Space,China's Tactical Frontier

In recent years, China has made stunning progress in its satellite reconnaissance capabilities. Starting from almost no capacity for live surveillance ten years ago, today the PLA has gained the capability to support real-time tactical naval operations from space. China's suite of electro-optical, synthetic aperture radar, and electronic intelligence satellites would be key to its anti-access/area denial capabilities, through which the PLA could deny the United States military the capability to operate with impunity close to its shores. Furthermore, these achievements suggest a shift towards more military-dedicated space assets and form the contours of a crucial support system for expanded PLA operations.     

Are PRTs Supposed to Compete with Terrorists?

This chapter discusses the impact Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) have on the security situation in Afghanistan, specifically in countering the terrorist threat and in counter-narcotics.

The Afghan people define the lack of security as their country's greatest problem. The terrorist activities of groups opposed to the central government and the political process compounded by violence related to the opium trade are seen as the main sources of insecurity. The authors argue that, currently, PRTs should not assume active counterterrorism as an additional main area of operation. The complexity of Afghanistan's security environment and the pressure to have PRTs involved in the counter-narcotics effort underscore the necessity of local knowledge and experience in the PRTs. Participation of indigenous actors, such as NGOs, in the PRT-organisational structure could provide this required expertise.     

Maintenance scheduling for modular systems: Modeling and algorithms

We study new models of scheduled maintenance management for modular systems, consisting of multiple components with respective cycle limits. The cycle limit of each component specifies the time interval in which this component must be repaired or replaced. The goal is to compute a feasible maintenance schedule that minimizes the cost associated with component maintenance. Applications of these models arise in Air Force aircraft maintenance as well as in other arenas with required preventive maintenance. The typical cost structures that arise in practical settings are submodular, which make the resulting models computationally challenging. We develop two efficient and operationally tenable approximation algorithms. We prove constant factor worst‐case guarantees for both algorithms, and present computational experiments showing that these algorithms perform within a few percent of optimality on operationally relevant instances. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 61: 472–488, 2014     

Rethinking Stability in South Asia: India,Pakistan, and the Competition for Escalation Dominance

India and Pakistan are currently engaged in a competition for escalation dominance. While New Delhi is preparing for a limited conventional campaign against Pakistan, Islamabad is pursuing limited nuclear options to deter India. Together, these trends could increase the likelihood of nuclear conflict. India, for example, might conclude that it can launch an invasion without provoking a nuclear reprisal, while Pakistan might believe that it can employ nuclear weapons without triggering a nuclear exchange. Even if war can be avoided, these trends could eventually compel India to develop its own limited nuclear options in an effort to enhance deterrence and gain coercive leverage over Pakistan.     

The pitfalls of learning from historical experience: the British Army’s debate on useful lessons for the war in Afghanistan

Why do armies often fail to transmit and coherently apply lessons from their past? Using the concept of ‘layered organizational culture’, this article formulates a pioneering theoretical argument to explain how military organizations learn from their historical experience. Analysing empirical material from internal debates within the British Army, the article observes an inherent incompatibility between lessons gleaned from, on the one hand, the Anglo-Afghan Wars and, on the other hand, British counterinsurgency campaigns after 1945. This is less a result of actual differences in the external context but of changing organizational ‘filters’: different layers of military organizational culture result in different ways of selecting and transmitting relevant lessons from warfare experience. Older and newer cultural layers can interact and thus contribute to incoherent strategy-making in the present. This argument is illustrated by reviewing the layering process within the British Army since the 19th century. The article shows a shift from emphasizing the specificity of local contexts towards the application of universal principles. This has contemporary relevance: co-exisiting yet incompatible historical lessons contributed to significant incoherence in operational strategy during the initial months of the British deployment in Afghanistan in 2006.