What is the global landpower network and what value might it provide?

US national security guidance, as well as the US Army’s operational experiences since 2001, emphasizes the importance of working closely with partner countries to achieve US strategic objectives. The US Army has introduced the global landpower network (GLN) concept as a means to integrate, sustain and advance the Army’s considerable ongoing efforts to meet US national security guidance. This study develops the GLN concept further, and addresses three questions. What benefits can the GLN provide the Army? What are the essential components of the GLN? What options exist for implementing the GLN concept? By developing the GLN concept, the Army has the opportunity to transition the GLN from an often ad hoc and reactive set of relationships to one that the Army more self-consciously prioritizes and leverages as a resource to meet US strategic objectives.     

Setting military reenlistment bonuses

The United States military frequently has difficulty retaining enlisted personnel beyond their initial enlistment. A bonus program within each service, called a Selective Reenlistment Bonus (SRB) program, seeks to enhance reenlistments and thus reduce personnel shortages in critical military occupational specialties (MOSs). The amount of bonus is set by assigning “SRB multipliers” to each MOS. We develop a nonlinear integer program to select multipliers which minimize a function of deviations from desired reenlistment targets. A Lagrangian relaxation of a linearized version of the integer program is used to obtain lower bounds and feasible solutions. The best feasible solution, discovered in a coordinate search of the Lagrangian function, is heuristically improved by apportioning unexpended funds. For large problems a heuristic variable reduction is employed to speed model solution. U.S. Army data and requirements for FY87 yield a 0-1 integer program with 12,992 binary variables and 273 constraints, which is solved within 0.00002% of optimality on an IBM 3033AP in less than 1.7 seconds. More general models with up to 463,000 binary variables are solved, on average, to within 0.009% of optimality in less than 1.8 minutes. The U.S. Marine Corps has used a simpler version of this model since 1986. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Inference on a future reliability parameter with the weibull process model

An inferential procedure is presented which provides confidence intervals for a future reliability parameter when reliability growth testing is only partially completed. Hypothesis tests based on this method are uniformly most powerful unbiased. These results are applicable if (1) the system failure rate can be modeled as the intensity function of a Weibull process and (2) efforts to improve reliability are assumed to continue at a steady rate throughout the intervening period of testing. The usefulness of this methodology is illustrated by evaluating the risk of not reaching some future reliability milestone. If such risk is unacceptably high, program management may have time to identify problem areas and take corrective action before testing has ended. As a consequence, a more reliable system may be developed without incurring overruns in the scheduling or cost of the development program.     

基于不确定性理论的研制技术风险评估方法研究

分析了装备研制技术风险的含义,根据技术风险的特点建立了评价技术风险的指标体系。在技术风险度量中引入不确定性理论的概念,并建立了基于不确定性的技术风险的度量方法,对综合技术风险进行评价。最后通过实例验证了综合评价方法的可用性。     

A bayesian approach to evaluating military investments in product improvement and testing

Two issues of frequent importance in new product development are product improvement and reliability testing. A question often faced by the developer is: Should the product be distributed in its present state, or should it be improved further and/or tested before distribution? A more useful statement of the question might be: What levels of investment in further improvement and testing are economically permissible? Products for which this question is relevant may vary widely in type and intended use. This paper presents a model for determining these levels for one such product—an equipment modification procedure. The model presented makes use of present value analysis to compare cost streams and of Bayesian statistics to relate the costs to various outcomes under conditions of uncertainty. The model is applied to an actual military problem and a method is described for examining the sensitivity of the results to changes in the prior probabilities and discount rate.     

Defence R&D expenditure: The crowding-out hypothesis

The impact of defence expenditure on the economy has been widely studied through different types of models. However, the results from these studies have not reached definitive conclusions, and have left a gap in the analysis of the impact of defence R&D expenditure at the economy level. Defence R&D has specific characteristics, which lead to market failures: public good, high risk and uncertainty, national security. Also, defence R&D creates two types of externalities: negative (crowding-out), and positive (spin-off). Crowding-out is the major economic debate about defence R&D. This paper analyses the crowding-out hypothesis by applying three types of models for the UK case: supply, demand, and demand-supply models. From these three models the most reliable is chosen and applied to the individual cases of France, Germany, Japan and USA. The paper also reports the results for the pooled data of these five countries, and for four error component models. The results from estimating such models shed light on the defence R&D crowding-out hypothesis.     

