From show of force to naval presence,and back again: the U.S. Navy in the Baltic, 1982–2017

This article discusses roles and missions of the United States Navy with a particular focus on the Baltic Sea. That particular sea has gained renewed political and military attention following Russia's resurgent and increasingly hybrid-offensive foreign policy. Baltic nations, uncertain of what the future holds, ought to look at sea power and maritime missions in the Baltic, as well as US naval presence in Europe, to draw lessons for future posture.     

美军战略传播中的“叙事”策略

随着互联网技术的飞速发展,信息传播对国家政治、经济、外交和国防带来巨大冲击和影响。美军意识到传播叙事是政府和军队塑造形象、谋划战略、输出文化价值观的重要手段。美国从"重讲故事"的角度出发,将"叙事"包装成对外战略传播的新型方式,从思维认知、情感操控、舆论引导等方面强化对对手的心理威慑和影响,同时以新媒体为媒介扩大叙事传播的影响受众,进而达到物理打击所难以发挥的影响。     

Implementing the Global Strategy where it matters most: the EU’s credibility deficit and the European neighbourhood

The EU Global Strategy (EUGS) is a broad and ambitious document in terms of its geographic scope and thematic priorities. However, the EU cannot devote equal attention to all aspects of the EUGS; so there is still scope for more clarity regarding the EU’s core strategic aims. This article argues that in addition to fostering internal cohesion, the EU’s strategic priority must involve stabilizing its own neighbourhood. This task has challenged the EU for decades because of an inherent credibility deficit regarding the EU’s own capabilities, yet the EUGS does not diagnose and remedy this problem as effectively as it could have. Therefore much more work will need to be done in terms of reforming EU institutions and developing common capabilities if the EU hopes to achieve its central internal and external security goals as outlined in the EUGS and related policy statements.     

军用机场阵地对抗不可预见作战的伪装策略

相对固定的军力部署会提前暴露军事意图。为避免此种情况，美军在2018年《国防战略报告》中提出要实现作战的不可预见性。未来美军不可预见的动态军事力量部署一定程度上增加了军事斗争准备难度。为提升军队机场阵地战场生存能力，有必要针对性地调整应对策略，增强对抗“不可预见作战”的能力。本文着眼军用机场阵地，从三个方面分析对抗不可预见作战的伪装策略：首先阐述不可预见作战的特点，其次分析在“不可预见作战”条件下，现有机场阵地在伪装方面的短板，最后提出对抗“不可预见作战”的伪装策略。通过分析认为，为对抗美军新的作战构想，军事机场阵地伪装策略应从战时应用调整为平战结合，应更加侧重平时的伪装训练和伪装工程建设。     

Moving Beyond Population-Centric vs. Enemy-Centric Counterinsurgency

Historically, insurgency is one of the most prevalent forms of armed conflict and it is likely to remain common in the foreseeable future. Recent experiences with counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan offer many lessons for future counterinsurgents, but the discourse on the subject continues to be mired in a traditional dichotomy pitting population-centric approaches to counterinsurgency against enemy-centric approaches. Historical analysis suggests that this traditional dichotomy is not a sufficiently nuanced way to understand or plan for such operations. Instead, discussions of counterinsurgency should focus on two dimensions: actions (use of physical force vs. political or moral actions) and targets (active insurgents vs. insurgent support). This perspective divides the space of possible counterinsurgency efforts into four quadrants, suggesting that effective counterinsurgency campaigns find a balance of effort across the four quadrants that is well matched to the specific context.     

Spaghetti: systems thinking and the US Army

In the mid-2000s, the United States Army was embroiled in counterinsurgency missions in Iraq and Afghanistan that required deeper understanding of local social systems. The Army turned to systems thinking and design thinking to model and understand the world, define problems, and develop approaches to strategic and operational challenges. However, the Army’s approach as expressed in publications and doctrine encourages the development of complicated, unsupported, and unfalsifiable hypotheses. The risk is that the Army will act on incorrect assumptions and develop plans that are fragile.     

Introduction: one-and-a-half cheers for the EU Global Strategy

EU High Representative Federica Mogherini presented her EU Global Strategy (EUGS) in June 2016. Encircled by security crises, it is difficult to think of something more important for Europe than collective action with the aim of weathering the storm. The EUGS, in this respect, seeks to define common ends and identify means. So what do we make of the EUGS? What does the EUGS tell us about the current role of the EU in global affairs? And how will the withdrawal of the UK from the EU affect foreign and security policy? As a way of introduction to the forum, this article notes that the EUGS focuses on the neighbourhood, puts the interests of European citizens first, identifies civilian means, and has created momentum on security policy. The key question, however, remains whether there is any interest in the EUGS beyond the foreign policy elites.     

面向大规模集群的并行I/O用户层配置优化策略

影响应用I/O性能的关键因素主要有三个层次:包括应用的I/O接口实现、体系结构和文件系统组件的性能以及应用的I/O参数配置。从应用I/O配置优化的视角,分析了大规模集群并行I/O的配置调优空间,在此基础上,给出了一套大规模集群并行I/O性能特征测试分析方法。基于该方法,在某国产超级计算集群上开展了一系列I/O测试分析来刻画系统的I/O性能特征,进而指导并行应用程序的I/O配置优化。基于优化后的配置参数,在两类典型的并行I/O场景中,针对某类生产应用程序,8192进程下的重启动数据写操作时间下降了15%,4096核的程序作业加载时间从10 min缩短到了5 s。     

Does Military Spending Nonlinearly Affect Economic Growth in South Africa?

Using annual data collected from 1988 to 2015, this study provides evidence of a non-linear relationship between military spending, economic growth and other growth determinants for the South African economy. The empirical study is based on estimates of a logistic smooth transition regression (LSTR) model and our empirical results point to an inverted U-shaped relationship between military spending and economic growth for the data. Furthermore, our empirical results suggest that the current levels of military spending, as a component of total government expenditure, are too high in the South African economy and need to be transferred towards more productive non-military expenditure in order to improve the performance of economic growth and other growth determinants.     

面向大规模集群并行I/O的用户层配置优化策略研究

近年来，大规模并行场景下的I/O性能越来越受到应用科学家的关注。影响应用I/O性能的关键因素主要有三个层次：包括应用的I/O接口实现、体系结构和文件系统组件的性能以及应用的I/O参数配置。本文从应用I/O配置优化的视角，分析了大规模集群并行I/O的配置调优空间，在此基础上，给出了一套大规模集群并行I/O性能特征测试分析方法，基于该方法，在某国产超级计算集群上开展了一系列I/O测试分析来刻画系统的I/O性能特征，进而指导并行应用程序的I/O配置优化。基于优化后的配置参数，在两类典型的并行I/O场景中，针对某类生产应用程序，8192进程下的重启动数据写操作时间下降了15%，4096核的程序作业加载时间从10分钟缩短到了5s。本文提出的I/O配置调优空间及优化方法，可以推广应用到其它同类系统平台，对于大规模集群上的用户层并行I/O配置调优具有借鉴意义。