Diplomatic Security as Counterterrorism

Israeli diplomatic delegations have frequently been targeted by terrorist attacks. The Israeli state has established a single overarching approach against this violent campaign, choosing the Israeli Security Agency (ISA) as the leading organization tasked with countering attacks against both diplomatic missions and other civilian objectives abroad. The ISA has been crucial in enhancing Israel’s diplomatic security by providing intelligence and armed personnel to protect missions abroad.

Personnel Management System in Armed Police Force, Nepal

This paper analyze the Armed personnel management system in Armed Police Force (APF), Nepal drawing information from secondary sources especially from APF headquarter including interview with key persons retired from APF. The study reveals that APF has moderately success to manage APF personnel to achieve its goal to maintain peace and security and safeguard national sovereignty. Because of its professional manpower produced by APF, almost all people appreciate its role played during natural disaster in the country. Despite of these activities performed by APF, there are vital issues revealed from the study that there needs proper human resource planning to promote effectiveness and efficiency in APF, Nepal. Recruitment of Armed personnel through open competition is delayed because of government’s delayed decisions. Likewise, promotion process especially in higher position is more often impacted due to government delayed decisions. Trainings in APF have been conducting for promotion purpose without assessing training need. The trainings are also constrained due to inadequate resource allocation. APF personnel are also not satisfied with the existing salary system of the country. The study concludes that there are a lot of rooms to improve personnel management system in APF, Nepal for its betterment.

Hysteresis of targeting civilians in armed conflicts

This article explores warring groups’ intentional targeting behavior against civilians, a strictly prohibited war strategy by international norms. Using dynamic panel regressions run on a comprehensive dataset of contemporary warfare, which covers 22 years (1989-2010), I find that warring actors involved in prolonged armed (15-22 years) conflict target civilians more often than those involved in shorter-duration warfare. Also, for warring groups engaged in prolonged armed conflict, lethal behavior against civilians tends to be intensified if targeting is repeated over time, although this hysteresis effect appears to persist only for one year. It is hypothesized that the mounting war cost of prolonged conflict inclines warring groups toward the presumably cheaper targeting of noncombatant civilians rather than battling combatant military or other armed personnel. [JEL code: F51]