The unnecessary uprising: Jeju Island rebellion and South Korean counterinsurgency experience 1947–48

This paper systematically analyzes the causes of the escalation of violence during the initial stages of the Jeju Island Rebellion and the failure of South Korean counterinsurgency operations. It is argued that four interrelated factors provided the conditions for armed insurgency in the small island of Jeju: inter-agency tension between the Korean National Police (KNP) and the Korean Constabulary; the mainlanders' misinterpretation of the insurgency; the effect of systematic police brutality; and the role of youth groups. Consequently, two counterinsurgency lessons will be drawn from this study: that inter-agency cooperation and coordination at the tactical level between security branches and the incorporation of local population at the micro-level is essential in conducting efficient and effective counterinsurgency operations.     

Counterinsurgency force ratio: strategic utility or nominal necessity

As a consequence of intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, force ratio for counterinsurgency (COIN) has come under increased scrutiny. Reduced to its essence, the issue is simply, ‘How many troops does it take to get the job done?’ This answer has been sought by the US military, academia, and think tanks. There have been numerous responses, culminating in several ‘plug-and-play’ equations for minimum force ratios in COIN operations. Due to the impossibility of determining precisely how many insurgent forces there are, it has become common to base force ratios on the population of the country. In the realm of policy, the question above is posed as, ‘How many of our troops does it take to get the job done?’     

India: Fleeting Attachment to the Counterinsurgency Grand Strategy

India’s success in dealing with insurgency movements was based on adherence to four key rules of engagement: identifying a lead counter-insurgent force, launching population-centric counterinsurgency (COIN) operations, non-use of excessive force and confining the role of the COIN operations to preparing a ground for a political solution. While the country does not yet have a COIN doctrine, these four rules of engagement do constitute what can be referred to a COIN grand strategy. Analysis of the several continuing insurgencies, however, reveals the country’s inability to adhere to the grand strategy. Political considerations, incapacity to manoeuvre through the demands of various stake holders, and even the wish to expedite the decimation of insurgent outfits through a force-centric approach has produced a long history of failures in dousing the fires of discontent.     

The Long and Winding Road: The US Army Managerial Approach to Command and the Adoption of Mission Command (Auftragstaktik)

The purpose of the current paper is to examine the adoption and adaptation process of mission command (Auftragstaktik) in the US Army. This concept, developed by the Prussians, denotes a decentralized command approach wherein superiors dictate their intent and allow subordinates to formulate their operational plans independently and change it according to the emerging situation. The paper examines the US command approach prior to the adoption of mission command. It argues that it was heavily influenced by corporate management practices which inherently contradict mission command approach. It continues and investigates how the US Army endeavored to emulate the approach in its doctrine and in major operations.

While it has officially incorporated mission command into its doctrine, it has been less successful in utilizing it in operational situations. This state of affairs has to do with the cultural legacy of the managerial approach to command that still persist. Despite the partial success, the US Army has recently reaffirmed its commitment to this approach.     

一种基于DDS的战术信息栅格信息分发方法

战术信息栅格信息分发是实现战术级环境下信息按需共享的核心技术。遵循发布/订阅模型,提出一种基于数据分发服务(DDS)的战术信息栅格信息分发方法,给出了实现框架和应用实例,并进行了性能实验。实验结果表明,该方法具有较好的信息分发处理性能,基本满足战术信息栅格信息分发应用的需求。     

Misapplying lessons learned? Analysing the utility of British counterinsurgency strategy in Northern Ireland, 1971–76

This article examines the British Army's deployment in support of the civil power in Northern Ireland. It argues that the core guiding principles of the British approach to counterinsurgency (COIN) – employing the minimum use of force, firm and timely action, and unity of control in civil–military relations – were misapplied by the Army in its haste to combat Irish Republican Army (IRA) terrorism between 1971 and 1976. Moreover, it suggests that the Army's COIN strategy was unsuccessful in the 1970s because commanders adhered too closely to the customs, doctrine, and drill applied under very different circumstances in Aden between 1963 and 1967, generally regarded as a failure in Britain's post-war internal security operations. The article concludes with a discussion of the British government's decision to scale back the Army's role in favour of giving the Royal Ulster Constabulary primacy in counter-terrorist operations, a decision which led ultimately to success in combating IRA violence.     

