The Strategic Use of Soft Balancing: The Normative Dimensions of the Chinese–Russian ‘Strategic Partnership’

This article examines Chinese and Russian foreign policy and military strategy from the theoretical standpoint of soft balancing. Analysis of their thinking indicates that both seek to offset US military superiority without engaging American power directly. To that end, Chinese and Russian strategists have adopted ‘soft’ or ‘normative’ power assets as strategic capabilities in their military and foreign policy. Alternative norms, such as the concept of ‘sovereign democracy’, allow China and Russia to deliberately ignore human rights issues in order to achieve diplomatic advantage with respect to the United States. The two powers have institutionalized these norms within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which they use to counterbalance US interests in Central Asia.     

Re-thinking the Unthinkable: Arms Control in the Twenty-First Century

ABSTRACT

Since the end of the Cold War, arms control proponents tried to make the case for deep nuclear reductions and other forms of security cooperation as necessary for strategic stability. While different versions of strategic stability analysis did sometimes produce innovative proposals, constructive negotiations, and successful ratification campaigns in the past, this analytical framework has become more of a hindrance than a help. Treating arms control as a predominantly technical way to make deterrence more stable by changing force structure characteristics, military operations, relative numbers of weapons on either side, or total number of nuclear weapons gives short shrift to political factors, including the fundamental assumptions about world politics that inform different arms control logics, the quality of political relations among leading states, and the political processes that affect negotiation, ratification, and implementation. This article compares two logics for arms control as a means to enhance strategic stability, one developed by the Cambridge community in the 1960s and one used by the Reagan administration and its successors, with current perspectives on strategic stability in which flexibility and freedom of action are preferable to predictability and arms control. It also contrasts what the Barack Obama administration has tried to achieve through strategic stability dialogues with Russia and China with how they envision security cooperation. It then presents an approach developed during the Cold War by Hedley Bull for thinking about both the technical and the political dimensions of arms control, and suggests that the logic of Cooperative Security (which shares important features with Bull's approach) is a more appropriate and productive way to think about arms control in the twenty-first century than strategic stability analysis is.     

认真贯彻主题主线战略思想扎实推进转型期学院建设科学发展

胡锦涛主席关于以推动国防和军队建设科学发展为主题、以加快转变战斗力生成模式为主线的重要战略思想,为我军人才建设赋予了新的内涵、提出了新的要求,为推进转型期学院建设科学发展指明了方向。围绕主题主线加强学院建设,要始终坚持正确的政治方向不动摇,始终围绕人才培养质量这一核心鼓实劲,始终咬定建设全军重点院校这一目标谋发展,始终抓住提高工作落实标准这一关键下功夫。     

New sources of military change – armed forces as normal organizations

The literature on how European states have adapted to the post-cold war security environment ffocuses invariably on different understandings of military transformation, a process which is seen as inherently different from other forms of organizational change. However, as this paper argues, new management practices, going back to the introduction of so-called New Public Management (NPM) reforms throughout Europe in the 1980s, have eventually penetrated also the last bastion of the old state – the defense sector. Taking a critical approach to the idea of military transformation and existing theories of military change, the paper demonstrates how other international developments have pushed towards what may be seen as a “normalization” of Europe’s defense sectors. This has important implications for how we approach and understand change in contemporary defense organizations.     

The origins of the cancellation of Canada's Avro CF-105 arrow fighter program: A failure of strategy

The story of the demise of Canada's remarkable CF-105 Arrow jet-fighter interceptor has been told and retold by numerous Canadian writers. As told by most, it is a tragic tale. Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, in an act as unforgivable as it was incomprehensible, not only destroyed a highly promising all-Canadian state-of-the-art aircraft but ruined all hopes of Canada ever being an important player in the North American defense industry. This article offers a contrasting interpretation — locating the problems leading to the aircraft's cancellation further back in history, and in particular in serious and determinative failures in strategic thinking and analysis by senior Canadian military officials at the time of the Arrow program's birth in 1953.     

