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The armed forces of a country face numerous challenges in their professional lives which affect both their physical and mental health. Literature provides evidence that exposure to war like situations and conflicts exert stress amongst the military personnel. Despite such high intensity conflict situations cases of impaired mental health are low among the armed forces personnel which can be explained as resilient behaviour. Therefore the objective of the present study was to study the effect of time of exposure to prolonged war on the resilience levels of military personnel, specifically the Indian army personnel. The sample of the study included N=106 Indian army personnel serving in the high intensity conflict regions of Jammu and Kashmir, India. The sample was assessed quantitatively using the resilience questionnaire by Lakshmi and Narain and results were calculated. The results were quantitatively analysed using one-way ANOVA statistical method and it was found that soldiers with 3 to 10 months of exposure to high intensity conflict region had low to average levels of resilience whereas soldiers with 10 to 24months of exposure had resilience levels ranging from average to high. Hence it was revealed that resilience of soldiers with more exposure to prolonged war was higher than those who had less duration of prolonged war. Furthermore, the need for more research in importance of resilience building as part of combat training is discussed in the research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why is armed civil conflict more common in resource-dependent countries than in others? Several studies have attempted to unravel mechanisms on why natural resources are linked to armed conflict, but no coherent picture has yet emerged. This article seeks to address this puzzle by concentrating on the issue of how rebel access to natural resources affects conflict. It uses data on gemstone and hydrocarbon localities throughout the world and controls for the spatial and temporal overlap of resources and conflict. The results show that the location of resources is crucial to their impact on conflict duration. If resources are located inside the actual conflict zone, the duration of conflict is doubled. Interestingly, oil and gas reserves have this effect on duration regardless of whether there has been production or not. In addition, a country-level analysis suggests that oil production increases the risk of conflict onset when located onshore; offshore production has no effect on onset. These results support the assertion that natural resources play a central role in armed civil conflicts because of the incentives and opportunities they present for rebel groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]