United States defence contractors and the future of military operations

ABSTRACT

The United States’ global strategic outlook has shifted markedly since the end of major combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the United States’ strategic posture shifts, the nature of military operations is simultaneously changing rapidly. Many analysts predict that cyber-operations, autonomous weapons systems, artificial intelligence, and clandestine special forces operations will be central features in future conflicts. Although often overlooked by scholars and policy analysts, defence contractors are integral to the development and implementation of these emerging categories of warfare. This inquiry examines the evolving nature of the American defence industry and the roles corporations play in current theatres of conflict. Surprisingly, rather than becoming less reliant on defence contractors after their much-maligned performance in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, American military and intelligence agencies have become more dependent on the private sector as technology becomes increasingly central to warfare.     

General Dostum and the Mazar i Sharif Campaign: new light on the role of Northern Alliance warlords in Operation Enduring Freedom

This report sheds new light on the CIA and US Special Forces' covert campaign alongside Afghan Northern Alliance leader General Dostum's horse-mounted Uzbeks during 2001's Operation Enduring Freedom. In 2003 and 2005 the author traveled over the Hindu Kush Mountains to the plains of Northern Afghanistan and lived with the legendary Northern Alliance opposition leader General Dostum. His aim was to recreate Dostum's campaign alongside the CIA and Special Forces to seize the holy city of Mazar i Sharif from the Taliban in November 2001. Based on interviews with Dostum and his Uzbek commanders, this article recreates this proxy offensive that saw the Northern Alliance opposition break out of the mountains, seize this shrine town and bring the Taliban house of cards falling down in a matter of weeks. Up until now the indigenous Afghan Uzbeks, who played a crucial role as a ‘boots on the ground’ fighting force for Centcom, have been cast as a mere backdrop for American heroics. Now their side of the story and their links to the mysterious shrine of Mazar i Sharif are for the first time revealed.     

陆军信息对抗行动效果评估研究

信息对抗行动是陆军作战的重要行动之一,对陆军作战进程和结局影响重大。通过对信息进攻、信息防御和信息保障等主要内容的定性与定量分析,建立评估指标体系、评估数学模型,得出综合评估结果,为指挥员和指挥机关筹划后续行动提供可靠依据,使效果评估工作更加合理准确。     

The prospects of combined action: Lessons from Vietnam

Military commanders, policymakers, and analysts have recently embraced the concept of combined action as a powerful tool to improve the effectiveness of Afghan security forces in the fight against the Taliban. In doing so, they explicitly draw inspiration from the Combined Action Program employed by US Marines during the Vietnam War. This program is widely considered to have greatly improved the effectiveness of South Vietnamese government forces and contributed to increased population security in its area of operations and is considered a model worthy of emulation. This study finds that the success of the Vietnam-era Combined Action Program was more qualified than contemporary proponents argue. It argues that successes were tempered, and conditioned, by the choice of junior commanders, the level of operational control enjoyed by the US Marines, and the way the local forces were recruited and deployed. These conditions offer valuable lessons for those seeking to employ combined action not only in present-day Afghanistan, but also in future counterinsurgency campaigns.     

军用决策支持系统中评估主攻方向符合上级意图的建模研究

依据相应的军事原则,对如何评估主攻方向符合上级意图进行了定量化分析研究,构建了多个评估模型,为辅助指挥员更加迅速、准确地判定主攻方向提供了一种有效的解决途径。     

‘Blackmailing the army’ – ‘Strategic Military Refusal’ as policy and doctrine enforcement: the formation of a new security agent

The study shows how ‘strategic military refusal’ in Israel developed as a rational and institutional means to influence security policies. As opposed to the perspective that sees military refusal as a spontaneous individual act, the study illustrates how organizations operate to distribute military refusal in order to pressure decision-makers to change their military policies. This strategy has proven to be effective when the military is involved with groups that threaten it with refusal – which threatens the military's operational ability and its official and apolitical image. These include soldiers whose civilian authorities, rather than their military commanders, are perceived as an epistemic authority regarding security issues. The case study refers to the impact of strategic military refusal in Israel on security policies and the military doctrine. This was influenced by leftist groups, which, although they belonged to the parliamentary opposition, had dominant presence in the military ranks. Furthermore, the study examines the effect of the use of strategic military refusal on the model of military recruitment.     