非对称相互依赖下的美日军事同盟机制分析——以奥巴马政府“重返亚太”为视角

2012年1月5日,美国国防部发表了《保持美国的全球领导地位:21世纪的防务重点计划报告》,在"重返亚太"战略的战略背景下,重点针对美国未来的军事力量结构、全球部署态势、军事战略目标等进行了重新规划。新军事战略调整对整个国际格局和地区性大国产生深远影响。随着美国重返亚太的战略调整,军事上的相互依赖程度体现在美日同盟之间尤为突出。本文仅从军事战略角度,运用《权力与相互依赖》中部分理论对其调整下的美日军事同盟机制进行分析。     

经济视野的新时期军事安全战略

经济全球化深刻影响和改变了世界经济、政治、军事安全形势,促使我们探索新时期的国家军事安全战略。本文试图由经济视角透视新时期军事安全战略,简要分析了经济全球化背景下我国军事安全面临的挑战,强调经济安全是新时期军事安全战略的立足点和重要战略目标,并探讨了经济软实力作为非战争军事斗争方式的运用及经济全球化影响下的新时期军事安全战略的特征。     

The art of net assessment and uncovering foreign military innovations: Learning from Andrew W. Marshall’s legacy

ABSTRACT

Andrew W. Marshall, who shaped the way in which contemporary international security experts think about strategy, has been mostly associated with the invention of net assessment. The intellectual sources of this analytical technique, and of the related competitive strategies concept, could be traced to Marshall’s efforts to uncover Soviet post-World War II defense transformations. This article outlines the essence of these Soviet innovations – the empirical frame of reference that inspired Marshall. It provides a new perspective on the history of the net-assessment methodology, advances the debate within strategic studies over the nature of military innovations, and offers insights for experts examining defense transformations worldwide.     

‘Innovate or die’: Organizational culture and the origins of maneuver warfare in the United States Marine Corps

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, this article contributes to the understanding of the origins of maneuver warfare as the capstone doctrine of the Marine Corps. It does so by identifying a second source that fostered change in the Marine Corps – one in addition to disquiet about the conduct of the war in Vietnam – which stemmed from the challenges posed by the United States' post-Vietnam strategic and military reorientation. And second, this article examines the influence of organizational culture, or identity, on innovation in the Marine Corps. A critical strand in the growing literature on military innovation focuses on organizational culture and how it influences the behavior and responses of particular military organizations. This article contributes to this literature by analyzing the influence of the organizational culture of the Marine Corps in shaping what was deemed an appropriate response to the challenges it confronted in the 1970s.     

Strategic hedging in Indonesia’s defense diplomacy

With the rapid pace of regional arms modernization and unresolved territorial disputes, Indonesia is increasingly susceptible to the impact of emerging great power rivalry in Asia-Pacific. Rather than pursuing a robust military build-up, Indonesian policy-makers assert that diplomacy is the country’s first line of defense. This article argues that defense diplomacy serves two agenda of Indonesia’s hedging strategy – strategic engagement and military modernization. This way, Indonesian defense and security officials seek to moderate the impact of geopolitical changes while maintaining the country’s defensive ability against regional uncertainties.     

Turkey-Africa alliance: Evolving patterns in security relations

ABSTRACT

Turkey has maintained its strategic relations with Africa at the highest level under recent AK Party governments in the field not only of low politics but also of high politics. For example, it opened its largest overseas military base in Somalia in 2017 and signed military, defense and security pacts with more than 25 African countries. This article traces the deep historical and cultural relations with Africa behind its newly evolving foreign policy identity, arguing that its booming economic power has been a significant driving force in shaping a new security strategy. It examines what the growing security involvement means for both Turkey and Africa in order to contribute to the relevant literature through a holistic approach from both theoretical and conceptual perspectives.     

Strategy,theory, and history: Operation Husky 1943

In his 1987 work Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1987), Edward Luttwak described strategy as a field of activity characterised not only by an innately complex relationship between designs, actions and outcomes, but so too by the frequent disparity between its theory and praxis. Similar observations on this subject have since been made by Richard K. Betts, Lawrence Freedman and Antulio Echevarria II. This article will use the Allied invasion of Sicily in July–August 1943 as a vehicle through which to test these theories against a signal event in the European theatre of the Second World War. It will illustrate how Operation Husky and its aftermath are a paradigm of the confusing and often illogical course of events associated with the process of formulating strategy and waging war. In so doing it demonstrates the benefits of using strategic theory to illuminate events and so move beyond the often insular focus of campaign histories, and simultaneously reinforces the importance of military history in informing a theoretical understanding of strategy.     

