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In his seminal 1957 book "The Copernican Revolution," Thomas Kuhn writes that Copernicus' "astronomical innovation" was characterized by a "plurality" that "transcends the competence of the individual scholar." Studying the Copernican Revolution, he said, provides an "ideal opportunity to discover how and with what effect the concepts of many different fields are woven into a single fabric of thought."There is a similar plurality of thought present in "How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare" (Stanford University Press) by Narges Bajoghli, Vali Nasr, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, and Ali Vaez. Like astronomy, the study of sanctions transcends the competence of the individual scholar. The four authors bring diverse expertise to the task of understanding the workings of sanctions. Bajoghli is a sociologist, Nasr is a political scientist, Salehi-Isfahani is an economist, and Vaez trained as a nuclear physicist before turning towards security issues.Studies on the efficacy of sanctions policies tend to focus on policy design — are they unilateral or multilateral measures, are they are primary or secondary sanctions, and what sectors, entities, or individuals do they target? In these studies, the country imposing sanctions is placed at the center of the system, exerting forces on the sanctioned countries in its orbit. The Copernican aspect of "How Sanctions Work" is its insistence that a true understanding of sanctions efficacy arises not from an analysis of the policies, but rather from an analysis of the society and economy on which they are imposed.Setting out their aim for the book, the authors declare that "policymakers and pundits" inquiring "do sanctions work?" are asking the wrong question. That question fixates on the power of the sanctioning country and has an obvious answer. "When a country with the size and economic power of the United States imposes harsh sanctions on a country, of course they 'work': sanctions create massive disruptions in the everyday lives of citizens, impact the political culture of the targeted state, and induce shocks in the economy."The better question, the authors contend, is "do sanctions work the way they 'should'?" This inquiry puts "behavioral changes in targeted states" at the center of the model. It also allows for a more sensitive examination of how sanctions may harm ordinary people, an insight no doubt furnished by the authors' personal connections to Iran.Until recently, Western policymakers have maintained a dogmatic belief in the efficacy of sanctions despite the fact that they had clearly failed to achieve their intended policy outcomes in most countries on which they had been applied, most notably Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, and Russia. But, like St. Augustine, who counseled against trying to understand the workings of the heavens, policymakers committed to sanctions policy felt it was "not necessary to probe into the nature of things."In 2018, the Trump administration unilaterally imposed "maximum pressure" sanctions on Iran, raising new concerns about the abuse of sanctions. But even as many former sanctions practitioners warned about the overuse of economic coercion, it was clear that sanctions would remain a mainstay of U.S. foreign policy. As Dan Drezner has observed, "two decades of war, recession, polarization, and now pandemic have dented American power. Frustrated U.S. presidents are left with fewer arrows in their quiver, and they are quick to reach for the easy, available tools of sanctions."In 2021, spurred by the Trump administration's brazen use of sanctions, which had frustrated allies and provoked adversaries, the Biden administration undertook an interagency review of its sanctions policy with the aim of ensuring that "economic and financial sanctions remain an effective tool of U.S. national security and foreign policy now and in the future." The review set out steps to "modernize sanctions," including by ensuring that sanctions policy is informed by "rigorous economic analysis, technical expertise, and intelligence to ensure that they are the right tool in our national security arsenal to pursue the identified objective." In May 2023, the Treasury Department Office of Foreign Asset Control hired a chief sanctions economist for the first time. Belatedly, policymakers in Washington are beginning to probe into the nature of their sanctions policies.A similar effort to better understand sanctions is also underway in sanctioned countries themselves. Despite the tremendous impact of sanctions on economic and social circumstances in Iran, it is only in the last few years that sanctions have been studied on their own terms. Prominent think tanks in Iran now have dedicated sanctions experts whose task is to understand how U.S. sanctions work and assess the costs borne by Iran's economy.For the analysts in Washington and Tehran newly evaluating sanctions and their effects, How Sanctions Work is a valuable resource. By centering the targeted country in the discussion of sanctions efficacy, Bajoghli, Nasr, Salehi-Isfahani, and Vaez demonstrate what a case study on sanctions should look like. To answer the question of how sanctions should work, it is necessary to describe how they are perceived in the target country.The book's first chapter does not begin with a discussion of what sanctions are, how they are designed, or their economic effects. Instead, we read about Fariba, a retired teacher, who recounts the precarious position she faces in Iran's sanctioned economy. Fariba once "led a solidly middle-class life in Tehran" but now constantly worries about how to get her diminished income to "stretch as far as possible."When in the third chapter we finally turn to the impact of sanctions on Iran's economy, we can interpret the assembled statistics with greater sensitivity. For example, when we read that "between 2011 and 2019, some 9 million people lost their middle-class status and joined the ranks of the lower-middle class and perhaps even the poor," we think back to Fariba and her struggle to make ends meet. This is the formal innovation that makes "How Sanctions Work" an important contribution. The authors are not presenting a great deal of new information, but rather presenting existing research in a new way. The book emerges from a series of research papers commissioned by the authors and published by Johns Hopkins SAIS (I was the author of one of those papers). The book also draws on eighty "long-form oral history interviews," including with Iranian researchers studying sanctions impacts. The authors weave together the findings of these papers and interviews with insights from the growing body of sanctions research, creating a first-of-its-kind cosmology of sanctions—a description of their forces, the bodies acted upon, and the orbits and trajectories altered.Again, a parallel can be drawn between "How Sanctions Work" and Copernicus' "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres," which Kuhn describes as a "relatively staid, sober, and unrevolutionary work." For Kuhn, the book's significance lies "less in what it says itself than in what it caused others to say. In other words, Copernicus had written a "revolution-making rather than revolutionary text." Kuhn's later scholarship established how the application of new "paradigms" advances scientific knowledge. Without the right paradigm, those who wish to innovate, whether scientists or policymakers, will not even know the right questions to ask."How Sanctions Work" concludes by calling for a paradigm shift in our appraisals of sanctions policy. "With the United States sanctioning larger economies such as Russia, and threatening more punishing sanctions on a country like China, it behooves us all— as scholars, policymakers, and concerned citizens — to critically examine economic sanctions. Put another way, it is time to understand how sanctions really work."

On Jan. 20, 2024, Iran's Revolutionary Guards successfully launched a three-stage rocket that put the Sorayya satellite into orbit, at an unprecedented 460 miles above the Earth's surface. It is alleged that Iran's space program is a cover for testing a nuclear weapons delivery system. What is a scientific victory for Iran could also be a strategic projection of the Islamic Republic's geo-spatial power. While this space launch was planned days in advance, it occurred on the same day that Israeli forces allegedly killed five Revolutionary Guards of the expeditionary Quds Force in Damascus, followed by an Iraqi militia affiliated with Iran firing ballistic missiles at a base housing American forces in Iraq. Just five days earlier, Iran launched salvos of ballistic missiles towards Syria, Iraq, and Pakistan against alleged terrorist bases.The recent satellite launch into space is connected to these political tensions on the ground. It sent a message to the U.S. and Israel that, despite sanctions or the assassination of its scientists, Iran can still develop the technology to fire a long-distance missile, whether into space or over a continent. If the sanctions and assassinations were meant to curtail such activities, Iran demonstrated they are not working.This points to an unexamined aspect of the conflict in the Middle East since Oct. 7, 2023: Outer space has become a conflict zone. When Iraqi Shi'a militias or Yemeni Houthis launch a drone or ballistic missile, these weapons either enter space or depend on satellites.What the latest Iranian launch has also demonstrated is that the conflicts of Earth — the current fighting in the Middle East in this case — have been projected into space, reminiscent of a trend that began with the Cold War superpowers.Militarizing spaceA ballistic missile burns up the fuel that propels it into the atmosphere until it enters space. Once the fuel is consumed, the missile's trajectory cannot be altered, following a path determined by gravity pulling it back toward the Earth's surface — and its eventual target. The German V-2 was the first ballistic missile. Fired on September 8, 1944, it was the first human-made object hurtled into space. As they invaded Germany, both the U.S. and Soviets sought out the German rocket scientists to develop their respective missile/space programs. The V-2's technology allowed the U.S. and Soviets to send satellites into space, even allowing astronauts to reach the moon itself.In October 1957, the Soviets launched the first satellite, Sputnik, into space, where it orbited the earth and delivered a prestigious victory for communism during the Cold War. According to historian Douglas Brinkley, "For a world locked in a Cold War rivalry between the Americans and the Soviets, space quickly became the new arena of battle." Space launchers and launches were a means of refining military technology discreetly, in the name of space exploration, while simultaneously broadcasting these advances to adversaries and allies. From an American national security perspective, if the USSR could launch a satellite into space, it could do the same with a nuclear warhead, putting American territory in danger. Furthermore, a missile/ rocket might carry a physical payload, such as a satellite or a warhead, but it also carries a political message intended to communicate to adversaries short of violence. That dynamic is what made the Cold War cold.The same threat perceptions explain why the U.S. feared Iran's satellite program well before the regional war escalated last October, pitting American forces against the Islamic Republic's allies in Yemen and Iraq.The American and Soviet space programs were also about prestige, and the most recent launch has been a matter of national prestige for Iran in the aftermath of the deadly terrorist blasts that occurred in the nation on Jan. 3.Middle East geopolitics and astropoliticsAs for the Middle East, historically, outer space was an area used to penetrate the region. During the Cold War, the U.S. and USSR deployed spy satellites above the Middle East, and later satellites were essential for the global positioning system (GPS) to guide American cruise missiles and drones used against Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War, and then against al-Qaida after 2001.In the 21st century, the Global South entered the space arena, led by China, India, and Iran. Space soon emerged as an arena for competition among Middle Eastern states. Among the Persian Gulf regimes, Qatar achieved asymmetric power in the 1990s against Saudi Arabia by broadcasting Al Jazeera to its much larger neighbor, as well as the entire region, via a news channel that depends on satellite technology. The United Arab Emirates is currently bolstering its credentials as a regional Sparta by embarking on a mission to Mars.Israel, however, had a monopoly on space technology and putting its own satellites into space. Iran's current space program serves as a means to challenge a regional rival as well as a superpower — the U.S. At the same time, Iran's allies in the "Axis of Resistance" have militarized space. Iran gave Houthis drone technology that can fly long distances to strike Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Houthi drone attacks are guided by satellite technology, as a drone flying at such a long range depends on a satellite data link for information to be sent back to the pilot in Yemen. As for Houthi drones, they are GPS-guided to their target before crashing into it to wreak havoc and damage. The Houthis have no known communications satellites and rely on commercially available satellite space. These attacks demonstrate a sophisticated level of coordination among the Houthis, who use 3D printing to build the drones and the components based on Iranian designs, while imagery analysts, uplink engineers, mechanics, and pilot crews work in unison to support the attacks. By 2022, Houthi strikes were one of the factors that pushed Saudi Arabia and the UAE to extricate themselves from the Yemen conflict, which also gave an advantage to Iran, the Gulf countries' regional adversary. The Houthis mastered both drone technology and ballistic missiles. The Soviets transformed the German V-2 into the Scud, the most widely proliferated ballistic missile in the Arab world. The Houthis inherited Scuds from the former government after the Arab Spring. In 2017, they fired them towards Saudi Arabia. In 2023, the Houthis launched both drones and ballistic missiles towards Israel's southern port of Eilat, in solidarity with Hamas. In 2017, the Houthis attacked King Salman air base in Saudi Arabia and as well as Riyadh with the Burkan 2-H, a ballistic Scud-type missile inherited from the old Yemeni arsenal, and engineered with a range of more than 500 miles to hit the Saudi capital. Unlike the Burkan, the missiles that were launched towards Eilat were most likely based on the Iranian Ghadr (or Qadr) a close relative of the North Korean Nodong, basically a larger missile based on the original Soviet Scud missile, with more than double the range at 1,200 miles. These Houthi ballistic missiles reached outer space, where Israel's Arrow defense system intercepted them in the stratosphere, marking the first instance of space combat in history.The Islamic Republic's most recent space launch has sent a message to Israel that Iran is catching up. The message to the U.S. is that Iran is in a stronger position after Trump's 2017 unilateral withdrawal from the nuclear deal. Afterwards, Iran had the excuse to advance its centrifuge nuclear technology, its nuclear stockpile, and now advance its space program.Meanwhile, the message to the Iranian people is that, while its economy is under sanctions and they endure terrorist attacks, at least they can take national pride in reaching space.

