Country survey V: Poland and its arms industry

This study — which is a country survey — deals with basic problems of the functioning of the Polish arms industry in the conditions of systemic transformation, that has taken place in Poland since 1989. It also reflects new political and military conditions and changes in the economic system, commonly called marketization. The study is focused on reasons for the bad economic state of the enterprises engaged in military production, which include a drastic drop in demand on home and foreign markets. The study discusses the main direction of activities that are planned to reshape and adjust military production to the new, changed conditions covering such problems as ownership and organization changes as well as prospects for conversion.     

Impact of atmospheric turbulence on coherent beam combining for laser weapon systems

The performance of a laser weapon system based on coherent beam combining (CBC) depends on its propagation properties in the atmosphere. In this study, an analytical model based on partial coherent beam combining (PCBC) for assumed coherence coefficients between beams in a CBC lattice was developed. The Kolmogorov model of atmospheric turbulence and the Hufnagel-Valley model of Cn2 dependence on atmospheric parameters were implemented. Novel simplified metrics were proposed to assess the CBC performance. Several beam profiles (super-Gaussian, truncated Gaussian, etc.) and ge-ometries were analyzed in terms of maximal intensity in the far field. An approximate formula for PCBC efficiency dependent on the Fried radius was proposed. The results of CBC modeling were compared to those of the Gaussian beam propagation model in a turbulent atmosphere. The dependence of CBC performance on the Cn2 parameter, range, and elevation angle was analyzed. It could be concluded that the application of CBC for medium and long range propagation is impractical without an effective adaptive optics system.     

Why they fight? Reconsidering the role of motivation in combat environments

The current combat motivation model based on primary group thesis assumes that the main force behind motivation is peer-bonding or otherwise known as unit cohesion. Cohesion is perceived as an all-encompassing factor that leads to satisfactory (or unsatisfactory in lack thereof) military effectiveness and performance in conflict environments. However, the article identifies three main problems with this perspective: 1. mono-dimensional view of motivation; 2. motivation based on heteronomy, and 3. self-reporting bias. The current model does not consider motivation as a separate entity from cohesion; it does not place motivation as fundamental human value; lastly, it takes motivation as granted by-product of socialization. The article proposes a new combat motivation model based on The Self-Determination Theory. The theory maintains that human motivation requires satisfaction of three psychological needs of competence, relatedness, and autonomy. The degree of satisfaction of those three needs leads to different types of regulated motivations – a continuum from intrinsic to extrinsic – each of which has specifiable consequences for learning, performance, and well-being of an individual.     

Just and Unjust Memory? The Moral Obligation to Remember All Victims of Wars and Totalitarian Regimes

ABSTRACT

The main purpose of this article is to analyze the philosophical problem of just and unjust memory. There is a general consensus about commemorating fallen soldiers and killed civilians. But, unfortunately, our human memory of such victims is often incomplete. Some victims are remembered, others are not – maybe very few even want to remember the latter. It turns out that in our world, not only wars may be just or unjust, but also the memory of their victims. In this context, a serious problem is the unequal memory of crimes perpetrated by Nazism and Communism in the last century, denying several dozen million victims of the latter totalitarian system their due place in the collective awareness of mankind. Therefore, one of the most important aspects of the ethical analysis of wars and totalitarian regimes should be the moral obligation to commemorate all victims in a just way.