Letter from the Director of the Military Academy

Eduardo Enrique Zapateiro-Altamiranda¹

¹ Brigadier General in the National Army of Colombia; Master in National Security and Defense, Escuela Superior de Guerra. <director@esmic.edu.co>.

It is my pleasure to present the January-June edition 2016 of our Revista Científica General José María Córdova, the Colombian journal for military studies. We are then going to present a summary of its contents.

The MILITARY STUDIES section has the following two articles in English: "China and the U.S. in Latin America", by professor Benjamín Creutzfeld, PhD, based on his doctoral dissertation underpinned at the Universidad Externado de Colombia; and "2008 Russian military reform: An adequate response to global threats and challenges of the twenty-first century?" by Andrés Eduardo Fernández-Osorio, Major in the National Army of Colombia, and PhD candidate, who submitted an article based on his master's thesis, completed both at University College London, United Kingdom, and National Research University —Higher School of Economics, Russian Federation.

The HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW section contains three articles: "Social Function of Art. Doris Salcedo´s Work Art Contribution for the Colombia´s Transitional Justice process", by the Colombian young artist María Cecilia Aponte-Isaza, who bases her paper in the first of her master's thesis supported at the Open University of Catalonia in Spain, enriching it with her own contributions as an artist: "Talking to God, a gift to Bojaya", an educational animation about historical memory and moral reparation of victims dedicated to the ‘Bojayá massacre', which occurred on 2 May, 2002, when the FARC group attacked the small town of Bojaya, in the department of Chocó, Colombia, to take possession of the place ( the theoretical discussion of her artistic project was published in a bilingual versión, Chinese and English, associated to her second master's thesis that took place in China, where she is living now. Of particular interest and relevance to the the military institution are the articles: "Confrontation strategies against divorce in people of the Military Forces of Colombia", by Victoria Eugenia Cabrera García, Juan Carlos Cuervo-Ríos, Zoraida Martínez-Castro, and Miguel Ángel Cabrera-Campos, from the Universidad de La Sabana, Bogotá, Colombia; and "Theoretical review from the psychology of Social Representations of Aging and Old Age in Latin America and Spain (20092013)", written by the psychologist María del Pilar López-Gómez, on behalf of the Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia (Open University), in Bogotá, Colombia.

The EDUCATION section consists the article: "An Education from Otherness" by José Vargas Manrique, PhD, based on his doctoral thesis completed at Universidad Distrital, Bogotá, Colombia.

The SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY section contains four articles: "Update on medial tibial stress syndrome" by the proffesor Santiago Gómez-García, MD, PhD, also based on his doctoral dissertation, just advocated at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in Spain, graduated sobresaliente cum laude honours; and three articles on social sciences: one of which, the first one, is written in Portuguese: "Diplomacia energética: o papel do petróleo na política externa dos Estados Unidos" (Energy Diplomacy: The Role of Oil to U.S Foreign Policy), by Camilo Andrés Rodríguez-Borda, MSc, y Nurth Inés Palomo Suárez –who is currently studying her Master's Degree in Brazil–whose paper was written on behalf of the Universidad Militar Nueva Granada, Bogotá, Colombia; and the third one, written in Spanish, is entitled: "An Attempt to Rebuild the Shaman's Accounting among the Makuna that inhabits the Rain Forest from Vaupés Region in the Colombian Amazon", by professors Jenny Alexandra Fuentes-Quintero and Flor Ángela Peña-Arenas, an excellent work, in the context of a research project of the Master's degree in Accounting from Universidad Libre, Bogotá, Colombia. The forth one, finally, is entitled: "The Role of the Private Property Rights in Space Activities. Three Study Cases" by professors Jairo Becerra, from Universidad Católica de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia, and Julián Rodríguez, from University of Texas, Arlington, TX, United States.

The HISTORY section has two articles: "Resistance and the survival of the indigenous justice in Colombia" by the professor Natalia Ruiz-Morato, PhD, written on behalf of the Universidad Militar Nueva Granada, Bogotá, Colombia; and the article: "The Colombian Air Force and the Cessation of the Internal Conflict" by professor Ricardo Esquivel-Triana, PhD, presented on behalf of the Colombian Air Force, Bogotá, Colombia.

Lastly, the section RECENSIONS AND REVIEWS contain five discussion papers: the first one, in English, deals with mathematics: "Solution for Fermat's Last Theorem", by Mr. Vice Almirant José William Porras-Ferreira, from the National Colombian Navy; the following two recensions include topics related with disciplines of health sciences: one in Spanish, "The Research Centre of Physical Culture from Military Academy of Cadets. Redisign the Future", by the lieutenant colonel and physiotherapist Sara Constanza López-Moreno, from the Military Academy of Cadets, Bogotá, Colombia; and two in English: "A comparison of autonomic responses in hypertensive and non-hypertensive individuals to an orthostatic maneuver", by Daniel Alfonso Botero-Rosas, PhD, M. Izquierdo-Redín, PhD, Jesús María Varela-Millan, MSc, Gilmar W. Senna, MSc, Carlos Soares- Pernambuco, PhD, Claudio Joaquim Borba-Pinheiro, PhD, Estélio Henrique M. Dantas, Laura Patricia Luque, MD, Daniel Mauricio Cuestas Rodriguez, MD, Henry Humberto León-Ariza, MD, and Luz Marina Umbarila-Espinosa, MsC, from differents institutional filiations, but presented on behalf of the Universidad La Sabana; and the other recension, in Spanish, is about nutrition and dietetics: Finally, two recensions on social and human sciences: "A Political and Ecological Community on the Latin American and Caribbean region: an identity project in the global scale", by professors Efrén Danilo Ariza-Ruiz, from Fundación Universitaria del Área Andina, Bogotá, Colombia and Mario Humberto Ruiz- Sarmiento, from Universidad Santo Tomás, Bogotá, Colombia; and the last one: "Enkindling fire in the Embrace of the Serpent. A preliminary outline on the film Embrace of the Serpent, directed by Ciro Guerra", by Ricardo Antonio Marín-Baena, Hellenist and Latinist, graduated from Instituto Caro y Cuervo, Bogotá, Colombia.

The Journal ends with a review of science-fiction "The War of the Worlds", in by H. G. Wells (2005), translated into Spanish, and surprisingly relevant today, written by Víctor Hugo Bernal, presented on behalf of the Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia.

We kindly encourage all members of the academic community to publish their papers on military studies in Spanish, English, French or Portuguese, for the next issues of the General José María Córdova Military Journal (Rev. Cient. Gen. José María Córdova, ISSN 1900-6586).

Further information about this Journal is available here:

Email: revistacientifica@esmic.edu.co.
Home page: http://www.esmic.edu.co/esmic/index.php/revista-cientifica1.html
Escuela Militar de Cadetes "General José María Córdova"
Editor-in-chief: Jesús Alberto Suárez Pineda, PhD (c), jesusasp@gmail.com.
Directorate of Investigations
Calle 80 No. 38-00, Bogotá, D.C., Colombia
Teléfono: (+57 1) 3770850 ext. 1115
Revista Científica General José María Córdova, Bogotá, Colombie.
Vol. 14, n.° 17, janvier-juin, 2016