It was hard to know whether to laugh or cry in response to recent press reports suggesting that the Biden administration is gearing up for a "sustained bombing campaign" against the Houthis in Yemen. Unsurprisingly, the initial coalition strikes against the Houthis apparently did not destroy the Houthi arsenal being launched at commercial vessels in the Red Sea.As was the case in the great jihadi hunt across Southwest Asia stretching over nearly a quarter century, the United States today finds itself at war in a conflict with no defined political objective and a clearly unachievable military objective against an enemy that is nested in a complex political and strategic circumstance that is completely unfamiliar to the United States. Sound familiar?It is also a war with no apparent timeline in which the application of force is linked to ill-defined benchmarks, suggesting that we could launch our bombs and missiles indefinitely or until we run out of ammunition — to no strategic purpose. Have we learned nothing from our follies of the last 25 years in which we proved incapable of clearly relating ends, ways, and means in making decisions on when and under what circumstances to use force? For those states that can afford them, standoff weapons and bombs have become the preferred method of policing the international system. Yet it's hard to remember any of these strikes having any sort of lasting positive impact once the headlines and videos faded. Strangely, these tools of war maintain a hold on government and the popular imagination as some sort of "decisive" action that curiously demonstrates strength, commitment, and resolve.The reality is that strike warfare — long range strikes by planes and missiles — has rarely achieved its advertised political and strategic consequence. Yet it remains a dangerous, drug-like chimera to countries like the United States desperately searching for some sort of easy, low-cost way of maintaining global influence, control, and primacy in a chaotic world. Like all drugs, the initial rush feels great, but the long-range addiction is, in the end, far more destructive, dangerous, and difficult (if not impossible) to kick.We tell ourselves that the state/bad guy on the receiving end (in this case the Houthis) will feel the wrath of our (duly proportionate) strikes and reconsider continuing their attacks. Yet, of course, the Houthis in public pronouncements seem to have welcomed the chance to start shooting directly at the United States. Moreover, we have limited knowledge of the Houthi anti-ship weapon arsenal in its entirety, let alone the political motivations that surround their own use of force. The truth is we have no knowledge or understanding of whether and under what circumstances the Houthis will cease fire, but blithely assume that our missiles and bombs will make them behave. The history of America's fetishOpen-ended military strikes regrettably have become an ill-considered American fetish. We told ourselves the same thing in December 1998, in the three-day fusillade against Iraq known as Operation Desert Fox, when Washington wanted to stress its disapproval of Saddam Hussein's recalcitrance toward UN weapons inspectors. And, of course, Desert Fox was really just the exclamation point on a campaign of long-range strikes during the 1990s that sought to control the Iraqi dictator's non-existent WMD programs.My favorite strike of the 1990s was the 1996 cruise missile strike to warn Saddam off attacking the Kurds in northern Iraq. He did not. But the strategic consequences of those strikes went unrecognized at the time, and they had little to do with Saddam. Following those strikes, the U.S. took on the role of protecting the Kurds and tacitly endorsed their dream of statehood — a decision that today continues to shape the region in ways that may or may not support our interests. In the end, the era of the 1990s culminating in Desert Fox proved to be little else but the bridge to the next phase of the U.S. war on Iraq.We told ourselves the same thing in the opening phases of the shock and awe campaign of the invasion of Iraq in 2003 as we blasted away in our creative targeting against Saddam's armies under the rubric of "shock and awe" and "effects-based operations." Sure enough, Saddam's armies indeed melted away from our initial bombing and our advancing armies, only to regroup and morph into something much more dangerous and deadly that is still shaping the landscape of the Middle East today.We told ourselves that same thing in Afghanistan, as we unleashed a fusillade of strikes called in by CIA jawbreaker teams that sent the Taliban scurrying over the border into Pakistan in 2001 to rest and refit. Once they had done that, they slipped back across the border to resume the war — a conflict they would eventually win 20 years later — forcing the United States to retreat and leaving the Taliban in control of the country.We told ourselves the same thing in Libya in 2011, when we believed that a few well-placed missiles and bombs would enable a peaceful transition of power from Qadafi to someone more amenable to, well, us. Of course, as was the case in Iraq, the strikes were only the opening round in an ongoing struggle for political power and authority that continues to this day.As was the case in Iraq and Afghanistan, the second-order effects of the strikes in Libya ended up being of far greater strategic consequences than was anticipated at the time. The current Biden national security team, which engineered these strikes, obviously learned nothing from the experience.We've told ourselves the same thing in the global war on terror, where we have sent our robots and special forces hunting for sought-after "high value targets" all over the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia. We have surely rained death and destruction on these enemies (and killed lots of innocent people who were at the wrong place at the wrong time) with our Hellfire missiles, but did we win any of these wars?Yet we remain addicted Despite these uncertain results and even colossal failures, we remain addicted to strike warfare, telling ourselves that we can police the politics on the ground by dropping bombs from on high. The reality is, of course, different. Targeting people and property with high explosives tends to make them angry and fight harder. Just ask the Houthis, who have endured years of U.S.-sponsored and supported airstrikes by the Saudis and others in the Yemeni civil war. Obviously, the Houthis were not bombed into submission.Therein lies the strategic dilemma for the West, which has invested billions in the strike, information, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities designed to blow things up at long range with little advertised collateral damage. The revolution in military affairs (and billions of taxpayer dollars) indeed delivered the strike complex — much to the delight of political leaders, who saw in it a low-cost substitute for sending armies to the four corners of the globe to police local political disputes. As described above, this is largely a myth.The Houthis have indicated they'll stop shooting when the Gaza War ends. Perhaps Secretary Blinken should stop by Sana'a on his next trip to the region for consultations. Even more importantly, maybe the Biden Administration should listen to the Houthis and others and take decisive steps to end the war in Gaza instead of becoming enmeshed in the conflict's wider fires to no strategic purpose.Surrounded by the wreckage around the world wrought by strikes stretching back over half a century, you'd think that it was time for us to get into the rehab center and confront our addiction, yet this latest round of strikes tells us that our habit depressingly remains as strong as ever.

As one of America's closest allies, Israel has remained heavily dependent on the US —politically, economically, and militarily—since its creation in 1948.US arms supplies, mostly provided gratis, are channeled via US Foreign Military Financing (FMF), Military Assistance Program (MAP) and Excess Defense Articles (EDA).According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the US has provided more foreign assistance to Israel since World War II than to any other country.The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) documented that the United States supplied 79 percent of all weapons transferred to Israel from 2018-2022.No one else was even close – the next closest suppliers were Germany with 20 percent and Italy with just 0.2 percent.A Fact Sheet released October 2023, by the US State Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, provides a detailed official breakdown on the unrestrained American security assistance to Israel.Steadfast support for Israel's security has been a cornerstone of American foreign policy for every U.S. Administration since the presidency of Harry S. Truman.Since Israel's founding in 1948, the State Department said, the United States has provided Israel with over $130 billion in bilateral assistance focused on addressing new and complex security threats, bridging Israel's capability gaps through security assistance and cooperation, increasing interoperability through joint exercises, and helping Israel maintain its Qualitative Military Edge (QME).This assistance, says the State Department, has helped transform the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) into "one of the world's most capable, effective militaries and turned the Israeli military industry and technology sector into one of the largest exporters of military capabilities worldwide."In the current war, Israel's overwhelming fire power has resulted in the killings of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the destruction of entire cities—mostly with US supplied weapons.Dr. Natalie J. Goldring, a Visiting Professor of the Practice in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, told IPS the October 7 Hamas attacks were horrendous acts and should be condemned as such."Even so, the Israeli responses to those attacks have been indiscriminate – intentionally so," she said.Two days after the Hamas attacks, Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant declared that Israel would carry out a "complete siege" of Gaza, including blocking the supply of water, food, and fuel, while also stopping the supply of electricity. And Israeli forces have done so, she pointed out."The US government bears a special responsibility for the continuing Israeli attacks. It has supplied Israel with massive quantities of military aid and weaponry, and Israel has ignored US restrictions on the use of those weapons".This supply of weapons and ammunition allows the Israeli military to continue its indiscriminate attacks in Gaza," said Dr Goldring, who also represents the Acronym Institute at the United Nations, on conventional weapons and arms trade issues."A key first step in reducing the human cost of this war is for the US government to call for an immediate ceasefire. The US government should also halt supplies of weapons and ammunition to Israel, whether from the US itself or from prepositioned stocks elsewhere."Since 1983, the United States and Israel have met regularly via the Joint Political-Military Group (JPMG) to promote shared policies, address common threats and concerns, and identify new areas for security cooperation.According to the State Department, Israel is the leading global recipient of Title 22 U.S. security assistance under the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program. This has been formalized by a 10-year (2019-2028) Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).Consistent with the MOU, the United States annually provides $3.3 billion in FMF and $500 million for cooperative programs for missile defense. Since FY 2009, the United States has provided Israel with $3.4 billion in funding for missile defense, including $1.3 billion for Iron Dome support starting in FY 2011.Through FMF, the United States provides Israel with access to some of the most advanced military equipment in the world, including the F-35 Stealth fighter aircraft.Israel is eligible for Cash Flow Financing and is authorized to use its annual FMF allocation to procure defense articles, services, and training through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) system, Direct Commercial Contract agreements – which are FMF-funded Direct Commercial Sales procurements – and through Off Shore Procurement (OSP).Via OSP the current MOU allows Israel to spend a portion of its FMF on Israeli-origin rather than U.S.-origin defense articles. This was 25 percent in FY 2019 but is set to phase-out and decrease to zero in FY 2028.Elaborating further Dr Goldring said: "Unfortunately, the situation in Gaza bears similarities to the documented uses of US weapons by the Saudi-led coalition in attacks on civilians in Yemen"She said: "Our response should be the same in both cases. These countries have failed to honor the conditions of US weapons transfers, and should be ineligible for further transfers until they are in compliance.""US arms transfer decision-making gives too much weight to the judgment of government officials and politicians who frequently fail to consider the full human costs of these transfers," she argued."Earlier this year, the Biden Administration released a new Conventional Arms Transfer policy. They claimed that arms transfers would not be approved when their analysis concluded that "it is more likely than not" that the arms transferred would be used to commit or facilitate the commission of serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law."The actions of the Israeli and Saudi militaries are examples of ways in which this standard is not being met, declared Dr Goldring.As of October 2023, the United States has 599 active Foreign Military Sales (FMS) cases, valued at $23.8 billion, with Israel. FMS cases notified to Congress are listed here; priority initiatives include: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Aircraft; CH-53K Heavy Lift Helicopters; KC-46A Aerial Refueling Tankers; and precision-guided munitions.From FY 2018 through FY 2022, the U.S. has also authorized the permanent export of over $5.7billion in defense articles to Israel via the Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) process.The top categories of DCS to Israel were XIX-Toxicological Agents, including Chemical Agents, Biological Agents, and Associated Equipment (this includes detection equipment ((f)), vaccines ((g)-(h)) and modeling software ((i)); IV- Launch Vehicles, Guided Missiles, Ballistic Missiles, Rockets, Torpedoes, Bombs, and Mines; and VII- Aircraft.Since 1992, the United States has provided Israel with $6.6 billion worth of equipment under the Excess Defense Articles program, including weapons, spare parts, weapons, and simulators.U.S. European Command also maintains in Israel the U.S. War Reserve Stockpile, which can be used to boost Israeli defenses in the case of a significant military emergency.In addition to security assistance and arms sales, the United States participates in a variety of exchanges with Israel, including military exercises like Juniper Oak and Juniper Falcon, as well as joint research, and weapons development.The United States and Israel have signed multiple bilateral defense cooperation agreements, to include: a Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement (1952); a General Security of Information Agreement (1982); a Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (1991); and a Status of Forces Agreement (1994), according to the State Department.Since 2011, the United States has also invested more than $8 million in Conventional Weapons Destruction programs in the West Bank to improve regional and human security through the survey and clearance of undisputed minefields.Following years of negotiations with the Palestinians and Israelis, humanitarian mine action activities began in April 2014 – this represents the first humanitarian clearance of landmine contamination in nearly five decades.Israel has also been designated as a U.S. Major Non-NATO Ally under U.S. law. This status provides foreign partners with certain benefits in the areas of defense trade and security cooperation and is a powerful symbol of their close relationship with the United States.This piece has been republished with permission from Inter Press Service.

