Success and failures of the Gripen offsets in the Visegrad Group countries

The Soviet-led Council for Mutual Economic Assistance member, Central European countries found themselves in a difficult political and economic situation after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Three post-Eastern Bloc countries formed the Visegrad Group to strengthen their ties to the West, but the need for foreign investment, job creation and technology transfer was urgent.

This is when military modernisation also came into the picture and the counter-trade—as known as offset—as a tool to help these economies. A trade practice which was meant to energise these economies via defence acquisitions linked economic programmes.

Two Visegrad Group member countries, Hungary and the Czech Republic decided to sign offset agreement with the defence firm SAAB to license Gripen fighter aircrafts. This study intends to analyse if these deals were able to help governments to reach their objectives or the two countries were unable to take advantage of the offset programmes.     

截击机机群作战起飞规划效能模型

研究了截击机机群起飞架数的规划方法.通过对多攻击机机群进攻方式及截击攻击机机群目标分配形式的分析,以单一机群对单一机群在均匀目标分配形式下的作战效果为基础,根据来袭目标及我方最佳截击区域情况,合理地规划多机场作战飞机的起飞架数.建立了多机场飞机异地起降对多攻击机机群进行最优目标分配的形式及其量化关系模型,最后通过实例仿真和分析,证实了该模型的有效性和实用性.     

Fleet management in European integration: the case of military helicopter support

The article focuses on both economics and spatial issues related to Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO) of defence platforms in Europe. Using facts and figures related to costs, trends and fleet sizes evolution, the authors discuss the interest of a spatial reorganisation of MRO production. Given the fiscal situation of the main European countries with a modern army, the relevant scale to consider the reorganisation is certainly Europe. Through the example of defence helicopters fleets of a selection of European countries, the authors address the question of cooperation of the MRO. A greater cooperation in the support of fleets would lead to a spatial reorganisation of MRO. On one side economies can be expected from this reorganisation, but, on the other hand, new problems arise. Specifically, a number of costs associated with different forms of “distances” – geographical, operational and political distances – limit the potential savings that could be expected. This work provides insights on these important issues for the construction of a European defence, both in its political, military and industrial dimensions.     

The Serbian defence institution: the need for clear policy guidance to improve the Serbian defence planning,management, and command processes

ABSTRACT

The uncritical layering of western liberal defence governance norms and concepts on top of existing legacy concepts has impeded achieving coherent military capabilities and capacities when Serbia’s political and military leadership tried to reform the defence system using Western benchmarking principles and Western countries’ best practices. The process of this change has been more valuable than its actual output, as defined by increased capabilities. Such outcomes should be reflective of policy guidance, and can be thought of as closing the trinity loop of a defence planning system: plans, money and execution. This article addresses two key functional areas of the Serbian defence institution. First, it assesses the current state of defence planning to discern its strengths and weaknesses to ascertain if plans are tied to financial decision-making. Second, a full examination of current Serbian defence management is conducted to discern whether weaknesses exist that distract from producing operational capabilities. Both areas are analyzed thoroughly and some solutions for change are proposed. Also, the article analyzes the appearance of two negative phenomena in the planning process – economization and managerialism.     

三道防线是防空领域的重大军事变革

当前国土防空和舰队防空中,面临的空袭特点是空袭体系从防区外和视线外对防空体系所保卫的地(水)面目标实施饱和攻击。为了对抗这样的空袭战术,防空体系必须从以投弹圈为唯一防线的作战模式中解放出来,向远程打击预警机,中程拦截空袭武器载机和近程防御空袭武器的三道防线转变。这一转变牵动了防空体系和防空导弹的发展方向,因此是防空领域的一次重大军事变革。     

基于AHP和模糊理论的船载防空兵防空能力研究

船载防空兵在船队航渡过程中,其防空能力的强弱与否,对整个船队的安全起着不可忽视的作用。首先采用AHP法确定各因素的权重,然后运用模糊综合评判对船载防空兵的防空能力进行综合评分,主要用于对船载防空兵的防空能力进行排序,为防空兵作战指挥人员提供量化分析。     

国外歼击机的发展趋势

歼击机是空中攻击的一种重要手段 ,国外很重视歼击机的研制和改进。研制新型多动能歼击机 ,改进已服役的第三代歼击机是主要发展方向。文章概述了为提高歼击机作战能力所采用的新技术和新的机载武器     

Strategic and Budgetary Necessity,or Decision-making ‘Along the Grain’? The Royal Navy and the 1981 Defence Review

The 1981 Defence Review undertaken by John Nott as Secretary of State for Defence controversially and dramatically cut the capabilities of the Royal Navy’s surface fleet. Many of those involved in these decisions have emphasised the budgetary and politico-strategic drivers for these reductions in capability, and the first generation of academic analysis has broadly followed this position. However, recently released government and private archival sources demonstrate that Nott’s review was initially much more severe than thought, and that this was due as much to the presumptions and assumptions of the key decision makers as to any strategic or budgetary factors.     

