The crisis of American military assistance: strategic dithering and Fabergé Egg armies

ABSTRACT

The United States has provided substantial amounts of military assistance and aid since the end of World War Two. During the Cold War, it proved vital in protecting numerous regimes from communist takeovers. Successful outcomes occurred when American leaders made large initial aid commitments, and the states had the capacity and political willpower to use it effectively. However, Vietnam was an example of how U.S. support lagged, as leaders in Saigon preferred political survival instead of creating regime legitimacy. Following 9/11, American security aid focused on making weak countries develop stronger security forces. Unfortunately, this created Fabergé egg militaries: expensive and easily broken by insurgents. This article suggests long-term strategic commitments need to be made alongside more resources for the American State Department and similar organizations to focus on the politics of state-building. Finally, this article suggests strategies, such as “whole-of-government” approaches, to improve long-term security and political institution building.     

韩国反导政策:调整、原因及影响

韩国自20世纪90年代起开始考虑反导系统的构建以来,其反导政策经历了"明确反对加入美国反导体系,自主构建韩国型导弹防御系统"到"强化韩美、韩美日反导合作,谋求实质上融入美国反导体系"的显著调整与变化。韩国反导政策的演变与朝鲜核、导威胁的与日俱增、韩国自身反导能力的不足及美国的极力推动等因素密不可分。当前,韩国开始部署"萨德"末段高空区域反导系统,韩美反导合作日益深入,并向韩美日三边合作拓展,且取得了实质性的进展。韩国强化与美、日的反导联合,在军事、外交、安全方面引发了广泛影响。     

科技军民融合政策制度

科技军民融合政策制度是推动军民科技协同创新向纵深发展的基本保障和环境条件。分析了我国科技军民融合政策与管理制度的内涵、分类和组成,调研了我国科技领域军民融合有关政策现状及最新试点情况,分析了当前我国科技军民融合政策制度的缺陷点、薄弱环节,研究了国外科技有关的军民融合政策体系构建的规律及启示,提出了我国科技军民融合政策制度建设的基本思路、组织框架、建设重点和推进措施,以为我国科技军民融合政策的制定提供理论保障和决策依据。     

空天防御作战规划问题研究

从技术与作战结合的角度,系统分析空天防御作战系统和对抗特点等问题,构建了"态势组态—目标排序—目标分配—冲突动态最优预测"新型作战规划方法,提出"博弈控制理论与方法",论述了空天防御作战规划方法论。对空天防御作战规划理论研究有一定参考价值,为发展空天防御作战规划系统提供了研究思路和技术支撑。     

A usable past: a contemporary approach to history for the Western profession of arms

The most effective way for the Western profession of arms to use history is to disavow the purism and narrow specialisation of today’s academia in favour of developing a contemporary approach to the subject. The latter aims to foster a range of applied diagnostic skills that transcend the temporal dimensions of past, present, and future. A contemporary approach to history for military professionals emphasises the use of inter-disciplinary war studies to enhance policy relevance. In any defense and security organisation, history must be usable in the sense of providing cognitive and interpretative skills for probing relationships between possibility and actuality, between experience and expectation, and between singularity and repetition. Using history to examine such dialectical interconnections is particularly valuable when military establishments confront their essential task of analyzing emerging trends in the future of war.     

基于兰彻斯特型方程的网络攻防行动分析

互联网的高速发展在带来社会发展与文明进步的同时,也让世界对网络更加依赖,随之而来的网络空间军备竞赛、网络犯罪和网络恐怖主义,使网络空间的攻防行动变得愈加频繁,网络空间安全形势愈发严峻。本文利用兰彻斯特型方程建立网络攻防模型来分析网络攻防行动,证明网络攻防行动是非对称的作战手段和新时代的游击战争,并得出对我国网络空间国防力量建设的启示。      

Validation of a strategy for harbor defense based on the use of a min‐max algorithm receding horizon control law

We present a validation of a centralized feedback control law for robotic or partially robotic water craft whose task is to defend a harbor from an intruding fleet of water craft. Our work was motivated by the need to provide harbor defenses against hostile, possibly suicidal intruders, preferably using unmanned craft to limit potential casualties. Our feedback control law is a sample‐data receding horizon control law, which requires the solution of a complex max‐min problem at the start of each sample time. In developing this control law, we had to deal with three challenges. The first was to develop a max‐min problem that captures realistically the nature of the defense‐intrusion game. The second was to ensure the solution of this max‐min problem can be accomplished in a small fraction of the sample time that would be needed to control a possibly fast moving craft. The third, to which this article is dedicated, was to validate the effectiveness of our control law first through computer simulations pitting a computer against a computer or a computer against a human, then through the use of model hovercraft in a laboratory, and finally on the Chesapeake Bay, using Yard Patrol boats. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 63: 247–259, 2016     

Innovation in China’s Defense Technology Base: Foreign Technology and Military Capabilities

ABSTRACT

China’s defense science, technology, and industrial system has been undergoing a far-reaching transformation over the past two decades and the single biggest factor behind this turnaround is the role of external technology and knowledge transfers and the defense industry’s improving ability to absorb these inputs and convert into localized output. China is pursuing an intensive campaign to obtain defense and dual-use civil–military foreign technology transfers using a wide variety of means, which is explored in this article.     

对ELINT系统基于信号PRI参数分选的干扰技术

ELINT通过测量信号的PDW(脉冲描述字)来获取雷达情报,而PDW中最为重要的参数是脉冲到达时间(TOA),因此,研究对ELINT系统信号分选的干扰技术,就应当从影响分选的多维参数出发,重点研究脉冲重复周期PRI对分选效果的影响。通过分析PRI的不同工作模式特点,参考ELINT系统信号分选准则,设计相应的干扰信号以影响ELINT系统的参数测量和分选,进一步影响其对己方雷达技术体制的判断,并通过仿真验证了干扰效果。     

Explaining the security paradigm shift: strategic culture,epistemic communities,and Israel’s changing national security policy

The paper’s main argument is that Israel’s security policy, which traditionally focused on defending its territorial integrity against regular Arab armed forces, was, by the 2010s, transformed into one that focuses on facing a variety of state- and non-state-based threats. Neo-realist explanations could neither account for the contested nature of the security debate during this period, nor the inconsistent evolution of the policy. The present study aims to solve this conundrum by introducing an alternative approach known as 4th generation strategic culture research. The paper is comprised of four parts. First, the origins and evolution of strategic culture are reviewed, with emphasis placed on the commonly accepted weaknesses that, to date, have prevented it from being used as a testable theoretical concept, and subsequently as an explanatory factor for security policy changes. The second part presents the “modernist constructivism” approach that bridges the gap between traditional constructivism and hypothesis-driven research design. Next, the paper introduces the emerging fourth generation in strategic culture literature, followed by a conceptual framework designed to resolve the inherent weaknesses of the more traditional approaches. Finally, this conceptual framework is applied to analyse the transformation of Israel’s security policy between 1982 and 2014.