In an extraordinary, but little noticed development in the war in the Ukraine, Vice Admiral Oleksly Neizhpapa, head of Ukraine's Navy, indicated on November 12 that his country had broken the Russian naval blockade of the port of Odessa despite having few capital ships of its own. Through a combination of drones, long-range missiles, and special forces, Ukraine's Navy has driven Russian naval vessels away from Odessa – potentially reopening the port to international trade. This does not mean that Russia's blockade of Ukraine's coastline is completely broken, since Russia can continue to attack merchant ships with long-range missiles or drones, but it certainly raises interesting questions about the future of the naval war in the Black Sea. Among the instruments creatively applied by the Ukrainians are missile strikes against Russian naval ships, most notably with the dramatic sinking of the Moskva in April 2022. In September 2023, Ukraine struck Russia's naval headquarters in Sevastopol in two separate attacks with British-supplied cruise missiles, further complicating Russia's Black Sea naval operations. Last but not least, Ukraine has used special forces with jet skis to mount additional attacks on Russian submarines and naval facilities in Eastern Crimea. According to an October 13 Washington Post report, Ukraine's attacks have caused Russia to move part of its fleet to Novorossiyisk on the eastern side of the Black Sea out of range of Ukraine's weapons.While Ukraine's attacks are significant in and of themselves since they could pave the wave for a resumption of sea-borne trade, perhaps more important is the fundamental challenge these developments pose to cherished notions of sea power and, more generally, the overall purpose of navies that continue to absorb billions of dollars each year in established navies around the world. A paradigm shift in the application of sea power in war may be upon us.Back to the FutureThe Ukrainian approach to the naval war in the Black Sea can be summarized as "Jeune Ecole Meets Anti-Access Area Denial," providing us with a window into the future of naval warfare that may not be fought by aircraft carriers and heavily armed guided missile cruisers. Instead, a new generation of weapons that threaten large surface ships may well be upon us.
Jeune Ecole refers to a French naval doctrine that emerged in the late 19th century that sought to take advantage of the new weapon of the day – the torpedo – in which small and numerous boats with this weapon could potentially threaten the large dreadnought battleships for a fraction of the cost of the battleship. In short, it offered a way for a weaker state to take on a stronger state with a larger Navy. Indeed, the U.S. Navy drew upon these ideas in constructing its PT boats in World War II to threaten the more powerful Japanese Navy in the Pacific early in the war. While the Jeune Ecole seemingly disappeared into the dustbin of history in the cataclysmic battles of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans during World War II, it may be making a comeback in the naval war unfolding in the Black Sea enabled not just by torpedoes but by land-based drones and long-range missiles.
The anti-access area denial, or A2AD, phenomenon has been emerging over the last 20 years with the proliferation of anti-ship and long-range ballistic and cruise missiles around the world. The accuracy of these weapons has steadily improved with the construction of sensor-based precision strike data complexes that fuse global positioning data with other information feeds that offer the prospect of hitting mobile targets at sea. The U.S. Navy first noticed this phenomenon in the late 1990s when the Iranians began digging tunnels and revetments along the Bandar Abbas coastline as well as on the islands of the Abu Musa and the Tunbs islands that it seized from the United Arab Emirates in 1971. Both locations provided the Iranians with the capability to interdict shipping routes into and out of the Gulf with land-based weapons.
By the end of the 1990s, anti-ship missiles had been stuffed into the well-prepared concrete-reinforced tunnels and were virtually impervious to attack. Sure enough, the Navy realized it could no longer send its aircraft carriers into the Gulf as it had routinely done throughout the 1990s to conduct counter-WMD strike missions over Iraq as well as support Operation Southern Watch.
The Iranian tunnels proved a precursor to the much more extensive and formidable Chinese threat from its DF-series of mobile anti-ship missiles that can threaten shipping more than 1000 miles from its coastlines. These missiles far outrange U.S. Navy carrier-launched airplanes. According to the Department of Defense, China is aggressively developing an entire family of new missiles to include hypersonic glide weapons capable of hitting moving ships at extended ranges across the Pacific Ocean. China's arsenal calls into question whether the aircraft carrier has become vulnerable and obsolete – at least as an instrument of power projection against opponents boasting arsenals of long-range missiles.The End of Seapower as We Know It?The broader question needing serious debate and analysis is whether the proliferation of these mobile, long-range missile systems, drones and other weapons represent the end of an era in which established navies inexorably have focused on building fewer and ever more expensive multi-mission ships.
For example, according to the Congressional Research Service, the U.S. Navy's latest Constellation class multi-mission frigate now under construction will cost over $1 billion per ship in a projected program that will deliver 20 vessels over the next decade. The exorbitant costs of these vessels represent a powerful constraint on the number that can be bought, even for the United States and its $700 billion-plus annual defense budget. The poster child for high-cost naval vessels is the Ford class aircraft carrier, estimated to cost over $13 billion each for the class of five ships.
The implications of the naval war in the Black Sea raise serious questions about whether investment of such staggering amounts of money, not just in the United States but elsewhere, is worth it. If billion or multi-billion-dollar ships can be held at risk (and sunk) by missiles and/or robots that are a fraction of these ships' cost, it suggests that the calculus calling for construction of expensive, multi-mission ships cries out for serious review.***It is unlikely that institutions like the U.S. Navy will absorb the broader lessons from the Ukraine-Russia naval war and willingly give up its cherished systems that have proven their worth in the past. Career paths by entrenched professional officer communities make it nearly impossible, for example, for the Navy to phase out its aircraft carriers – which also have 50-year lifespans when they enter service. Buying new systems that would end or threaten these communities would mean a complete redesign of the naval service.
Fundamentally changing the Navy's force structure would mean taking on these entrenched and powerful communities and, perhaps most importantly, would mean changes to the personnel system upon which the Navy and the country depend – not something to be undertaken lightly. Regrettably, Congress also is part of the problem – choosing pork barrel politics to provide jobs in their districts rather than exercising effective oversight and considering new policy and procurement directions unlikely to come from the institution itself.
However, preliminary lessons from the Black Sea naval war suggest that established ways of thinking about navies, their purposes, and their vulnerabilities needs serious analysis and soul searching. Paradigm change surrounding the war at sea already may be upon us. Above all, we should seek to avoid a battlefield shock to the system akin to Pearl Harbor that would remind us that we should have paid closer attention all those many years ago when Iranian earth movers started building their concrete reinforced tunnels for anti-ship missiles along shorelines in the Persian Gulf.

Key Takeaways from the Africa Evidence Summit CIDR PanelAt the 2023 Africa Evidence Summit, panelists Jeanine Condo (Chief Executive Officer, The Centre for Impact, Innovation and Capacity building for Health Information Systems and Nutrition), Rose Oronje (Director of Public Policy and Knowledge Translation, and Head of Kenya Office, AFIDEP), Aurelia Munene (Founder of Eider Africa), and Constantine Manda (Assistant Professor of Political Science, UC Irvine) joined moderator Daniel Posner (Professor of International Development, UCLA) to explore the varied incentives for African scholars to publish. Amy Shipow (Project Manager, CEGA Global Networks) and Maya Ranganath (Associate Director, CEGA Global Networks and Inclusion) synthesize the discussion to shed light on the publication gap and generate insights on how barriers can be alleviated to allow African scholars to participate fully in scholarly publication.Jeanine Condo speaks on the panel at the 2023 Africa Evidence Summit | Luft Ventures"The research infrastructure on the [African] continent remains very low. Few publications are a reflection of the limited investments governments are putting into research […] There are biases in journals. As a PhD student studying in the US, I was told that I should have my Western professor as a co-author to get published." — Rose Oronje, Director of Public Policy and Knowledge Translation, and Head of Kenya Office, AFIDEP.The Collaboration for Inclusive Development Research (CIDR), co-led by CEGA and the Network for Impact Evaluation Researchers in Africa (NIERA), aims to shift norms in global development research towards a more inclusive ecosystem. At the 2023 Africa Evidence Summit in Nairobi, we organized a panel to discuss how differing incentives and resources contribute to publishing disparities between researchers from high income countries (HIC) and those from low- and -middle-income countries (LMICs). The panel also probed the role of journals, universities, and researchers in HICs in exacerbating (or mitigating) this problem.We present the major themes of the discussion below, which shed light on the barriers and opportunities that African scholars face along the education to evidence-use pipeline.Co-authorship with scholars from HICs can serve as a helpful career stepping stone; however, it is only a small step in changing the research ecosystem to produce more African scholarship.Dr. Condo shared that working with and publishing together with CEGA affiliated professor Paul Gertler was an important lever for her career. Yet, African scholars often face internalized pressure (due to external biases) towards co-authoring with scholars from HICs. When Dr. Oronje asked the nearly 500 Summit attendees, "How many African scholars here are first authors when you submit a publication?," hardly anyone raised their hand, leading her to share that not even she submits academic publications as a first author.Panelists shared the structural obstacles African researchers face to conduct their own rigorous social science research.Since most African universities are "teaching" institutions and prioritize this over research, scholars are left with limited time to pursue their own research agendas. Moreover, faculty are rarely trained to mentor or share resources with their students — challenges that are further exacerbated by the significant time constraints they face. Access to scholars with experience publishing at top-tier universities is also privileged for HIC students, who can more easily build subject-matter expertise simply by attending office hours and speaking with other students and faculty. Without this similar exposure to the most relevant literature and resources, African students instead spend more self-directed time finding, reading, and engaging with a variety of potentially less relevant work."Last year, I was challenging the Vice Chancellor of the University of Rwanda — I am breastfeeding but I am expected to publish three papers. How can I have more space and time to be an equal competitor?" — Jeanine CondoFemale scholars face additional barriers to publishing, even at the highest levels of academia.Dr. Condo recently published a paper on gender inequities in publishing, which outlined that in papers from sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), men comprised 61% of first authors, 65% of last authors, and 66% of single authors. A recent survey of over 200 alumni of SSA STEM PhD programs confirmed that women obtain less university and external funding for graduate studies than their male counterparts. Female panelists shared that they had to push back against senior leadership with regard to career expectations in the face of reproductive and domestic responsibilities; they are expected to achieve the same results as their male counterparts but are constrained by additional, invisibilized labor.Given these constraints to African-led authorship, what are the potential solutions to incentivize and support publishing?"Money is the problem and the solution," Dr. Manda shared. Existing funds should be leveraged to support and nurture African researchers so that journals will be eager to publish their work. Dr. Condo recently wrote a grant to research the effects of providing monetary incentives for researchers to publish, instead of accepting small consultancies, where their contributions were less likely to be recognized by name. Preliminary results suggest that this is an effective incentive for SSA researchers. Similarly, panelists cited the dedicated research and pilot funding that CEGA provides to African scholars helps them pursue their own research interests.Investing in the quality of African journals is essential, and can be accomplished through different mechanisms.Panelists urged researchers to publish important work in African journals, which can signal the quality of the journal, can make findings more accessible, and uphold the ethical responsibility to share results with the communities of study. Dr. Oronje also emphasized the need for African scholars to sit on the editorial boards of such journals.Concurrently, HIC journals are making strides to improve geographic equity; for example, PLOS recently announced a policy that authors conducting research outside of their country of origin will be asked to complete a questionnaire that details the ethical, cultural, and scientific considerations taken to uphold inclusivity in their research, including if local authors are included among the authorship list. Making journals open access was another solution proposed by the panel. Initiatives like the Northwestern Research Feedback Project provides LMIC scholars, who have a desk-rejected paper from the Journal of Development Economics (JDE), the opportunity to be matched with a HIC scholar for feedback. While the author is not reconsidered for JDE, it is hoped that the paper can be improved for other submissions.Both Africa-based and HIC-based non-governmental organizations can complement African universities by offering dedicated mentorship to African scholars.Through her work as the founder of Eider Africa, panelist Aurelia Munene is striving to decrease the sense of isolation researchers experience, especially among recent graduates looking to publish. Her organization offers mentorship on essential research and writing skills as well as supports enhancing curricula at African universities. Additionally, panelists mentioned the importance of identifying resources (such as Afrobarometer, the Harvard Dataverse, or datasets of published papers) and training students to use them.While the panel began with discussion about differing incentives to publish, the conversation evolved to mirror CIDR's fundamental goals: how can we best support African researchers so that journals will actively seek out African scholars to publish their research and policymakers will hasten to apply their results?If you are working in this space, we invite you to let us know what you think! We will soon launch an online survey for students, faculty, research professionals, journal editors, and funders to share their thoughts on the current state of inclusion in the evidence ecosystem and ways to improve it. Please watch for the official announcement of this online survey later this month. The results of the survey and other CIDR research will be released in 2024.It Takes a Village to Raise a Researcher was originally published in CEGA on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Ambiguity over Louisiana law regarding boards of
library control, and unambiguous illegal activity of Bossier Parish police jurors possibly not serving legally on it,
have become issues in Police Jury contests.

Since
2016, the Jury has had members serving on the parish's Library Board
of Control. At present, the entire composition of the Board is made up of
jurors: Republicans Glenn
Benton, Bob
Brotherton, Julianna
Parks, Doug
Rimmer, and Democrat Charles
Gray. All ran for reelection this fall, with Benton and Rimmer drawing no
opposition.

By state law, the parish if
it chooses (or enough citizens petition it) to have a library system must have
this panel with five to seven citizens of the parish appointed by it. State statute also grants
the board some powers independently of the parish: to elect and employ a
librarian, and, upon the recommendation and approval of the latter, to employ
assistant librarians and other employees and fix their salaries and
compensation; provided that no contract of employment shall be made for a
longer period than four years nor with any person as head librarian, or
director, who has not been certified by the State Board of Library Examiners.
Otherwise, the parish controls all other aspects of library operation that it
chooses to do so.

Bossier Parish established its libraries in 1939 (Ord.
75 of 1939) following state statute operating at the time (Act
36 of 1926), which scarcely differs from statute addressing that today that
creates and defines a board. Opinion since, as recently as this
summer, since then has reaffirmed that this process makes a board a
creature of the parish.

Yet juror service on a library board is deemed
illegal by Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff
Landry's office, forcefully stated in a document released in
February. It explicitly reads that "Louisiana's Dual Officeholding and Dual
Employment Law prohibits a member of the governing authority from serving in an
office that they have the authority to appoint. The law provides that the
governing authority appoints citizens to the library board of control. The
governing authority may not appoint a member of the governing authority to the library
board of control."

Given the status of boards as a creature of
governing authorities, that would appear to grant an exception to the dual office-holding statute,
in that the prohibition applies "except that local governmental subdivisions
may appoint members of the governing body to boards and commissions created by
them and over which they exercise general powers as provided in Article VI, Section 15
of the Constitution of Louisiana." On the surface, this would seem to exempt the
prevention of jurors from serving on a board and is the justification the
parish uses to back the practice.

However, it seems unlikely that the AG's office
would make something up out of thin air contrary to that and there must be some
rationale as to its declaration of the illegality of juror service on a board.
Unfortunately, Parish Attorney Patrick Jackson reports that inquiries about
this have gone unanswered. But, oddly, that's the extent to which the Jury has
gone to clarify the matter. It's had nearly eight months where it could have instructed
Jackson to request formally an opinion rendered about the question whether
juror service on the board violated dual-officeholding, which would have forced
action on behalf of the AG and likely would have produced an opinion by now
with an explanation/resolution.

As it stands, while the AG has issued several opinions (such as 19-0143, 19-0113,
19-0096, 11-0022, 08-0126, 03-0454, and 93-710
particularly related to incidents in Caddo and Bossier Parishes) over the
decades about members of a governing body in a parish serving on the library board
of a parish (or parish/city's board, as the law allows joint library systems
and a number of parishes operate under this mode), none involved the current
situation in Bossier Parish: can a police juror in a Lawrason-governed parish (that
is, without a home rule charter whose governance state statute therefore
mandates) serve on a library board that solely governs library operations across
the entire parish? And while it is speculation as to why the AG's office declares
the answer to this question in the negative, two reasons suggest themselves.

First, if a parish (or parish/city) is to have a
library, state law dictates that a board with certain composition and powers be
established to run it. That could mean that legally a board is not considered
to be entirely a creation of a jury, because the state gives no option for that
so in some sense a board is an instrument of state policy. Second, because
statute gives boards those few powers independent of a jury, that independence
becomes destroyed if a juror is allowed in part to exercise both and creates
dual officeholding.