Challenges of institutional coordination in complex defense acquisition programs: the case of the Republic of Korea’s F-X program

Decision-making in defense acquisition programs in the Republic of Korea (ROK) has been problematic, especially in highly advanced complex systems. The highly disputed force modernization program for the ROK Air Force’s fifth-generation fighter, dubbed the Fighter eXperiment, went through extreme turbulence during the type selection phase. The gist of the turbulence became evident through poor institutional coordination within the defense acquisition authorities that eventually forced them to rescind the decision generated from their own yearlong efforts, thus basically shooting themselves on the foot. The paper highlights the background of the program and reviews the institutional elements that influenced the decision-making process, and conclude that the absence of an effective coordination mechanism has made decision-making in complex defense programs even more troublesome.     

The comparison of military budgets of the eastern and central European countries

The evolutions of military expenditures in Eastern and Central European countries are difficult to estimate and to compare, due to the lack of available data for these states. Some results of the extent of cuts in defence spending since 1990 are interesting to interpret, but it is difficult for econometricians to use these figures even carefully. The structures of national military expenditure have been modified to the detriment of arms equipment. Thus, the disarmament process needs a special analysis of the arms industry.     

Implementing defence policy: a benchmark-“lite”

Most countries put significant amounts of time and effort in writing and issuing high-level policy documents. These are supposed to guide subsequent national defence efforts. But do they? And how do countries even try to ensure that they do? This paper reports on a benchmarking effort of how a few “best of breed” small- to medium-sized defence organisations (Australia, Canada, and New Zealand) deal with these issues. We find that most countries fail to link goals to resources and pay limited attention to specific and rigorous ex-ante or post-hoc evaluation, even when compared to their own national government-wide provisions. We do, however, observe a (modest) trend towards putting more specific goals and metrics in these documents that can be – and in a few rare cases were – tracked. The paper identifies 42 concrete policy “nuggets” – both “do’s and don’ts” – that should be of interest to most defence policy planning/analysis communities. It ends with two recommendations that are in line with recent broader (non-defence) scholarship on the policy formulation-policy implementation gap: to put more rigorous emphasis on implementation (especially on achieving desired policy effects), but to do so increasingly in more experiential (“design”) ways, rather than in industrial-age bureaucratic ones (“PPBS”-systems).     

近距格斗规避方式研究

空中格斗过程中,当歼击机处于有利位置时,飞行员应操纵歼击机进行机动飞行以便能采用一定的攻击方式攻击目标飞机,当飞行员判断出空战态势对其不利时,往往采用一定的规避机动方法躲避敌机的跟踪和攻击。文中重点阐述了歼击机在空对空格斗状态下常用的几种规避机动方式:逃逸法、保持航向正切法和终端消极偏差法,给出了其定义,分析了其主要的运动特征,并对规避路线运动学方程及边界等运动特性进行了一定的研究。     

机群超视距作战联合战术信息系统的效能分析

建立了机群联合战术信息系统在超视距作战中综合机群的传感器、导航和火力控制系统,组织对目标协同探测、辨识和火力控制的系统模型,以及它的效能评估模型.仿真计算表明此信息系统能有效增加机群超视距作战的效能,但噪声和欺骗干扰会显著地影响它的效率.     

To free or not to free (ride): a comparative analysis of the NATO burden-sharing in the Czech Republic and Lithuania

ABSTRACT

The recent rise in the defence budgets among the NATO members reawakens the free-riding dilemma. This article provides an analysis of the defence spending of two new member states, the Czech Republic and Lithuania. Based on the free-riding theory, we explain why some of the new NATO members decide to increase their defence budgets (Lithuania), and others do not (Czech Republic). In contrast to the majority of works which focus either on the US as the biggest spender or on the “old” members of the Alliance, we explain under what circumstances some of the small European states who became new NATO members started to increase their defence budgets even though they do not have to, and the literature suggests that free-riding is easier. In the process, we identify three crucial factors that in?uence the decision-making process in this regard: the level of threat perception, economic situation, and the US pressure.     

Trilateral defence cooperation in the North: an assessment of interoperability between Norway,Sweden and Finland

Norway, Sweden and Finland have proclaimed a willingness to cooperate militarily in a future crisis or conflict despite their diverging alliance affiliation. This article assesses their ability to do so through various elements affecting their interoperability, with Arctic Challenge, a multinational military exercise, as an empirical basis. The analysis finds that the NATO/non-NATO-divide has a negative impact on the trilateral defence cooperation, especially on exchange of information and aspects related to command and control. At the same time, Finland and Sweden have become largely NATO-standardized through their active partnership with the Alliance. This has affected interoperability aspects, such as communication, culture, and the compatibility of technical solutions, in a positive manner. Through agreements with the Alliance, as well as domestic legal changes, the two NATO-partners have facilitated receiving military assistance from Norway and other NATO-members during a crisis. Other agreements between the Nordic countries, however, have been limited to peacetime.     