An Imperfect Jewel: Military Theory and the Military Profession

This article explores a perennial theme in the literature of strategic studies: the relationship between military theory and the military profession. It begins with a conceptual analysis of this relationship. It then investigates what military theorists themselves have had to say about the utility of their craft. It concludes by assessing the actual influence of military theory on selected individuals and institutions. The individuals are George S. Patton, Jr., and Ulysses S. Grant. The institutions are the United States Army and the United States Air Force in the late twentieth century. The fundamental finding is suggested in the title: military theory can indeed be quite useful in the maturation of military commanders and in the development of martial institutions, but it is not always necessary and by no means perfect. It should thus be studied assiduously but used with caution.     

Allies at War: British and US Army Command Culture in the Italian Campaign, 1943–1944

This article compares the philosophy and practice of command in the British and US Armies during the Italian Campaign of 1943–44. It assesses pre-war influences on the command approach adopted by each army, and shows how refinements derived from wartime experience enabled British and American commanders to successfully utilise mission command principles to outfight the German Army in the latter years of World War II. This examination directly challenges the historical consensus that Allied commanders were disadvantaged by an inability to exploit the advantages of mission command, and that the German Army retained superior command practices, despite its other failings, throughout the fighting between 1939 and 1945. These conclusions hold additional relevance to modern military organisations which have emphasised mission command as the optimal solution to effective command in battle since the 1980s, but from an inaccurate understanding of German, British and American command traditions and experience that persists to this day.     

Capturing Contemporary Innovation: Studying IDF Innovation against Hamas and Hizballah

The question of what enables some militaries to innovate effectively is of great interest to both scholars and commanders. However, the traditional models of military innovation fail to capture the complex innovation process. This study develops a new analytical framework that examines the pressures on and incentives for military innovation in the international, civil/military, organizational, and cultural planes and uses it to evaluate Israel Defense Forces (IDF) innovation between 2000 and 2009. Based on interviews with Israeli commanders and extensive research in Israel, this work finds that the IDF struggled to innovate before the 2006 war against Hizballah, but innovated effectively after the conflict once military and civilian leaders understood threats similarly. New models are needed to analyze the contemporary multi-dimensional innovative process.     

也谈GPS的相对论效应

对于高精密度的军用GPS定位系统,必须考虑它的相对论效应。文章从广义相对论的角度讨论GPS的基本测量方程,并指出有关文献中关于卫星与接收机钟差的相对论效应的计算错误。     

Stalking the Secure Second Strike: Intelligence,Counterforce, and Nuclear Strategy

Secure second strike nuclear forces are frequently held to be easy to procure. Analysts have long argued that targeting intelligence against relocatable targets like submarine launched and land mobile ballistic missiles is difficult to obtain. However, the scholarly consensus on intelligence for counterforce operations is seriously overdrawn. Both during and after the Cold War, the United States developed substantial intelligence capabilities to track and target submarines and mobile missiles. These efforts achieved important and under-appreciated success. Second strike forces have been far more vulnerable than most analysts are willing to credit.     

Leadership at NATO: Secretary General Manfred Woerner and the Crisis in Bosnia

NATO's post-Cold War transformation, as well as the military alliance's decision to use force in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995, has been examined from multiple perspectives. Among an array of diplomatic, historical and political approaches, however, analysts have given little attention to the role played by NATO's top civilian leader in Brussels, the Secretary General. On the crisis in Bosnia, no research has been devoted to the leadership of Secretary General Manfred Woerner, who oversaw NATO as it moved toward aggressive military action in the Balkans. Using an approach that examines the Secretary General's leadership from three perspectives, this article provides the first assessment of Woerner's role in shaping alliance policy on Bosnia. The findings suggest that Woerner was a critical leader in influencing NATO decisions, which provides new explanations for NATO's conduct in the Balkans, and speaks to the broader literature on NATO's evolution after the Cold War.     