A review of several larger-populated parishes (Ascension,
Jefferson, Livingston, Ouachita, Rapides, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa) with over
100,000 people that don't have joint parish-city government or library
operations, whether operating under a charter, shows no members of the parish
governing authority serving on their boards, except in a few instances where such
a member (on behalf of the authority's chairman) serves in the ex-oficio
capacity as allowed under statute. Even among the smallest parishes in the
state, under 10,000 in population, with parish libraries (Caldwell, Cameron, Red
River, West Carroll; information couldn't be located for Catahoula, East Carroll,
Madison, Tensas), where because of the small populations a jury might take the
shortcut of appointing their own except for the ex-oficio allowance no jurors
served as board members. Thus, Bossier Parish is an absolute outlier in adopting
this practice, and that this large sample of similarly-governed parishes for
library matters in the state doesn't follow that method indicates at least in
part hesitancy to do so over legal concerns that don't seem to bother Bossier.

Altogether, this suggests the practice is of
dubious legal validity and, that as discretion should be the better part of
valor, Bossier would do best to avoid it. Regardless, the Jury-driven Bossier Board
members did unambiguously break the law in one matter: last year hiring Parish
Administrator Butch Ford as the interim library director for several months.
Under Louisiana law, as he doesn't have a librarian certification, he could not
have served in that position.

At the time of Ford's appointment, Brotherton,
Gray, and Rimmer served on the Board, comprising a majority. Within three months
Benton and Parks joined, and all acquiesced to Ford's continued service – much
like they and the rest of the Jury
allowed Ford to serve as parish administrator for almost a year illegally
as they surely knew he lived in Caddo Parish and did not have a Bossier Parish
address at which he could register to vote as required by law. Since then, Ford
established a sham residence in Bossier Parish that likely if challenged as a registered
voter in the parish would have that registration deemed fraudulent.

The way incumbent Bossier Parish jurors like to
play fast and loose with the law should trouble voters, especially when
considering the illegal behavior of Benton, Brotherton, Gray, Parks, and Rimmer
on the Board and the probability they continue to serve on the Board illegally.
At least the electorate will have the chance to register its views about this in
the cases of Brotherton, Gray, and Parks.

As the fig leaves fall away and the threats
escalate, the battle about term limits on Bossier City elected officials has
mutated from a veneer of concern over legal obligations to a process driven by
reelection concerns on both sides, although opponents have captured a monopoly on
hypocritical self-interest that continues to erode their political fortunes while
giving Mayor Tommy Chandler a tremendous opportunity to boost his own.

This
week a Council majority of graybeards – councilors Republicans David Montgomery
and Jeff Free,
Democrat Bubba
Williams, and no party Jeff Darby
who all will have served at least 12 years by 2025 – plus their pet rookie
Republican Vince
Maggio, in concert with their consigliere City Attorney Charles
Jacobs hope to go all Cosa Nostra in their endeavor to defeat the effort
to give voters a say on a three-term lifetime and retroactive limit in office. They
combat a petition certified by Bossier Parish Registrar of Voters Stephanie
Agee that the city charter forces the Council to approve placing such an item
on the ballot by Nov. 7.

But this majority bloc resists, because such a
vote of taken within the next 14 months almost certainly will pass the measure
and end the political careers of the graybeards. And the excuse they try to use
is the petition didn't directly have the birth years of signers listed as
stated specifically in the relevant state statute, although it did
list the voter identification numbers unique to signing individuals that
includes the birth year of them, providing an indirect listing that complies
with the spirit of the law if not its exact wording.

Until
recently, the bloc went to great pains to frame their opposition in terms
of legal niceties, principally that every letter needed correct crossing and
dotting or else sometime in the indeterminate future some otherwise ineligible candidate
(read: any of the graybeards) would sue to get on the ballot, citing
defectiveness of the petition process. However, this fig leaf cannot overcome
the fact that the charter says they must put the contents of a certified
petition on the ballot by a certain date or they are in violation of the
charter, and they have just such a petition at hand.

Further, Chandler won't leave them alone, pricking
at them to do their duty to their public embarrassment. At the Council's last
meeting, he introduced a resolution to fulfill the charter's imperative,
which the bloc voted down but was supported by Republicans Chris Smith and
Brian
Hammons. So, he reintroduced it for the very next one, and he may keep
doing it every single meeting as long as the Council doesn't comply. Every time
he does this, he reminds voters he will fight for term limits and gives a
chance for Hammons and Smith to do the same. And every time he does this, he
reminds voters that not only do Darby, Free, Maggio, Montgomery, and Williams
oppose term limits, but also that they repudiate their own oaths of office requiring
them to uphold the charter.

Thus, to contain the damage Chandler keeps inflicting
the bloc must dispense with the chimera of neutrality it has tried to sell and instead
attack the petition itself. Adding a layer of hypocrisy to its quest, at the
upcoming meeting it wants to pass a resolution – which failed to make the
agenda as a late addition last meeting – to ask Agee to "decertify" the
petition. The resolution's language doesn't hide that, despite no legal judgment
to verify this, it declares its request valid "due to the petition failing to
meet all the requirements of Louisiana Revised Statute 18:3."

Note that until now Jacobs and the bloc have claimed
they oppose a move to put the petition language onto the ballot out of strict
adherence to the law, but now they expose themselves as taking a side by asking
Agee to do something for which registrars don't have the legal authority which
appears nowhere in statute. It is an extralegal process invented out of thin
air that does anything but adhere to the law, but which fulfills a purely
political purpose.

However, this is only the veiled threat, akin to a
mobster visiting Agee and telling her something like she has a nice registrar's
office and it would be a shame if something happened to it, which she could
avoid by following the bloc's wishes (assuming it passes that resolution, which
given the numbers assuredly will happen). Because another resolution on the
agenda carries the threat through by empowering Jacobs to litigate against the
petition, which involves suing the registrar.

Of course, the resolution in many respects is both
empty and meaningless. Under the charter,
the city attorney doesn't have to have such a resolution in hand to pursue
litigation, but rather it is a political gesture that carries both risk and reward.
It attempts to avoid further damage to Jacobs, who has come under ethical fire
for his manipulation of Council affairs at odds with the Charter and his publicly
spreading false information in the course of his duties, by giving him the
appearance of an imprimatur to procced, but it also puts the bloc again on
record against term limits utilizing an unambiguous attempt to sabotage the
democratic process.

And it would appear objectively as a futile
gesture. How does the city have any standing to do this; who is harmed by having
a certified petition? And because the law is silent about reversing petition
certification, there's no valid mandamus claim that government fails to do its
duty. The legal gymnastics involved even to present a plausible challenge will
prove challenging.

Finally, and again involving a display of
hypocrisy, last meeting the bloc muscled through a call for a charter review
commission that would assess, among other things, term limits. Thus, why doesn't
the majority let the vote take place, and during the campaign as a reason to
vote down the measures (councilor and mayor terms) cite its allegation of invalidity
and that the commission will come up with its own version of limits to correct
that? And regardless of whether these pass, it can present its own version if
different through the commission for voter approval (which it can guarantee
through its selection of commissioners)? Why does it insist on bending and twisting
the law instead?

Of course, the end goal in any legal machinations is
not to defeat the petition's validity, which ultimately seems unlikely under
the spirit of the law, but to delay having to put its language on the ballot
until either it becomes subject to a low-stimulus special election that
provides its lowest chances of success – which means a delay of at least six
months but no more than nine because national elections will drive the election
calendar next year and provoke high turnout – or it gets pushed past city
elections in 2025. With Jacobs' past as a 26th Judicial District
judge, he can hope his comradeship with that bench will pay off with a former
colleague producing the ruling he wants that accomplishes the amount of delay
desired.

Perhaps the bloc will succeed through all of this
in buying its members the chance to win another term. Yet if this victory
comes, it may be pyrrhic, for the resulting bad publicity and easy explanation
to voters – X number of times voting against term limits, Y number of times voting
to violate the city charter, all the while looking out for their own
self-interests at the expense of the people's using taxpayer dollars – could
cause the bloc members to lose the war of reelection. Aided by Chandler, who
every time he twists the knife in by contrast further solidifies his chances of
reelection.

 Last night, a friend informed me that my favorite retired Canadian military officer, Lt. General (ret) Michel Maisonneuve is going to speak at the Conservative Party of Canada's convention.  This gave me a case of deja vu, as the 2016 US campaign had dueling generals at the conventions--Michael (how many foreign payrolls am I on?) Flynn for Trump and the Republicans and John Allen for Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.  I have been meaning to write about Michael Robinson's book, Dangerous Instrument, Politicial Polarization and US Civil-Military Relations, for some time,* but the CDSN Summer Institute and a mad dash to finish the Steve/Dave/Phil book got in the way, but this news has pushed Robinson's book to the front of my mind.* One of my sabbatical goals is to catch up and write about the latest civ-mil work (and some older stuff).  Robinson's book was at the top of the pile.  Now I am working on Jason Dempsey's book about whether the US Army was "Conservative" or partisan in the early 2000s. Robinson does an amazing job of taking a variety of surveys and survey experiments (where some respondents read or listen to one vignette/treatment and others get exposed to different ones to see what primes people) to assess a variety of dynamics surrounding the US military: what shapes people's views, what shapes their media consumption, what shapes media coverage, and ultimately what shapes the standing of the US military in the public.  Oh, and how thoroughly screwed the US military is.The basic idea is that there are different ways to politicize a military.  The military can politicize itself by directly getting engaged in politics or by doing things that resonate beyond the military.  But the book is really a story of affective politicization--that how people see the military depends not just on what the military is doing, but what the other actors in the system are doing that makes it appear as if the military is becoming closer or farther politically.  This is all very important because most modern militaries in most democracies seek to be non-partisan institutions--that they were taught the key to both civilian control of the military and relative autonomy was to stay out of politics.  Indeed, because most militaries are not seen as partisan, they tend to have higher popularity ratings--that most other institutions are seen as belonging to one side or another and thus at least a chunk of the political spectrum is pissed off.  I have delighted in our CDSN surveys showing that only academic folks have higher trust ratings than the military.In the US, there was an arms race between the Democrats and Republicans amassing endorsements from retired generals and admirals, as each sought to be seen as the party of national security.  This was bad for the military, as it may be that the public sees retired officers as the voices of the active service since the latter are largely restricting from speaking in a partisan fashion.  This culminated in Flynn chanting "Lock Her Up" at the 2016 convention, which is more than a smidge ironic or hypocritical given that Flynn was a far greater danger to releasing classified information than Clinton's email.  Anyhow, things got worse once Trump got into office as he kept referring to his generals, kept making partisan statements to and in front of the military (including announcing the Muslim ban at the Pentagon).Robinson, in his book, shows that views towards the military have become increasingly partisan--that views of the military now go up and down depending on who is president--that Republicans, traditionally strong supporters of the military, are less enthusiastic when a Dem is president. The key dynamic driving much of this is confirmation bias (woot?)--that partisans will notice only that which agrees with their preconceptions and discount that which does not agree.  As Americans become increasingly partisan--with their identities tied to parties, this gets worse, especially for those who consume only from a very biased portion of the media (you know who).  What I like about this book is that it uses a word I hate, polarization, quite well.  Polarization generally implies that all parties are spinning away from the center, when studies show that the GOP is becoming radicalized, but the Dems are mostly staying where they were, sliding a smidge to the left.  But what is abundantly true is that all sides are increasingly tied to their partisan id.  Robinson goes on to show that that consumption of Fox is not good, and so on.  And the military is utterly screwed because if they push back at, say, charges of wokeness, they only make things worse.  The results also show that despite all the talk of norms of civil-military relations, the public is not really aware of them, nor that concerned about them.  So, it is up to the politicians to refrain and for the military to ... hope (and hope is not a plan).  So, it is a great book, with terrific social science, important implications for civil-military relations, and, yeah, we are kind of fucked.   And now it applies to Canada, damn it.  The Conservatives are bringing Mr. Cancelled to their convention, imitating the GOP, so he can rail against the Liberals and the wokeness of the Canadian Armed Forces.  The Liberals have dipped into this as they had Andrew Leslie, another retired LTG, in a prominent place when they ran in 2015.  The key difference is that they were just trying to use his credibility and stature to buttress their own, they were not using him to attack the military, nor did he speak out that much in any way that was particularly controversial.  Maisonneuve, on the other hand, used  his Vimy speech and then a regular spot at a national paper, to blast the Liberals, the woke media, the military for daring to make itself more inclusive, and pretty much anyone else he felt spurned by [I am still waiting for some media outlet to note that Maisonneuve was part of the military's abuse of power crisis].  The Conservatives are embracing some of the GOP's efforts to mobilize populist resentment as they now apparently seek to tear down many Canadian institutions.  When I say this will endanger Canadian civil-military relations, I don't mean there will be a coup.  But it will mean that the public and politicians will view the military as a partisan actor, that appointments and decisions will be viewed through partisan lenses, and then the Canadian military will be fucked, because its efforts to defend itself as an inclusive institution, desperately needed during a personnel crisis, will be seen as partisan.  "Hey, we don't discriminate against x" will be seen by CPC partisans as being too woke. Which will make it harder to recruit and retain, deepening the spiral that may make it very hard to send a ship to the Pacific or sustain the commitment to Latvia.  In short, the Conservatives are starting a process that is going to be bad for the military, despite their bad faith assertions that they care more about the CAF than the Liberals do.  [No, Trudeau does not care much about the CAF, but the CPC does not either].So, here's a song that goes with all of this.

