - YouTube video channel which showcases videos from YouTube based on unique search terms related to International Relations. The channel shows the videos in groups of four and changes the videos every few seconds. Hovering on the video will open a short description of the content and clicking the video will open a small player. 
2. News Page - similar to the video search strip, you will find the books browser which shows International Relations related books. Hover over the book to have a short description and click to go to another page (IE browsers) or tab (Google Chrome) to look into the book on Google Books.
3. Additional news feeds from Washington Post, CNN and New York Times.

We hope you'll find these features of value.

IR Village Team 

We continue reviewing useful tools for enhancing research and study related tasks. The next tool at the Google Labs inventory is called Google Fusion Tables. This tool effectively fulfils two main purposes – it enables users to present tabular data in other forms and allows easy, online collaboration with peers. As to the first attribute, some of the things it allows can be easily done with Excel or any other spreadsheet (such as converting the data to a pie chart). Yet, I find the possibility to visualize location based tabular data on maps very useful and there are many options for using this which come to mind.

 

We have created a small sample for this feature by uploading an excel document with table showing universities in District of Columbia by name and location and whether or not do they offer International Relations studies. The table was set as publically available but individual users may be invited as viewers or collaborators, based on creator’s preferences.

The option to collaborate online allows easy sharing and joint work on a single platform – which may come very handy for ad-hoc disparate teams who work together. Use your imagination and research needs.

Our table/map is available here.

IR Village Team

This is the first blog we write on available online tools for enhancing research and studies. Naturally, many of the tools aren't necessarily IR specific and are sure to fit other disciplines.

We start by surveying the Google labs available tools which may be used for various parts of researching a topic. Many IR related researches and students’ assignments are related to timelines and events. Therefore, there's no wonder that one of the most time consuming tasks is the need to sort events of a given topic in a chronological order. Google News Timeline (launched on April 2009) aims to make life a bit easier for those who need to structure a timeline of a given subject. It does so by sorting news of a given topic by the date they were published. User has to enter a search phrase for the subject at question and a general date (year, month is optional). User can also add various queries such as name of newspaper or magazine. The search results appear in a horizontally scrolling table sorted by dates for columns and type of media for rows. Navigation arrows on both screen ends allow user to go back and forth. Searches may be saved for future use. I ran a search on Watergate for 1974 and this is how search results look like:

Additional searches on earlier issues such as World War II yielded results as well - but they are limited to newspapers which have online data for dates which preceded the web. Having said that this tool is available under "experiments" in Google Labs, it goes without saying that it needs additional refinement and many of the search results are not really connected to the searched terms. Nonetheless, in my opinion, it makes chronological sorting of events - a technical job standing between the starting point of the research and the actual research - much simpler.
Google News Timeline: http://newstimeline.googlelabs.com