兵力编成结构裁剪中指挥关系优化研究

由于决策个体控制战场作战平台资源实体,通过平台资源实体执行作战任务,作战平台资源实体在任务上的聚集导致决策个体间需要复杂的交互协作与交流,兵力编成需要为任务的执行创造良好的交互结构。基于任务执行的兵力编成包括两方面的内容:一是指控决策结点间的协作关系;二是指控决策结点间的指挥关系。本文基于决策个体在任务上的协作关系设计兵力编成的指挥关系,以最小化编成中总的协作工作负载为目标,并描述了编成指挥决策关系的生成过程,对生成过程的求解采用了优化协作树算法。     

军事指挥类期刊对军事学术研究的透视

军事指挥类期刊主要依靠各级军事指挥员,服务于部队全面建设。在军事学术研究队伍不断发展壮大的今天,军事指挥类期刊为部队“能打仗、打胜仗”军事理论研究服务,但军事学术研究存在着研究群体优势和合成作战理论优势发挥不够的问题。因而,要高度重视军事学术研究人才培养,加大经费投入,强化军兵种之间合成作战理论研究的力度。     

The Scandinavian Triangle: Danish-Norwegian-Swedish military intelligence cooperation and Swedish security policy during the first part of the Cold War

This article deals with Scandinavian intelligence cooperation and its significance for Swedish security policy during the first part of the Cold War. First, the development of the cooperation is described. Second, it is related to a wider context. Third, intelligence in Swedish security policy-making is discussed. Common security interests caused the cooperation. For Sweden, it represented an important part of the wider contacts with the West. Although military intelligence was important for Swedish security policy-making in some respects (e.g. military readiness), it did not have a significant influence in others (e.g. the politicians' threat perceptions). One important reason is the Swedish tradition of weak connections between the political and military leadership.     

Uncovering foreign military innovation

An analysis of US assessments of Germany's development of armored warfare illustrates the problems that intelligence agencies face as they attempt to understand military innovation. The covert nature of German Army's tank research in the years immediately following World War I limited the number of indicators of Berlin's interest in armored warfare. Similarly, the United States possessed at best a fragmentary picture of German experimentation with armor. By the outbreak of World War II, however, US military attaches had nonetheless developed an accurate understanding of German concepts of armored warfare. If the United States is to avoid strategic surprise in the future, it must cultivate intelligence sources and employ considerably different methods from those of the Cold War.     

公安边防情报人员的元认知分析

从认知心理角度分析，公安边防情报分析过程是边防情报分析人员头脑内信息加工系统的工作过程，在这一过程中存在元认知，元认知在信息加工系统中处于支配地位，能控制调节各种信息加工活动，并能促进边防情报分析人员思维的创新。研究边防情报分析人员的元认知有助于提高边防情报分析质量。分析了边防情报分析人员元认知的几个方面，提出了提高边防情报分析人员元认知能力及措施。     

基于效果的联合作战行动规划研究

联合作战行动规划是依据联合作战的使命和资源约束建立完成使命的最佳行动过程,通过对交战环境状态、交战主体的资源能力状态、行动、事件和效果的定义,结合人工智能领域解决"计划"问题的研究、军事领域基于效果的作战思想提出了联合作战行动规划模型及策略优选方法.模型结合了马尔可夫决策过程和贝叶斯网络技术来求解交战主体的最优策略,对联合作战设计具有适应性的行动策略做出的初步尝试.     

新体制下军队院校教育实战化

加强军队院校教育实战化改革，提高基层指挥员实战化素养，是推动部队实战化训练末端落实的有效途径。在军队院校改革重组的背景下，应改善实战化教学条件，强化军队院校师资力量与部队接轨，创新实战化教学内容构建，提高军队院校教育实战化水平，实现人才培养与未来作战需求的最佳融合。     

美军无人机集群项目发展

近几年来,无人机集群技术在美军多个方面的推动下,引起了全世界的热切关注。文章简要总结了美军无人机集群发展现状,梳理了美军开展无人机集群技术的初衷,并分析认为美军数量型无人机集群发展战略不完全适用于现阶段我军军情。文中给出了我国现阶段发展无人机集群的思路,这对全面认识无人机集群的优势、明晰我军无人机集群技术发展方向具有一定的参考价值。