Gabriella Beaumont-Smith


Senators Christopher Coons (D‑DE) and Kevin Cramer (R‑ND) introduced a bill, the PROVE IT Act, on June 7, 2022, that lays the groundwork for a carbon tariff. A carbon tariff is a tax on imports based on their carbon intensity, a measure of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) per unit of activity (e.g. manufacturing). The PROVE IT requires the Secretary of Energy "to conduct a study and submit a report on the greenhouse gas emissions intensity of certain products produced in the United States and in certain foreign countries." Presumably, this report would be used to compare the intensities of similar products produced in the United States and elsewhere, and then a carbon tariff would, theoretically at least, be used to tax imports from countries whose products have higher intensities to offset any economic benefits gained from producing in countries with fewer environmental restrictions.
However, carbon tariffs are not the only proposal for taxing imports based on their carbon intensity. For example, the European Union recently implemented a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), a device designed to "adjust" for the fact that companies headquartered in different countries face different levels of environmental regulation. The CBAM is also a tax on imports, but the "border adjustment" piece requires a domestic carbon tax to adjust (and a pure border adjustment should also include a rebate for exports). The U.S. does not have a federal carbon tax, so any "CBAM" implemented without one would simply be a carbon tariff.
Regardless of the name, there are several reasons to be highly skeptical of a consequential U.S. carbon tariff bill and to be worried that it would do more economic harm than environmental good. Here are three:
First and most obviously, a carbon tariff would impose significant new costs on American consumers, companies, and workers. For example, recent U.S. tariffs on more than $350 billion worth of imports have been found to cost Americans over $50 billion per year. The PROVE IT Act targets over $600 billion worth of imports, suggesting the cost of carbon tariffs could be even higher than the Trump‐​Biden tariffs. Import taxes hurt Americans by increasing prices, particularly those in the lowest income brackets, and U.S. companies' competitiveness by raising their production costs or insulating protected firms from market competition. For example, President Trump's imposition of tariffs on imported steel inflicted significant damage on steel‐​consuming U.S. companies (like nail manufacturers)—the new taxes cost their workers directly through layoffs and the companies became less competitive as they were forced to either share the costs with their customers by raising prices, reduce production, or decrease investment. As a result, the tariffs did little to "level the playing field," instead the President surrendered home‐​field advantage and gave the edge to foreign competition, who faced no such taxes.
Second, the history of U.S. tariff policy raises serious concerns that a carbon tariff would not be administered in a sound and impartial manner. Instead, these tariffs would simply be a vehicle for rote protectionism. A prime example of such protectionism is the steel tariffs imposed or maintained under the Bush II, Trump, and Biden administrations, which had political motivations far exceeding any economic ones. At the same time, U.S. trade remedies (antidumping and countervailing duties (AD/​CVDs)) law utilizes a process to calculate dumping or subsidization of imports that "injures" domestic industry but can be "remedied" by imposing duties (tariffs). Similar calculations are likely to be used for carbon intensity. However, AD/​CVDs law is notorious for being strongly biased against imports and American consumers. Even worse, in reality, the law is used as a way to deliver protectionist rents to a handful of well‐​connected companies (including, again, steel).
Indeed, some already propose that the CVD law—the remedy for U.S. industry alleged to be injured by unfairly subsidized imports—could be used to impose carbon tariffs and thus avoid the need for new legislation. Doing so, however, would subject carbon tariffs to the same problems—regulatory capture, rent‐​seeking, etc.—that already afflict U.S. trade remedies proceedings, and worse, invite abuse in similar proceedings determining carbon tariffs. For example, one major problem with AD/CVDs law is the discretion they give to the government when data is missing: if the Commerce Department deems information provided by a foreign company during an investigation to be unreliable or insufficient during an AD/CVD investigation, the agency will use various methodologies to fill it in, inevitably resulting in import duties that unreasonably favor the U.S. companies who lobbied for relief. If Commerce followed similar procedures for carbon intensity, similarly biased results are sure to emerge. In other words, the U.S. government could easily make foreign businesses look like they emit more carbon or GHGs than they truly emit, resulting in high tariffs on foreign products in the name of climate change that really serves to protect American businesses from competition.
Thirdly, U.S. carbon tariffs would likely violate the World Trade Organization (WTO) non‐​discrimination rules, which state that WTO members must treat like imported products equally and give imports the same treatment as the same products made domestically. Many legal scholars argue that a border adjustment imposed uniformly on all imports and in concert with an equivalent carbon tax applied to domestically‐​produced goods/producers—similar to the EU's CBAM—might not violate these WTO rules. However, the PROVE IT Act, if turned into carbon tariffs, would satisfy neither condition: the envisioned report applies to only certain countries, and the United States today has no federal carbon tax. Thus, many of the same trade experts who think the CBAM passes the WTO must think a U.S. carbon tariff would fail.
Finally, it is far from certain that carbon tariffs would provide significant climate benefits. The consensus on the efficacy of carbon taxation, including through a CBAM, to reduce carbon or GHG emissions is mixed. While economic theory supports that taxing an item would reduce emissions production, the likelihood of calculating the "right" price for emissions and appropriately administering it is low. Indeed, the level (country, industry, factory) at which a tax is applied could have the opposite effect by encouraging more carbon‐​intensive production and there are myriad other factors affecting carbon intensity; energy prices and subsidies (making production cheaper), to name a couple. Moreover, carbon and GHG emissions are not limited to the countries that tax them or the imports from countries chosen for a tariff.
Policymakers would do well to remember that freer trade promotes cleaner environments. Thus, a more effective solution to reducing emissions would be a multilateral commitment such as finalizing the WTO's environmental goods agreement that reduces tariffs on environmental goods. Making it cheaper to adopt cleaner technologies will increase the availability of products to improve the environment and create a sustainable tree with branches ripe for new opportunities in the trade and environment nexus. Although reducing emissions should be a global effort, Congress and the Biden administration should do their part and breathe some (clean) air into the U.S.'s trade and climate policies by resisting the protectionist path which continually demonstrates the dirty business of rent‐​seeking and will do little for clean and renewable technologies innovation.

In einem Schreiben an alle Mitarbeiter der Forschungsgesellschaft kündigt Hildegard Müller umfangreiche Aufklärungsarbeit im Spesenskandal an. Dabei sollte das Fraunhofer-Aufsichtsgremium auch seine eigene Rolle hinterfragen.





AM TAG NACH DER WAHL Holger Hanselkas zum neuen Fraunhofer-Präsidenten hat sich die Senatsvorsitzende Hildegard
Müller am Freitag in einem Schreiben an alle Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeiter der Forschungsgesellschaft deutlich wie nie zum Spesenskandal geäußert. Müller, im Hauptberuf Präsidentin des
Verbands der Automobilindustrie (VDA), verschickte ihre Nachricht am Morgen der Fraunhofer-Mitgliederversammlung in Dresden, in dessen Rahmen die Entlastung des bisherigen Vorstandes
für das Jahr 2022 anstand.



 



"Die Entscheidung für Holger Hanselka haben wir als Senat bewusst getroffen, um auch intern einen Neuanfang für die Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zu ermöglichen", schrieb Müller. "Dazu gehört auch eine
transparente und klare Aufarbeitung problematischer Vorgänge aus der Vergangenheit."



 



Ausdrücke wie "Aufarbeitung" und "problematische Vorgänge" gehörten bislang selten zum Vokabular der Senatsvorsitzenden, sobald sie öffentlich (und das ist ein Schreiben an alle 30.000
Fraunhofer-Mitarbeiter) Stellung bezog zu den Vorwürfen gegen den gestern zurückgetretenen Ex-Präsidenten Reimund Neugebauer und den übrigen Vorstand. Ihre Mitarbeiterbrief am Freitag kann man
insofern als Wendepunkt bezeichnen, zumal sie darin die Belegschaft eindringlich zur aktiven Mitarbeit am Neustart aufforderte.



 



Liegt der Skandal nun tatsächlich
schon "in der Vergangenheit"?



 



Nur: Gehört der Skandal, der Fraunhofer nach innen und außen in eine tiefe Krise stürzte, allein deshalb schon der von Müller erwähnten "Vergangenheit" an, weil mit Neugebauer am
Donnerstag sein mutmaßlicher Protagonist  – offiziell freiwillig – vorzeitig sein Amt niedergelegt hat?



 



In ihrem Schreiben jedenfalls erweckte Müller am Freitag den Eindruck, als habe der Fraunhofer-Senat erst durch den im Februar 2023 öffentlich gewordene Prüfbericht des
Bundesrechnungshofs das Ausmaß der möglichen Vergehen erkannt. Der Prüfbericht, formulierte die Vorsitzende des Aufsichtsgremiums, habe "Zweifel an ausgewählten Aspekten der Haushalts-
und Wirtschaftsführung der Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft in den Jahren 2016 bis 2021 aufgeworfen". Mittlerweile habe auch die Staatsanwaltschaft München I den Senat "über ihre Ermittlungen zum
Nachteil der Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft" (derzeit gegen unbekannt) informiert, schrieb Müller weiter.



 



Freilich hatten die von ihr angesprochenen "Zweifel" schon lange vorher bestanden, waren jedoch vom Senat, bis Dezember 2022 noch unter der Leitung vom Ex-Chef der Salzgitter-AG Jörg Fuhrmann,
stets abgetan worden. Im November 2021 etwa teilte Fuhrmann
mit, der Senat habe sich "mit vereinzelten, über Medien, parlamentarische Anfragen und soziale Netzwerke verbreiteten Unterstellungen und Vorwürfen Dritter in Bezug auf Leitungsgremien
der Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft" befasst. Das Gremium habe diese dann aber "geschlossen und auf Basis einer unabhängigen Prüfung als durchweg haltlos" eingestuft. Bei der von Fuhrmann angeführten
"unabhängigen Prüfung" hatte es sich damals freilich um Recherchen der internen Revision gehandelt. 



 



Im Jahr 2022 ermittelten dann BMBF und Rechnungshof bei Fraunhofer, und zumindest muss sich der Senat dann so unsicher gewesen sein, dass er im vergangenen Mai der Mitgliederversammlung
nur eine
Teilentlastung des Vorstandes um Neugebauer für das Jahr 2021 vorschlug – ausgespart um "zum Zeitpunkt der Befassung noch nicht vorliegende Sachverhalte", wie es die
Fraunhofer-Pressestelle damals auf Anfrage formulierte. 



 



Ab wann hätte der Senat
die Vorwürfe ernstnehmen müssen?



 



Inwiefern, lautet also jetzt die Frage angesichts von Müllers Darstellung im Mitarbeiterbrief, hätte der Senat die angeblich erst durch den Rechnungshofbericht aufgeworfenen Zweifel schon
früher ernstnehmen müssen, und inwiefern hat er das ausreichend getan?  



 



Seit Anfang März erhobenen Forderungen aus der Politik nach personellen Konsequenzen in der Fraunhofer Führungsetage war der Senat als oberstes
Aufsichtsgremium zumindest nicht gefolgt, und Müller selbst hatte Neugebauer noch Wochen später beim wichtigsten VDA-Kongress als Eröffnungsredner begrüßt.



 



In ihrem Schreiben am Freitag indes ließ Müller die Fraunhofer-Mitarbeiter wissen: Nachdem Senat und Vorstand (durch Rechnungshof und Staatsanwaltschaft) mit den Vorwürfen über eine
unsachgemäße Haushalts- und Wirtschaftsführung konfrontiert worden seien, hätten sie "umgehend Sofortmaßnahmen" ergriffen, außerdem, "eine Überprüfung und Veränderung von Prozessen
eingeleitet, um Schaden von der Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft abzuwenden".



 



Welche Schritte Müller
im Einzelnen nennt



 



o Eine interne Untersuchung "der in Rede stehenden Sachverhalte" durch die "Kanzlei Hessen" aus Frankfurt am Main "mit strafrechtlicher Begleitung" durch die auf Wirtschafts- und
Steuerstrafrecht spezialisierte Münchner Kanzlei "Knauer & Partnerschaft". Die interne Untersuchung betreffe die Vorstandspraxis "im Hinblick auf Kosten für eigene Dienstreisen,
Repräsentationsaufwendungen (Bewirtungen, interne Veranstaltungen, Begleitungen der Vorstandsmitglieder auf Dienstreisen und gewährte Geschenke) sowie Dienstwagennutzung und -anschaffung". Sie
umfasse den Zeitraum von Januar 2016 bis März 2023.



 



o Eine weitere Kanzlei sei mit der Prüfung von Ansprüchen der Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft gegen die zwischen 2012 und 2021 amtierenden Vorstandsmitglieder beauftragt worden.



 



o Ein Schwerpunkt der Untersuchungen sei unter anderem die  "umfangreiche Sicherung von Daten betroffener Vorstandsmitglieder, ehemaliger Vorstandsmitglieder und Mitarbeitender". 



 



o Ein eigens eingesetzter Senatsausschuss unter Leitung Müllers steuere die Untersuchung, unterstützt von einer Fraunhofer-internen Projektgruppe zur operativen Unterstützung des Ausschusses, die
auch ausschließlich an diesen und an den Senat berichte. Bei allen Maßnahmen seien Gesamtbetriebsrat, Betriebsrat der Zentrale der Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, der Datenschutz- sowie der
IT-Beauftragte eingebunden. Was insofern eine wichtige Mitteilung ist, weil es aus Fraunhofer-Betriebsräten im Februar erhebliche Kritik am Vorstand und dessen Vorgehen gegeben hatte: Das Vertrauen in die Zentrale sei
"insgesamt zerrüttet".



 



War eine Entlastung des Vorstands
für 2022 am Freitag überhaupt denkbar?