Indian and Chinese espionage

India and China both have powerful spy networks; completely different in their approaches to espionage; both effective against their perceived enemies. China focuses first on internal threats, on Taiwan and Hong Kong, and then the US and Japan. India’s defense policy focuses on Pakistan and internal terrorist threats, and then on China. In reality, however, when it comes to spying on each other, both China and India suffer from incompetence and apathy – which endangers both their own security and regional stability. This article looks at how they spy on each other, and asks why and how they need to improve. The narrative also touches upon some of the individuals who are waging the spy war, from India’s wily spymaster Ajit Doval down to junior Chinese agents such as Wang Qing and Pema Tsering. The two countries are not friends. They have the largest territorial dispute in the world on their hands, covering an area the size of North Korea, and they have large armies facing each other along 4000 kilometers of frontier. But they also lay claim to the world’s two oldest and richest civilizations, with a rich history of exchange, and now with a combined population of 2.6 billion people and more than a quarter of the world’s economic output. If they cooperated, they could solve many of the world’s problems; but if they lurch into conflict, the potential consequences are terrifying to contemplate. Unfortunately, despite their geographical closeness, they do not know much about each other. They have few cultural interchanges, little diplomacy, few trade missions. They do not watch each other’s films, read each other’s books or listen to each other’s music. Chinese tourists would rather fly to New Zealand for their holidays than cross the border to India, and Indian students would rather study in Europe than China. China and India are neighbors that barely talk to each other. Most significantly, they do not spy on each competently. For countries that do not interact socially, defensive understanding is important for security – but China prefers the glamor of facing up to its Pacific and other maritime rivals such as the US and Japan. India, for its part, does talk a great deal about the China threat, but its resources and expertise are wrapped up in controlling its security threat from Pakistan and the Islamic world. When China and India do try to spy on each other, it is often without the benefit of a long-term focus or understanding. India has some very skilled operatives within the Research and Analysis Wing, but few that specialize in China. China has an enormous pool of resources spread across several government departments, including the Ministry of Public Security, and also has extensive facilities and manpower in the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission (the JSD) and the new Strategic Support Force (the SSF). However, China’s intelligence services generally behave as if India is not worth spying on. Given that the two countries do not have the cultural or political machinery in place to understand each other, espionage and intelligence gathering is vital to ensure that miscalculations do not take place. This has been apparent over the last few years in stand-offs in the Himalaya, as well as top-level suspicions on each side about a variety of subjects including terrorism, covert operations in Sri Lanka and Burma, and the two countries’ nuclear weapons programs. Both countries do occasionally make efforts in espionage against each other, especially during sensitive periods such as the mountain stand-offs of 2014 and 2013 and during policy developments in nuclear warfare. In this article the author looks at actual spying incidents between the two countries, their methodologies, their staff, their technical capabilities, and how the act of spying, which is usually viewed as intrinsically adversarial, can be a force for good. The article relies on interviews with actual participants in intelligence from both countries as well as extensive use of contemporary online sources, and secondary analysis by both military and academic experts from China, India and NATO countries.     

舰艇编队作战任务优化分配

从舰艇编队的实际作战需求出发,将作战使命分解为多个作战任务,然后分配给相关平台。首先在每个平台只能承担一项任务的前提下,构建了编队作战任务分配的基本模型。在此基础上研究了两平台协同执行任务时效能互补、单平台在同时执行多项任务时武器装备相互干扰等情况,进一步构建了考虑平台间协同效益和平台执行多任务的作战任务分配模型。应用改进的遗传算法给出了编队作战任务分配方案优化选择的具体方法步骤,最后针对一个典型案例进行了仿真计算与分析,验证了三种模型的合理性。     

海上编队雷达网优化部署系统的设计与实现

建立海上编队雷达网优化部署系统模型,包括实体模型和认知模型。仿真海上编队雷达网在无威胁条件下的优化部署和面临干扰和超低空突防威胁时的对抗过程,经过海上编队雷达网优化部署认知模型的解算,指挥舰队编队成员进行机动部署,编队成员通过重新机动,使编队雷达网获得较好的探测性能。仿真结果表明所建立模型的可行性和正确性。对于在未来海战场复杂电磁环境下,更好地发挥编队雷达网探测、预警能力具有重要意义。     

某型飞机军械智能电子电路图的设计

针对传统纸质电路图的不足,采用F lash开发软件研制了智能电子电路图,论述电子电路图开发的基本思路、制作流程、功能设计与实现和影片导出,最后介绍了某型飞机军械智能电子电路图软件的主要组成部分和界面。目前,该软件已经下发部队试用。