Is the Russian bear learning? an operational and tactical analysis of the second Chechen war, 1999–2002

In recent years, writers have too quickly dismissed the Russian military as incompetent. Its performance in the Second Chechen War should give them pause. The Russian military has learned valuable lessons from the disaster of the first war and is applying those lessons to its conduct of the second. While improvements have come on the tactical and operational level, one should not conclude, however, that the Russians are winning the war. The Second Chechen War is proving once again that modern warfare is a messy business and that only a political solution can bring an end to a political problem.     

Hard Line: The Republican Party and US Foreign Policy since World War II Shaping Strategy: The Civil-Military Politics of Strategic Assessment

This article examines the Dhofar campaign in Oman (1965–75), and the role Britain played in assisting the Omani royal government against left-wing insurgents. Using existing secondary sources and declassified British government papers, it reassesses the contribution of British military advisers and special forces to the counter-insurgency (COIN) campaign, the balance between military action and civil affairs, the external dimension of the conflict, and intelligence and covert operations. It concludes by assessing whether the Dhofar War offers any guidance to Western armed forces involved in contemporary COIN campaigns such as those in Afghanistan and Iraq.     

Counterinsurgency American style: Considering David Petraeus and twenty-first century irregular war

This article examines the complex legacy of David Petraeus who was a key figure in the emergence of the US military shift towards counterinsurgency doctrine in the years after 2006. Although Petraeus has been perceived by critics as a publicity seeker, he can be credited with laying the foundations for a more serious commitment to COIN involving in particular in integrating conventional and Special Forces in arenas like village stability operations. The article looks a Petraeus's role in both Iraq and Afghanistan: it concludes that, in the case of Afghanistan, it is too early to assess whether counterinsurgency has had a decisive impact of the outcome of the war against the Taliban.     

The Hunt for Martín Caballero

While the success of Colombia's fight against illegal armed groups, led by Fuerzas armadas revolucionarias de Colombia – ejército del pueblo (FARC-EP), is generally lauded as evidence of the effectiveness of both COIN doctrine and security assistance, the configuration of Colombia's counter-insurgency effort remains largely unstudied. This article will explain the success of one of those campaigns carried out principally by the Colombian marines (Colmar) in an area of northern Colombia known as the Montes de María. Contingent factors shaped the success of this campaign, beginning with the fact that the Montes de María forms an area where insurgents, relative late comers to the region, found it difficult to put down deep roots. However, operations to eradicate them were complicated by the inexperience of the Colmar, and by constraints placed by Colombia's Constitutional Court on COIN methods modeled on those successfully applied by the British in Malaya and Kenya. Therefore, Colmar officers initiated their five-year campaign by building up a base of popular support in the towns and targeting insurgent logistical networks. This bought time to strengthen the Colmar's combat and intelligence capabilities, and take the offensive that eventually isolated and killed the leader of the FARC in the Montes de María, Martín Caballero. Unfortunately, the failure of the Colombian government to follow up the Colmar victory by installing a regional and local governments viewed as legitimate by the population, and to resolve long standing land tenure issues, has meant that, so far, the Colmar looks to have delivered a tactical victory in a strategic vacuum.     

It's all the rage: why mechanization doesn't explain COIN outcomes

A recent article, ‘Rage Against the Machines’, does a disservice to the debate over what explains counterinsurgency (COIN) success. While it establishes a negative correlation between the diffusion of military mechanization in the state system and COIN success, its theoretical argument does not hold up under close scrutiny and its micro-case comparison of two units in Iraq during 2003–2004 ignores obvious counter-examples and factors that influence COIN success, such as leadership. A deeper inquiry would have revealed that there is much more to COIN success than simply not having access to vehicles.     

A lost work of El Lobo: Lieutenant-Colonel Charles T.R. Bohannan's unpublished study of guerrilla warfare and counterinsurgency in the Philippines, 1899–1955

Charles Ted Rutledge Bohannan (1914–1982) became an integral agent of US counterinsurgency operations during the early Cold War, contributing to both the success of the COIN effort to defeat the communist Huk insurgents in the Philippines and the stalled COIN efforts in Vietnam. In the early 1960s, he wrote a short and compact analysis of the US and Filipino experience of guerrilla warfare, from the Philippine–American war until the defeat of the Huk Rebellion. It was never published. Reprinted here, Bohannan's analysis of lessons learned makes a substantial contribution to the history of American ideas of unconventional warfare by an expert who contributed these lessons to the successful defeat of an insurgency in South East Asia.     