 



"Selbstredend", betonte die Senatsvorsitzende Müller nun in ihrem Schreiben, hätten alle betroffenen aktiven Vorstandsmitglieder ihre umfängliche Kooperation versichert, mit den ehemaligen stehe
man in Austausch. "Im Hinblick auf mögliche Erstattungsansprüche wurden zwischenzeitlich  auch verjährungssichernde Vereinbarungen getroffen bzw. anspruchssichernde Maßnahmen
veranlasst." 



 



Womit sich eine weitere Frage stellt: War unter diesen Umständen eine Entlastung des bisherigen Vorstands für das Jahr 2022 am Freitag überhaupt denkbar, wenn gleichzeitig doch laut Müller
mögliche Erstattungsansprüche im Raum stehen? Eine offizielle Bestätigung, ob die Entlastung nun erfolgte oder nicht, gibt es bislang nicht von Fraunhofer, Anwesende berichten jedoch, es
habe eine Entlastung zumindest einiger Vorstände stattgefunden. 



 



Übrigens hatten sich die Forderungen von Bundestagsabgeordneten und auch von Bundesforschungsministerin Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP) stets auf einen "schnellstmöglichen Neustart im Vorstand"
bezogen und damit explizit nicht nur auf Neugebauer. 



 



Diese Frage nach Sinn und Zweck einer Entlastung des Vorstands zum jetzigen Zeitpunkt wird umso dringlicher, da Müller selbst – bei aller von ihr
herausgestellten Kooperationsbereitschaft der Betroffenen – in ihrem Schreiben die Fraunhofer-Mitarbeiter ermutigte, dass sie sich mit Informationen vertraulich direkt an die ermittelnde
Kanzlei wenden könnten. Und noch einmal betonte, alle Unterlagen und elektronischen Daten, die mit der Untersuchung in Zusammenhang stehen könnten, müssten in dem Zustand belassen werden, in
dem sie sich zur Zeit befänden. 



 



Interimschefin Sandra Krey ist erst
seit August 2022 Mitglied des Vorstands 



 



Insider sagen denn auch, es sei kein Zufall, dass mit der für den Bereich Finanzen und Controlling zuständigen Sandra Krey ein Vorstandsmitglied mit der kommissarischen Führung der
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft betraut worden ist, die sich erst seit August 2022 im Amt befindet.



 



Am Ende ihres Schreibens ging die Senatsvorsitzende, die am Donnerstag den abgetretenen Präsidenten noch überschwänglich gelobt hatte, auf weitere rhetorische Distanz zu Neugebauer: "Mit der
Berufung von Holger Hanselka zum neuen Präsidenten beginnt eine neue Ära bei Fraunhofer – auch nach innen." Sie als Senatsvorsitzende werde den künftigen Präsidenten "mit aller Kraft
unterstützen". Dann wendete sich Müller noch einmal direkt an die Mitarbeiter:" Ich möchte Sie alle ausdrücklich ermuntern, sich mit Ihren Ideen, Ihrer konstruktiven Kritik und all Ihrer
Leidenschaft an diesem Neustart zu beteiligen."



 



In der jüngsten Vergangenheit, klagten viele Mitarbeiter, sei ihre Meinung über die Vorgänge in der Fraunhofer-Führungsetage weniger geschätzt gewesen. Und die von ihnen aufgeworfenen Fragen –
etwa zum Rechungshofbericht – ebenso wenig. So schrieb der Betriebsrat der Münchner Zentrale Ende Februar an den damaligen Vorstand: "Wir haben noch niemanden gefunden, der mit Ihrer Antwort
zufrieden gewesen wäre."



 



Müllers demonstrativer vorgetragener Eifer, den durch Hanselka verkörperten Neustart mit einer Bewältigung der Vorgänge in den vergangenen Jahren zu verbinden – ja, zur Voraussetzung zu
machen –, ist erfreulich. Gleichzeitig wird auch sie noch unter Beweis stellen müssen, wie ernst sie es mit ihrer Ansage meint. Zur einer glaubwürdigen Aufklärungsarbeit wird nicht nur gehören,
weitere Konsequenz gegenüber dem bisherigen Vorstand zu zeigen, die internen Führungsstrukturen bei Fraunhofer zu durchleuchten oder sie, wo nötig, neu aufzustellen. Auch das Handeln des Senats
selbst während des Skandals, sein Umgang mit Whistleblowern und Vorwürfen gegen den Vorstand – kurz die Art der Wahrnehmung seiner Aufsichtsfunktion – muss Gegenstand der von der
Senatsvorsitzenden beschworenen Aufarbeitung werden.



 



Genauso wie das Handling der Angelegenheit durch das Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, unter anderem durch ein bestimmtes ehemaliges Leitungsmitglied, das laut Rechnungshof dreimal fürstlich von einem
Fraunhofer-Vorstandsmitglied bewirtet worden sein soll. Apropos BMBF: Dessen früherer parlamentarischer Staatssekretär Thomas Sattelberger (FDP) hatte dann immerhin eine eigene Untersuchung
in der Zentrale der Forschungsgesellschaft veranlasst. Doch den dazu gehörende Abschlussbericht hat das BMBF trotz mehrerer im Sommer 2022 gestellter Anträge nach dem Informationsfreiheitsgesetz
bis heute nicht herausgegeben – Fraunhofer hatte kurz vor Ablauf der Frist Widerspruch dagegen eingelegt.




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Die NRW-Initiative "Lehrkräfte Plus" will geflüchtete Lehrkräfte für den Einsatz in deutschen Schulen vorbereiten. Aber klappt das auch? Ein Interview.





2017 ging die Initiative an den Start: Lehrkräfte Plus. Ein Programm, das nach Deutschland geflüchtete Lehrkräfte für den Unterricht in Deutschland fitmachen soll. Zu den Initiatoren
zählte damals die Bertelsmann-Stiftung. Warum, Frau Müncher?



 



Angela Müncher: Wir haben uns gedacht: Wenn so viele Menschen zu uns kommen, dann müssen darunter doch auch Lehrkräfte sein. Die nichts lieber tun würden, als wieder zu
unterrichten. Und zwar die Kinder und Jugendlichen, die wie sie geflüchtet sind. Wir haben nach Potsdam geschaut, wo die Universität schon damals das bundesweit erste
Programm zur Qualifizierung geflüchteter Lehrkräfte aufgebaut hatte. Und haben gesagt: So etwas brauchen wir in Nordrhein-Westfalen (NRW) auch. Zu unserer Freude hat sich das
Schulministerium sehr offen gezeigt. Wir haben das dann mit ihm, der Landesweiten Koordinierungsstelle für Kommunale Integrationszentren und der Universität Bielefeld aufgesetzt, dann kamen die
Stiftung Mercator und die Ruhr-Universität Bochum dazu. Inzwischen sind insgesamt fünf Universitäten und alle Bezirksregierungen von NRW an Bord – gefördert werden die Universitäten seit 2020 vom
NRW-Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft. 








Angela Müncher ist Senior Project Manager im Programm Bildung und Next Generation der Bertelsmann Stiftung, Dirk Richter
ist Professor für Erziehungswissenschaftliche Bildungsforschung an der Universität Potsdam und hat zusammen mit Kolleg:innen das Programm "Lehrkräfte Plus" wissenschaftlich begleitet.
Ihren Abschlussbericht finden Sie hier.
 Fotos: Bertelsmann Stiftung/Die Hoffotografen GmbH.


 



Gut gedacht ist noch nicht gut gemacht. 



 



Dirk Richter: Das ist richtig. Doch die Initiatoren wollten es von Anfang an genau wissen. In den ersten drei Projektjahren hat das Beratungsunternehmen Syspons "Lehrkräfte Plus" evaluiert; als Universität
Potsdam haben wir das Programm wissenschaftlich
begleitet, nachdem es auf insgesamt fünf Universitäten ausgeweitet wurde. Im ersten Jahr danach haben 110 von 128 Teilnehmenden ein Abschluss-Zertifikat erworben. Das ist eine phänomenale
Absolventenquote von 86 Prozent. Da kommt kein Lehramtsstudiengang ran.



 



"Außenstehenden ist manchmal gar nicht



richtig klar, was es bedeutet, innerhalb



kürzester Zeit von praktisch keinen



Deutschkenntnissen auf einen Level zu



kommen, der das Unterrichten ermöglicht."



 



Die Zahl allein sagt noch nichts über die erworbenen Qualifikationen und den daraus resultierenden beruflichen Werdegang.



 



Müncher: Sie zeigt aber das enorme Engagement der geflüchteten Lehrkräfte. Ein Jahr haben sie in Vollzeit Deutsch gelernt, eine pädagogisch-interkulturelle Qualifizierung
durchlaufen, Seminare zu allgemeiner und Fachdidaktik absolviert, dazu an einem Schulpraktikum teilgenommen. Und das, obwohl die meisten Familie und Kinder und viele soziale Verpflichtungen
haben. Sie sind alle extrem motiviert. Außenstehenden ist manchmal gar nicht richtig klar, was es bedeutet, innerhalb kürzester Zeit von praktisch keinen Deutschkenntnissen auf einen Level zu
kommen, der das Unterrichten ermöglicht.



 



Richter: Dieser Sprung um durchschnittlich zwei Sprachkompetenzstufen in einem Jahr ist bemerkenswert. Man merkt: Die Leute wollen schnell in die Schule, das ist ihr großes Ziel.
92 Prozent geben an, dass sie dauerhaft in Deutschland als Lehrkraft tätig sein wollen. Auch das ist eine Zahl, wie wir sie bei normalen Lehramtsabsolventen wohl nicht bekommen würden.



 



Und was können sie fachlich und pädagogisch nach dem "Lehrkräfte Plus"-Jahr?



 



Richter: Das haben wir nicht abgeprüft, aber wir haben die Absolventinnen und Absolventen befragt, wie gut sie sich selbst auf die unterschiedlichen Aufgaben einer Lehrkraft in
Deutschland vorbereitet fühlen. Das Ergebnis: Die Befragten schätzen ihre eigenen Kompetenzen als sehr hoch ein – was erfreulich ist, aber auch nicht besonders überraschend bei derartigen
Selbsteinschätzungen. Unabhängig von dem bei "Lehrkräfte Plus" Gelernten bringen die Betreffenden vieles mit, was sie für unsere Schulen unglaublich wertvoll macht. Sie sind Rollenvorbilder für
alle Schüler, nicht nur für die aus ihrer eigenen Kultur. Sie bereichern die Kollegien, deren mangelnde Diversität ein umso größeres Problem darstellt, je heterogener die Schülerschaft
wird. 



 



Klingt gut. Aber will unser System diese Bereicherung auch? Konkret gefragt: Was machen die erfolgreichen "Lehrkräfte Plus"-Absolventen jetzt?



 



Müncher: 73 Prozent von ihnen sind direkt weiter ins Anschlussprogramm "Internationale Lehrkräfte fördern" (ILF) gegangen. Mit dem werden sie für zwei Jahre befristet an einer
Schule angestellt, qualifizieren sich allgemeinpädagogisch, methodisch und didaktisch weiter und werden schrittweise ans eigenverantwortliche Unterrichten herangeführt. 



 



Moment. "Lehrkräfte Plus" bringt allein also keinerlei Unterrichtsberechtigung?



 



Müncher: "Lehrkräfte Plus" ist ja ein universitäres Programm, das allein keine Unterrichtsberechtigung vergeben kann – es kann nur eine Brücke sein. Eine Anerkennung des
Lehramtsabschlusses bekommen sie dadurch nicht. Die dürfte die Universität auch gar nicht ausstellen.



 



"Schule und Unterricht in Deutschland kennenzulernen, ist ein Wert an sich. Aber noch wichtiger ist, dass das Geleistete etwas zählt für den weiteren
Werdegang."



 



So werden inklusive ILF aus einem Jahr Qualifizierung drei. Und ILF endet dann ebenfalls ohne klare Perspektive. Für Menschen, die in vielen Fällen in ihrer Heimat bereits voll
ausgebildete und respektierte Lehrkräfte waren. 



 



Müncher: Für viele bieten diese insgesamt drei Jahre die Chance, in einem geschützten Raum sich pädagogisch und sprachlich zu entwickeln und Erfahrungen im deutschen Schulsystem
zu sammeln. Andere "Lehrkräfte Plus"-Absolventen bewerben sich direkt als Seiteneinsteiger für den Schuldienst und durchlaufen beispielsweise die sogenannte "Pädagogische Einführung", die bei
Erfolg nach einem Jahr die Erteilung der Unterrichtserlaubnis für das studierte Fach bedeutet. Was in einigen Regionen und Fächern ganz gut klappt, weil es im Augenblick in vielen Fächern einen
so großen Mangel gibt. Die Absolventen können auch ein normales Lehramtsstudium aufnehmen, Lehrkraft für den herkunftssprachlichen Unterricht werden oder ein zweites Fach studieren.



 



Richter: Klar ist es gut, dass die Leute Zeit haben, sich im Rahmen der Programme auf die Arbeit im deutschen Schulsystem vorzubereiten. Man muss aber schon ehrlich sagen: Die
Übergangsquote von 73 Prozent ins ILF-Programm bedeutet, dass viele eben keinen Platz als Seiteneinsteiger bekommen. Insofern wäre eine stärkere Verbindlichkeit, dass das Zertifikat von
"Lehrkräfte Plus" den Einstieg ins Lehramt bedeutet, wünschenswert – und auch ILF sollte mehr zählen. Schule und Unterricht in Deutschland kennenzulernen, ist ein Wert an sich. Aber noch
wichtiger ist, dass das Geleistete etwas zählt für den weiteren Werdegang.



 



Der erste Jahrgang war inklusive ILF 2020 fertig. Wie viele haben jetzt eine unbefristete Stelle im Schuldienst?