探析美国新军事战略

奥巴马政府2011年以来发布的一系列军事文件,标志着美国新军事战略的形成。文章依据这些文件,结合三年来美军在世界范围内尤其是亚太地区的实际动向,从战略威胁判断、战略指导方针、战略部署调整、作战指导思想和军事力量建设五个方面对新军事战略的内容及实施情况进行了分析。     

An historical review of US defense strategy from Vietnam to operation Iraqi freedom

Facing nearly half a billion dollars in spending cuts over the next five years, US defense planners and strategists must simultaneously rebuild a war-weary Army weakened from over a decade of war, build new sea and air capabilities for the Pacific theater, and reduce manpower, procurement, and contractor budgets while promoting innovation. The US defense department is embarking on what may be the most sweeping period of defense transformation in recent memory. This article reviews the history of American defense transformation, focusing on an important but largely overlooked period of military innovation that began in the shadow of Vietnam and ended with troops fighting through blinding sandstorms at night on the road to Baghdad. The multifaceted transformation strategy conceived in the 1970s paved the way for a military revolution in the 1990s and enabled unprecedented battlefield adaptation in the 2000s. After reviewing the revolutionary changes that led to American dominance in conventional warfare in the 1990s, the article examines US transformation policies in the 2000s to inform defense strategy and planning efforts in the 2010s.     

The causes of trust and distrust in the military

Trust in institutions is an important issue of political science and sociology. This article contributes to the discussion by exploring public trust in the military at the global, regional and national levels, and the causes of trust and distrust in the military. Analyses of public opinion data reveal that the military is a highly trusted social institution across the world. In Slovenia, the trust in the military is high as well; however, it is lower than international data would suggest, averaging at 50%. Against this background, the article focuses on the causes of trust. The original empirical survey was accomplished and shows that the most significant causes of a high level of trust in the military are its frequent and successful involvement in disaster relief, its professional qualifications and high performance, as well as its national defense role. Whereas the key causes of distrust are: the poor levels of transparency in its procurement process; the politicization of the military and organizational problems.     

美国创新体系军民深度融合发展特点及启示

美国具有全球最为先进的军事科技实力、军事科技创新能力和国防保障能力,美国的科技创新体系具有军民融合深度发展的特点,在军民融合创新发展上没有明显的时间滞后,是世界上军民融合科技创新体系发展最好的典型样板国家。论文梳理分析美国国防创新系统及其特点,分析美国国防科技经费预算、研究方向和项目流程,研究分析美国促进军民融合创新与发展的制度保障体系,总结美国创新体系中军民深度融合发展的特点,解析美国军民融合发展中的典型案例、各自成功的模式和主要经验,并结合我国军民融合发展的实际情况提出建议。     

‘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.     

防空预警监视雷达系统的发展与对策

文章以美“空海一体战”理论的提出为背景,深刻分析了新战略背景下我防空预警监视雷达系统所面临的现实威胁和挑战,结合我军防空预警监视雷达系统现状,对该系统的建设发展问题进行了多方位分析和研究,指出朝着基于系统构成优化、作战运用优化以及信息高效融合的一体化方向发展是我防空预警监视雷达系统在新战略背景下的必然选择.     

United States Security Policy in the Western Hemisphere: Why Columbia,Why Now,and What is to be Done?

An evaluation of US policy toward Latin America and Columbia and its implications for the military begins with an understanding of the purposes and patterns of intervention over the years. An evaluation of contemporary security policy in the Western Hemisphere also hinges on an understanding of the broadening view of US national security. In developing these themes, this article (1) analyzes the major tenets of US policy toward Latin America, and the criteria for intervention; (2) examines the concepts of security; (3) explains and clarifies 'Why Columbia, why now, and what is to be done?'; (4) outlines some strategic and high operational-level imperatives for US civil-military involvement in Columbia; (5) puts forward seven additional strategic and operational imperatives for playing in the contemporary security area; (6) addresses the strategic adaption of US military power in the Columbian threat situation; and (7) provides some final conclusions and recommendations. Such an exercise, will, hopefully, stimulate North American, Columbian, and Latin American thinking and action regarding a set of complicated problems that - whether one likes it or not, or is prepared to deal with it or not - is likely to be with us for some time beyond the year 2001.     

A view from Berlin: Colonel Frederick trench and the development of British perceptions of German aggressive intent, 1906–1910

This essay traces the image of Germany that emerges from the reports of Colonel Frederick Trench (1857–1942), British military attache in Berlin from 1906 to 1910. At this time, the British Army possessed only the most limited intelligence‐gathering apparatus and had to rely heavily on the reports of military attaches for information about their continental rivals. Trench, who believed that Germany planned to wage war against Britain and said so categorically in his reports, was the main source of data on the German Army. From the limited surviving records of who read these reports and how they responded to them, this essay posits that Trench's views contributed to the growing British perception of a German threat, a perception that did much to influence British strategic planning in this period.