解坦克分队武器-目标分配问题的小生境遗传算法

为快速求解坦克分队武器-目标分配（Weapon-Target Assignment,WTA）模型,对基本遗传算法的关键步骤进行改进,设计了独特的基于火力单元排序的战术种群初始化策略,引入小生境共享函数和参数自适应机制,完成了基于小生境自适应改进遗传算法的设计与实现。最后进行了仿真试验,试验结果表现出了良好的收敛效果。     

Hybrid War and Its Countermeasures: A Critique of the Literature

This article examines critically the literature of hybrid war and evaluates the countermeasures often proposed. It explains the concept of hybrid warfare and its varied interpretations, illustrating how it is a manifestation of current anxieties in armed conflict. The selection of the literature is based on works that are referenced, that offer a scientific approach, and which review either the phenomenon of hybrid warfare or its countermeasures empirically. Unscientific works have been omitted. The analysis of the literature presented here shows that the antidotes to ‘hybridity’ lie not in the operational or tactical sphere but in strategic and political domains.     

战术情报系统模型化分析方法

针对未来联合作战活动中陆军作战部队的战术应用需求,提炼出陆军战术情报系统建设的组织体系模型和情报生产区域模型,同时,以某一陆军战术作战单位为例,提出并深入分析对应情报系统节点的功能参考模型,建立了基于组织体系模型和功能参考模型的陆军战术情报系统模型化分析方法,详细描述了该模型化分析方法涉及的陆军战术情报系统的6个主要功能单元;最后简要分析了该模型化分析方法的军事应用前景.     

基于STAGE平台的模型扩展方法

STAGE(Scenario Toolkit And Generation Environment)是用于开发想定战场环境和武器系统验证的仿真软件。用户可根据需求利用自己开发的仿真模型取代STAGE的内置仿真模型,也可以将开发的仿真模型与STAGE中现有模型进行集成。针对STAGE 6.0仿真开发平台,研究了STAGE模型扩展中的关键技术,实现了用户开发模型与STAGE仿真引擎的集成,从而为快速构建用户自定义战场环境提供了一种新途径。     

Desert insurgency: lessons from the third Tuareg rebellion

This article provides an in-depth examination and analysis of the 2006–2009 Tuareg rebellion in Mali and Niger. It identifies the underlying reasons behind the rebellion, explores contrasting counter-insurgency (COIN) strategies employed by the two governments, and presents some lessons learned. While both COIN approaches ultimately produced similar peace settlements, the article argues that the Malian strategy of reconciliation combined with the selective use of force was far more effective than the Nigerien iron fist approach at limiting the size and scope of the insurgency and producing a more sustainable peace. It concludes by looking at the role of external actors, particularly the United States, and how the failure to internationalize the conflict was actually more beneficial to the local COIN effort, as well as to the longer strategic interests of the United States in the region.     

Counterinsurgency and the limits of state-building: An analysis of Colombia's policy of territorial consolidation, 2006–2012

Since 2002 the Colombian government has been implementing a series of policy initiatives that have sought to coordinate state resources in a neo-classical counterinsurgency approach to fight the country's main insurgent group, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), and recover and consolidate the territory. Despite impressive operational successes against the insurgency and other illegal groups, the government has been unable to reassert its control and build legitimacy via the state-building effort known as ‘Consolidación’, in some of the most recalcitrant areas of the country. This article examines two areas where government efforts at consolidation appear to be failing to discuss the limits of COIN theory and practice.     

基于仿真技术的两栖装甲装备作战效能评估方法

两栖作战是基于信息系统的体系与体系的对抗。两栖作战对抗系统是典型的复杂适应系统。基于复杂适应系统理论和多Agent建模方法的作战效能评估方法,在掌握装备性能参数基础上,以具体作战环境和一定兵力编成为背景进行作战模拟,能够反映武器系统的诸属性在作战全过程的体现和在不同外界条件下作战效能的差别,可为两栖装甲装备研制、作战使用及战术训练、战法研究提供参考。     

防空预警雷达阵地配置及其物元分析

防空预警雷达阵地配置是防空兵战前决策的重要内容。首先分析了影响和决定防空预警雷达阵地配置的战术因素、生存因素和地形因素,总结了防空预警雷达阵地配置的约束条件,然后依据整体探测效能最优的原则提出了防空预警雷达阵地配置的基本模型,探讨了通过调整约束参数来自动生成方案及控制方案数量的问题,最后运用物元分析法对配置方案的合理性进行了分析评判,并对配置方案进行排序,以辅助指挥员决策。