 



Müncher: Uns liegen nur Informationen bis zum Juni 2021 vor. Bis dahin haben lediglich die neun Lehrkräfte, die an der Pilotierung teilgenommen hatten, das Programm auch
abgeschlossen. Sie haben anschließend auch eine Anstellung im Rahmen des Seiteneinstiegs erhalten. Für die Zeit danach habe ich keine Daten zu den Anschlüssen. Meine Vermutung wäre, dass der
Seiteneinstieg weiterhin die für die Lehrkräfte attraktivste Option ist. Allerdings sind gerade für den Einstieg mit einem Fach die Zugänge auf die Regionen und Fächer mit einem Lehrkräftemangel
begrenzt. Deshalb werden einige Absolvent:innen auch als Vertretungslehrkräfte arbeiten. Und wieder andere machen etwas ganz Anderes. 



 



So viel zum Thema politische Wertschätzung für geflüchtete Lehrkräfte. Und das trotz des dramatischen Lehrkräftemangels.  



 



Müncher: Ich glaube, dass es sich hier nicht speziell um die mangelnde Wertschätzung geflüchteter Lehrkräfte handelt, sondern um einen weiteren Beleg dafür, dass unser
Schulsystem auf Diversität kaum eingestellt ist. Mehrsprachigkeit wird nicht wirklich als Mehrwert begriffen, obwohl sie eine große Bereicherung für den Lernerfolg vieler Schülerinnen und Schüler
bedeuten würde. Genau an der Stelle könnten geflüchtete Lehrkräfte so viel erreichen. Und nicht nur in Sachen Mehrsprachigkeit. Der Mentor eines syrischen Mathelehrers aus unserem Programm
erzählte mir einmal, dass dieser seinen Kolleginnen und Kollegen am Gymnasium in seinem Fachwissen deutlich überlegen sei – und teilweise eine ganz andere Herangehensweise für die Lösung
mathematischer Aufgaben mitbringe. Wir sollten uns als Gesellschaft fragen, ob es nicht höchste Zeit ist, insgesamt an unserem Bild von Schule zu drehen.



 



Gelingt das jetzt vielleicht durch den neuen Zustrom von Geflüchteten aus der Ukraine? Immerhin brüsten sich Kultusminister damit, unbürokratisch jede Menge geflüchtete ukrainische
Lehrkräfte angestellt zu haben.



 



Müncher: Da würde ich dann gern wissen, wie viele von diesen Lehrkräften auf vollwertigen Stellen arbeiten oder doch nur als Unterrichtshelfer eingesetzt werden. Was es den aus
der Ukraine Geflüchteten leichter machen dürfte, sind die bei vielen bereits vorhandenen Deutschkenntnisse, dadurch wird der Vergleich mit den Absolventinnen und Absolventen von "Lehrkräfte Plus"
schwierig.



 



"Man kann Lehrkräfte durchaus für ein



einzelnes Unterrichtsfach sehr schnell



qualifizieren und in die Schulen bringen."



 



Und Sie glauben nicht, dass – Stichwort Ethnozentrismus – die Bildungspolitik mit zweierlei Maß misst und es den ukrainischen Lehrkräften leichter macht als denen aus Syrien, der Türkei
oder Afghanistan?



 



Müncher: Was das Beispiel Ukraine zumindest zeigt: Es ist möglich, sehr kurzfristig zugewanderte Lehrkräfte einzustellen.



 



Richter: Und was wir umgekehrt durch "Lehrkräfte Plus" und ähnliche Initiativen gelernt haben: Man kann Lehrkräfte durchaus für ein einzelnes Unterrichtsfach sehr schnell
qualifizieren und in die Schulen bringen. Genau darüber gibt es in der Lehrkräftebildung seit Jahren eine große Kontroverse, ob das geht. Mein Eindruck ist: Wir sollten angesichts des
Lehrkräftemangels diese Diskussionen endlich hinter uns lassen und die Ein-Fach-Lehramtsoption dauerhaft für alle installieren.



 



Was wird jetzt aus "Lehrkräfte Plus", Frau Müncher?



 



Müncher: Die Initiative geht weiter, das Land hat die Finanzierung übernommen. Allerdings läuft die immer befristet von Förderphase zu Förderphase – aktuell bis 2027. Wir haben
uns als Stiftung schon 2020 zurückgezogen und unterstützen nur noch die Evaluation und den Austausch über die Ergebnisse. 



 



Richter: NRW ist ja zum Glück nicht das einzige Land. Brandenburg kam zuerst, später unter anderem auch Schleswig-Holstein und Hamburg. Was ich mir wünschen würde: dass Programme
wie "Lehrkräfte Plus" in allen Bundesländern zugänglich wären – und es nicht vom Wohnort und dem Problembewusstsein des jeweiligen Bildungsministeriums abhängt, ob geflüchtete Pädagogen ihrer
Berufung folgen können oder nicht. 




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Welcome to the first issue of IASSIST Quarterly for the year 2023 - IQ vol. 47(1).
The last article in this issue has in the title the FAIR acronym that stands for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. These are the concepts most often focused on by our articles in the IQ and FAIR has an extra emphasis in this issue. The first article introduces and demonstrates a shared vocabulary for data points where the need arose after confusions about data and metadata. Basically, I find that the most valuable virtue of well-structured data – I deliberately use a fuzzy term to save you from long excursions here in the editor's notes – is that other well-structured data can benefit from use of the same software. Similarly, well-structured metadata can benefit from the same software. I also see this as the driver for the second article, on time series data and description. Sometimes, the software mentioned is the same software in both instances as metadata is treated as data or vice versa. This allows for new levels of data-driven machine actions. These days universities are busy investigating and discussing the latest chatbots. I find many of the approaches restrictive and prefer to support the inclusive ones. Likewise, I also expect and look forward to bots having great relevance for the future implementation of FAIR principles.
The first article is on data and metadata by George Alter, Flavio Rizzolo, and Kathi Schleidt and has the title 'View points on data points: A shared vocabulary for cross-domain conversations on data and metadata'. The authors have observed that sharing data across scientific domains is often impeded by differences in the language used to describe data and metadata. To avoid confusion, the authors develop a terminology. Part of the confusion concerns disagreement about the boundaries between data and metadata; and that what is metadata in one domain can be data in another. The shift between data and metadata is what they name as 'semantic transposition'. I find that such shifts are a virtue and a strength and as the authors say, there is no fixed boundary between data and metadata, and both can be acted upon by people and machines. The article draws on and refers to many other standards and developments, most cited are the data model of Observations and Measurements (ISO 19156) and tools of the Data Documentation Initiative's Cross Domain Integration (DDI-CDI). The article is thorough and explanatory with many examples and diagrams for learning, including examples of transformations between the formats: wide, long, and multidimensional. The long format of entity-attribute-value has the value domain restricted by the attribute, and in examples time and source are added, which demonstrates how further metadata enter the format. When transposing to the wide format, this is a more familiar data matrix where the same value domain applies to the complete column. The multidimensional format with facets is for most readers the familiar aggregations published by statistical agencies. The authors argue that their domain-independent vocabulary enables the cross-domain conversation. George Alter is Research Professor Emeritus in the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, Flavio Rizzolo is Senior Data Science Architect for Statistics Canada. Kathi Schleidt is a data scientist and the founder of DataCove.
The format discussion in the first article is also the point of the second paper on 'Modernizing data management at the US Bureau of Labor Statistics'. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has a focus on time series and Daniel W. Gillman and Clayton Waring (both from the BLS) view time series data as a combination of three components: A measure element; an element for person, places, and things (PPT); and a time element. In the paper Gillman and Waring also describe the conceptual model (UML) and the design and features of the system. First, they go back in history to the 1970s and the Codd relational model and to the standards developed and refined after 2000. You will not be surprised to find here among the references also the Data Documentation Initiative's Cross Domain Integration (DDI-CDI). The mission is: 'to find a simple and intuitive way to store and organize statistical data with the goal of making it easy to find and use the data'. A semantic approach is adopted, i.e. the focus is on the meaning of the data based upon the 'Measures / People-Places-Things / Time' model. Detailed examples show how PPT are categories of dimensions, for instance 'nurse' is in the Standard Occupational Classification and 'hospital' in the North American Industry Classification System. The paper – like the first paper – also refers to multidimensional structures. The modernization described at BLS is expected to be released in early 2023.
The third paper is by João Aguiar Castro, Joana Rodrigues, Paula Mena Matos, Célia Sales, and Cristina Ribeiro where all authors are affiliated with the University of Porto. Like the earlier articles this also references the Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) with a focus on the concepts behind the FAIR acronym: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. The title is: 'Getting in touch with metadata: a DDI subset for FAIR metadata production in clinical psychology'. Clinical psychology is not an area frequently occurring in IASSIST Quarterly, but it turns out that the project described started with interviews and data description sessions with research groups in the Social Sciences for identifying a manageable DDI subset. The project also draws on other projects such as TAIL, TOGETHER, and Dendro. The TAIL project concerned the integration metadata tools in the research workflow and assessed the requirements of researchers from different domains. TOGETHER was a project in the psycho-oncology domain and family-centered care for hereditary cancer. As most researchers showed to be inexperienced with metadata, they concentrated on a DDI subset that meant that FAIR metadata would be available for deposit. Support for researchers is essential as the they have the domain expertise and can create highly detailed descriptions. On the other hand, data curators can ensure that the metadata follow the rules of FAIR. This was achieved by embedding the Dendro platform in the research workflow, where creation of metadata is performed in an incremental description of the data. The article includes screenshots of the user interface showing the choice of vocabularies. The approach and the adoption of a DDI subset produced more comprehensive metadata than is usually available.
Submissions of papers for the IASSIST Quarterly are always very welcome. We welcome input from IASSIST conferences or other conferences and workshops, from local presentations or papers especially written for the IQ. When you are preparing such a presentation, give a thought to turning your one-time presentation into a lasting contribution. Doing that after the event also gives you the opportunity of improving your work after feedback. We encourage you to login or create an author profile at https://www.iassistquarterly.com (our Open Journal System application). We permit authors to have 'deep links' into the IQ as well as deposition of the paper in your local repository. Chairing a conference session or workshop with the purpose of aggregating and integrating papers for a special issue IQ is also much appreciated as the information reaches many more people than the limited number of session participants and will be readily available on the IASSIST Quarterly website at https://www.iassistquarterly.com. Authors are very welcome to take a look at the instructions and layout:
https://www.iassistquarterly.com/index.php/iassist/about/submissions
Authors can also contact me directly via e-mail: kbr@sam.sdu.dk. Should you be interested in compiling a special issue for the IQ as guest editor(s) I will also be delighted to hear from you.
Karsten Boye Rasmussen - March 2023

Contemporary challenges to defence and security are increasingly originating from a combination of non-military and military threats, intentionally operating in the grey zone below the threshold of an armed conflict. These threats are commonly referred to as hybrid, and include amongst others cyberattacks, foreign interference with national elections, sabotage and lawfare. This article seeks to set out some of the main legal challenges hybrid threats pose to NATO as an effective defence and security alliance and how both NATO and its Member States need to adapt to deal with such threats. After outlining what is meant by hybrid threats and the approach NATO has taken to these, the article discusses legal challenges related to information gathering and intelligence sharing, the need for vulnerabilities analysis in order to enhance resilience, and the importance of providing a clear framework for military forces deployed to deter both hybrid and conventional threats. The article concludes that in order to effectively protect a State from hybrid threats, States must build resilience in the society in general, reviewing and revising national legislation and making its citizens and officials more aware of their role in protecting their State and society. The role of NATO is therefore expanding, from preparing for war to supporting States in defending their peace.

Les défis de notre époque en matière de défense et de sécurité sont, dans une mesure croissante, dus à une combinaison de menaces militaires et non militaires, se situant intentionnellement à la limite du conflit armé. Ces menaces sont communément qualifiées d'hybrides, et incluent entre autres les cyber-attaques, les ingérences étrangères avec les élections nationales, le sabotage et la guerre juridique. Cet article cherche à mettre en lumière les principaux défis juridiques que les menaces hybrides posent à l'OTAN, en sa qualité d'alliance efficace dans les domaines de la défense et de la sécurité, et à expliquer comment l'OTAN et ses États membres doivent s'adapter pour faire face à ces menaces. Après avoir défini les menaces hybrides et l'approche adoptée par l'OTAN pour y répondre, l'article aborde les défis juridiques liés à la collecte d'informations et au partage de renseignements, le besoin d'analyser les vulnérabilités afin d'augmenter la résilience, et l'importance de fournir un cadre clair aux forces armées déployées afin de prévenir les menaces, tant hybrides que conventionnelles. L'article conclut que pour protéger efficacement un État contre les menaces hybrides, les États doivent augmenter la résilience dans la société en général, en révisant la législation nationale et en sensibilisant les citoyens et les responsables au rôle qu'ils jouent dans la protection de leur État et de la société. L'OTAN joue dès lors un rôle de plus en plus important, qui consiste non seulement à préparer à la guerre mais aussi à aider les États à maintenir la paix.

Hedendaagse uitdagingen voor defensie en veiligheid vloeien in toenemende mate voort uit een combinatie van niet-militaire en militaire dreigingen, die met opzet opereren in de grijze zone onder de drempel van een gewapend conflict. Deze dreigingen worden gewoonlijk hybride genoemd en omvatten onder meer cyberaanvallen, buitenlandse inmenging in nationale verkiezingen, sabotage en lawfare. Dit artikel wil enkele van de belangrijkste juridische uitdagingen uiteenzetten die hybride dreigingen vormen voor de NAVO als een doeltreffende defensie- en veiligheidsalliantie en hoe zowel de NAVO als haar lidstaten zich moeten aanpassen om dergelijke dreigingen aan te pakken. Na kort te schetsen wat wordt verstaan onder hybride dreigingen en de aanpak die de NAVO daarbij heeft gevolgd, bespreekt het artikel de juridische uitdagingen met betrekking tot het verzamelen van informatie en het delen van inlichtingen, de noodzaak van kwetsbaarheidsanalyse om de veerkracht te vergroten en het belang van een duidelijk kader voor strijdkrachten die worden ingezet tegen zowel hybride als conventionele dreigingen. Het artikel besluit dat om een staat doeltreffend te beschermen tegen hybride dreigingen, staten veerkracht moeten opbouwen in de samenleving in het algemeen, door de nationale wetgeving te herzien en hun burgers en functionarissen bewuster te maken van hun rol in het beschermen van hun staat en samenleving. De rol van de NAVO breidt zich dan ook uit, van het voorbereiden op oorlog tot het ondersteunen van staten bij het verdedigen van hun vrede.

Le attuali sfide alla difesa e alla sicurezza sono sempre più originate da una combinazione di minacce militari e non, che operano intenzionalmente nella zona grigia sotto la soglia di un conflitto armato. Queste minacce sono comunemente definite ibride e includono attacchi informatici, interferenze straniere con le elezioni nazionali, sabotaggio e lawfare. Questo articolo mira a far chiarezza su alcune delle principali sfide legali che le minacce ibride pongono alla NATO in quanto efficace alleanza di difesa e sicurezza e come sia la NATO che i suoi Stati membri debbano adattarsi per affrontare tali minacce. Dopo aver delineato il concetto di minacce ibride e l'approccio scelto della NATO per affrontarle, l'articolo discute le sfide legali legate alla raccolta di informazioni e alla condivisione dell'intelligence, la necessità di un'analisi delle vulnerabilità per migliorare la resilienza e l'importanza di fornire un framework chiaro per le forze militari schierate per scoraggiare le minacce sia ibride che convenzionali. L'articolo conclude che per proteggere efficacemente uno Stato dalle minacce ibride, gli Stati devono costruire la resilienza della società in generale, facendo il punto e rivedendo la legislazione nazionale e rendendo i suoi cittadini e funzionari più consapevoli del loro ruolo nella protezione del loro Stato e della società. Il ruolo della NATO si sta quindi espandendo, dalla preparazione alla guerra al sostegno degli Stati nella difesa della pace.

Los desafíos contemporáneos a la defensa y la seguridad se originan cada vez más a partir de una combinación de amenazas militares y no militares, que operan intencionalmente en la zona gris por debajo del umbral de un conflicto armado. Estas amenazas se conocen comúnmente como híbridas e incluyen, entre otros, ciberataques, interferencia extranjera en las elecciones nacionales, sabotaje y guerra jurídica. Este artículo busca establecer algunos de los principales desafíos legales que las amenazas híbridas plantean a la OTAN como una alianza de defensa y seguridad eficaz y cómo tanto la OTAN como sus Estados miembros deben adaptarse para hacer frente a tales amenazas. Después de esbozar lo que se entiende por amenazas híbridas y el enfoque que la OTAN ha adoptado ante estas estas, el artículo analiza los desafíos legales relacionados con la recopilación de información y el intercambio de inteligencia, la necesidad de análisis de vulnerabilidades para mejorar la resiliencia y la importancia de proporcionar un marco claro para Fuerzas militares desplegadas a fin de disuadir tanto las amenazas híbridas como las convencionales. El artículo concluye argumentando que para proteger eficazmente a los Estados de las amenazas híbridas, estos deben fortalecer la resiliencia de la sociedad en general, revisando y actualizando la legislación nacional y haciendo que sus ciudadanos y los servidores públicos sean más conscientes de su papel en la protección del Estado y la sociedad. Por esta razón, el papel de la OTAN se está expandiendo desde la preparación para la guerra hasta el apoyo a los Estados en la defensa de su paz.

Gegenwärtige Herausforderungen für die Verteidigung und Sicherheit gehen immer mehr von einer Kombination nichtmilitärischer und militärischer Drohungen aus, die absichtlich in der Grauzone unter der Schwelle eines bewaffneten Konfliktes auftreten. Diese Drohungen werden meistens als hybride Drohungen bezeichnet und umfassen unter anderem Cyberangriffe, ausländische Einmischung in nationale Wahlen, Sabotage und "Lawfare". Ziel dieses Artikels ist es, einige der wichtigsten juristischen Herausforderungen der hybriden Drohungen für die NATO als zweckmäßiges Verteidigungs- und Sicherheitsbündnis darzustellen, und zu erklären wie sich sowohl die NATO als ihre Mitgliedstaaten anpassen sollen, um solchen Drohungen zu begegnen. Zuerst wird beschrieben, was mit hybriden Drohungen gemeint ist und wird das Vorgehen der NATO dagegen knapp dargestellt. Danach erörtert der Artikel juristische Herausforderungen in Bezug auf die Informationsgewinnung und den Informationsaustausch, die Notwendigkeit einer Verletzlichkeitsanalyse zur Verbesserung der Resilienz sowie die wichtige Maßnahme, die darin besteht, den für die Abwehr sowohl hybrider als konventioneller Drohungen eingesetzten Streitkräften einen klaren Rahmen zu bieten. Der Artikel zieht den Schluss, dass Staaten im Hinblick auf den zweckmäßigen Schutz eines Staates gegen hybride Drohungen Resilienz in der Gesellschaft im Allgemeinen entwickeln müssen, indem die nationale Gesetzgebung überarbeitet wird und die Staatsbürger und Amtsinhaber für ihre Rolle beim Schutz ihres Staates und ihrer Gesellschaft sensibilisiert werden. Deswegen erweitert sich die Rolle der NATO, von der Vorbereitung für den Krieg zur Unterstützung von Staaten bei der Friedenssicherung.

Farmers' and breeders' access to diverse cultivated and wild plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) is crucial for adapting crop production to climate, environmental, and socioeconomic changes and increasing food and nutrition security. This thesis comprises three separate but interrelated articles that contribute to the literature on PGRFA governance, seed security and seed systems, and seed politics and development. At the intersection of the national and international levels, the thesis aims to understand Ethiopia's PGRFA access governance and its implications for different users within and outside the country. At the intersection of the local and the national levels, it investigates farmers' seed preferences and uses and how different seed system actors, institutions, and policies affect farmers' seed security. Finally, crosscutting all levels, the thesis sheds light on the current Ethiopian seed system development politics by exploring how and why the Ethiopian government prioritized some seed system policies and excluded other policies under different political regimes since the 1950s. In the first article, focusing on genetic resource governance, we show that Ethiopia's PGRFA access governance since the early 1990s has shifted from a commons and free access regime to a sovereign ownership and control regime restricting access for international users. Drawing on commons theory, we identify three interlinked historical, political, and economic factors that can explain this development: the economic importance of agriculture, the national narratives about the value of PGRFA, and Ethiopian policy makers' participation in the heated 'seed wars' on the international scene. The second article focuses on farmers' seed preferences and uses at the farm level and relates this to local and national seed system governance. The farm-level research reports evidence of widespread seed insecurity in the study sites, apparent in discrepancies between the plant varieties and types of seeds farmers prefer and those they actually use. Other evidence includes limited availability of improved varieties and specially certified seeds, challenges with seed quality from some sources, and differentiated access to preferred seed and information according to sex, age, and wealth. Analysis of seed system governance shows that the interventions prioritized in Ethiopia's current pluralistic seed system development strategy (PSSDS) on paper address most of these identified seed insecurity issues and seed system dysfunctions, but implementation lags. The third and final article in the thesis provides a historical analysis of Ethiopia's seed policy over the last 70 years. Focusing on power and employing the lens of 'international seed regimes,' the article shows that Ethiopia has gone from almost non-participation in the first colonial seed regime to becoming the "pioneer" of the post-WWII second public seed regime in the horn of Africa and finally to resistance to the third corporate-based neoliberal seed regime. In the current conjuncture in the contemporary Ethiopian seed regime, four different approaches to PSSDS are competing: 1) government-led formalization, 2) private-led formalization, 3) farmer-based localization, and 4) community-based integrative seed system developments. Despite the overarching policies recognizing the need for a pluralistic approach to seed system development to respond to farmers' seed security challenges, government programs and practices continue to emphasize state-led seed system formalization rooted in the earlier second seed regime. The government's vision to modernize smallholder farmers and increase crop production and productivity and the focus on formal seed systems development as the primary pathway to achieve these have ignored opportunities to tap into the strength of other alternatives identified in Ethiopia's PSSDS. In conclusion, the research presented in this thesis shows that PSSDS is a comprehensive policy framework with the potential to deliver seed security for all farmers. However, this will require the government to take leadership and remove existing political, organizational, and economic barriers in order to implement a genuinely inclusive and equitable pluralistic seed system. ; Bønders og planteforedleres tilgang til mangfold av plantegenetiske ressurser for mat og landbruk (PGRFA) — både kulturplanter og deres ville slektninger — er avgjørende for å tilpasse planteproduksjon til miljømessige og sosioøkonomiske endringer, samt for mat- og ernæringssikkerhet. Denne avhandlingen består av tre uavhengig, men sammenkoblete artikler som bidrar til forskningslitteraturen innen PGRFA forvaltning, såfrøsikkerhet og såfrøpolitikk. I skjæringspunktet mellom det nasjonale og det internasjonale nivået, har avhandlingen som mål å forstå Etiopias politikk for tilgang til PGRFA og implikasjoner for ulike brukere i og utenfor landet. I skjæringspunktet mellom lokalt og nasjonalt nivå undersøkes bønders preferanser og bruk (behov) for såfrø og hvordan forskjellige såfrøsystemaktører, institusjoner og politikk påvirker såfrøsikkerhet. Til slutt, på tvers av nivåene, belyser avhandlingen den nåværende etiopiske såfrøsystemutviklingspolitikken ved å undersøke hvordan og hvorfor den etiopiske regjeringen har prioritert noen såfrøsystempolitikker og ekskluderte andre alternativer under forskjellige politiske regimer siden 1950-tallet. I den første artikkelen, med fokus på forvalting av genetiske ressurser, viser avhandlingen at Etiopia siden begynnelsen av 1990-tallet har skiftet sin politikk om tilgang til PGRFA fra et fellesgode- og fri-tilgangsregime til et suverent eierskap og kontrollregime som begrenser tilgang for internasjonale brukere. Basert på «commons» teori identifiserer vi tre historiske, politiske og økonomiske faktorer som kan forklare denne utviklingen. Disse inkluderer landbrukets økonomiske betydning for Etiopia, de nasjonale fortellingene om verdien av PGRFA og etiopiske beslutningstakeres deltakelse i de opphetede «såfrøkrigene» på den internasjonale scenen. Den andre artikkelen setter søkelys på bøndenes såfrøpreferanser og bruk på gårdsnivå og relaterer dette til lokal og nasjonal forvaltning av såfrøsystemer. Forskningen på gårdsnivå viser en utbredt såfrøusikkerhet i to studiedistrikter. Den viser tydelig avvik mellom hvilke plantesorter og såfrøtyper bønder foretrekker og de de faktisk bruker. Andre indikatorer på såfrøusikkerhet inkluderer begrenset tilgang på nye plantesorter, spesielt sertifiserte såfrø av disse, utfordringer knyttet til såfrøkvalitet fra noen kilder og differensiert tilgang til foretrukne plantesorter og såfrøtyper, samt informasjon etter kjønn, alder og rikdom. Analyse av såfrøsystemforvaltningen viser at tiltakene som er prioritert i Etiopias nåværende pluralistiske såfrøsystemutviklingsstrategi (på papir) tar for seg de fleste av disse identifiserte problemene med såfrøusikkerhet og dysfunksjonene i såfrøsystemet, men implementeringen mangler. Den tredje og siste artikkelen i avhandlingen gir en historisk analyse av Etiopias såfrøpolitikk over de siste 70 årene. Basert på maktanalyse og ved bruk av et historisk såfrøregime rammeverk, viser artikkelen at Etiopia har gått fra nesten ingen deltakelse i det første koloniale såfrøregimet til å bli en "pioner" for det offentlige såfrøregimet etter andre verdenskrig på Afrikas horn og avvisning av et tredje nyliberale såfrøregime. I det nåværende økonomiske klimaet i det moderne etiopiske såfrøregimet konkurrerer fire forskjellige tilnærminger til landets pluralistiske såfrøsystemutviklingsstrategi:1) Statsledet formalisering, 2) Privatledet formalisering, 3) Bondebasert lokalisering og 4) Lokalsamfunnsbaserte integrert såfrøsystemutvikling. Til tross for at den overordnede politikken anerkjenner behovet for en pluralistisk tilnærming til såfrøsystemutviklingen for å svare på bøndenes utfordringer med såfrøsikkerhet, dominerer den statsledet formaliseringen. Det legges vekt på offentlige programmer for nye plantesortsutvikling, såfrøproduksjon og distribusjon. Regjeringens visjon om å modernisere småbrukere og øke planteproduksjon og produktivitet prioriterer utvikling av formelle såfrøsystemer som den viktigste måten å oppnå disse og har ignorert muligheter for å utnytte styrken til de andre alternativer identifisert i landets pluralistiske såfrøsystemutviklingsstrategi. Avslutningsvis viser forskningen som presenteres i denne avhandlingen at strategien er et omfattende politisk rammeverk med potensial til å oppnå såfrøsikkerhet for alle bønder. Dette vil imidlertid kreve at regjeringen tar ledelsen og fjerner eksisterende politiske, organisatoriske og økonomiske barrierer for å iverksette et virkelig inkluderende og rettferdig pluralistisk såfrøsystem. ; publishedVersion