Search and the introduction of improved technologies

Modeling R&D as standard sequential search, we consider a monopolist who can implement a sequence of technological discoveries during the technology search process: he earns revenue on his installed technology while he engages in R&D to find improved technology. What is not standard is that he has a finite number of opportunities to introduce improved technology. We show that his optimal policy is characterized by thresholds ξ_i(x): introduce the newly found technology if and only if it exceeds ξ_i(x) when x is the state of the currently installed technology and i is the number of remaining introductions allowed. We also analyze a nonstationary learning‐by‐doing model in which the monopolist's experience in implementing new technologies imparts increased capability in generating new technologies. Because this nonstationary model is not in the class of monotone stopping problems, a number of surprising results hold and several seemingly obvious properties of the stationary model no longer hold. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2011     

The struggle of a Kantian power in a Lockean world – German leadership in security and defence policy

ABSTRACT

German security and defence policy has undergone substantial transformation. This transformation requires an unprecedented level of political leadership, suggesting that Germany needs to solve the dilemma of how to supply leadership to increasingly demanding partners. What are the conditions under which German leadership can unfold in security and defence policy? To what degree do German role-conceptions of international agency and role-expectations of German leadership coincide? What kind of leadership outputs are produced? This study offers a comprehensive analysis of German security and defence policy in terms of supply (role conceptions) and demand (role expectations). We outline three leadership role conceptions present in the German strategic debate, which we then assess in the context of the Wendtian theory of cultures of anarchy. We then analyse Berlin's leadership in terms of outputs via the case study on Anchor Army and the Framework Nations Concept. We conclude that while Germany has tried to match leadership role expectations both rhetorically and in action, Berlin's leadership inputs have so far been insufficient. This has led to an imbalance in terms of role conceptions and expectations hampering effective German leadership in security and defence policy.     

以科学发展观为牵引实现学员队科学管理

军队院校学员队应坚持以培养人才为中心,坚持理论与实际、学院教育与部队建设相结合,遵循院校教育规律,坚持“解放思想、勇于创新,需求牵引、强化特色,遵循规律、持续发展,突出重点、整体推进,注重质量、讲求效益”的原则,全面推进创新教育和素质教育;加强科学管理、创新管理、从严管理,切实提高学员综合素质。     

Innovation Inhibitors in War: Overcoming Obstacles in the Pursuit of Military Effectiveness

What explains the pace at which militaries adopt new technology? We argue that the hierarchical structure and unique expertise requirements of military organizations combine to empower select individuals as ‘gatekeepers’ of innovation. These individuals acquire beliefs throughout their military careers regarding the nature and means of warfare that act to shape their attitudes towards new military innovations. By filtering, sidelining, and ignoring competing sources of advice and information, these officers actively inhibit the adoption of new, often advantageous, innovations. We develop this argument through the analysis of two cases: the delayed acquisition of breech-loading and repeating rifles by the Union Army during the American Civil War, and the failure of the US Army to adopt an adequate heavy-type tank in World War II.     

The National resistance army (NRA) as a guerrilla force

Africa has had no shortage of guerrilla movements since 1975. However, very few have been successful that have not fought against European colonial rule or white minority regimes. Fundamentally, without external support, these movements have been almost universally failures. One major exception to this rule was the National Resistance Army of Uganda, which overthrew the regime led by General Tito Okello in 1986. What made the National Resistance Army a success and distinct from other guerrilla armies were its sound leadership, its superior organization and its creative strategy.     

Defense Firms Adapting to Major Changes in the French R&D Funding System

The structural changes inside the French innovation system have impacted the role of defense firms since the late 1980s. Major changes have affected the defense budget and public R&D funding system in particular. The aim of this article is to understand French defense firms’ repositioning within the National Innovation System (NIS) based on an analysis of their R&D behavior over a long period of time (1987–2010). We show that French defense firms remain major players in the NIS and faced up to these major changes by adapting the funding of their R&D and their research priorities and rolling out new innovation capabilities. Additionally, they developed new innovation models to take advantage of new collaborative partnerships developed for civil and military markets.     

Integrating the Services and Harnessing the Military Area Commands

ABSTRACT

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is halfway through a multi-decade modernization process. It has begun a major restructuring effort as it shifts its focus from a traditional continental defensive posture to a more maritime-oriented emphasis. In order to create more balanced joint force, it has adjusted the structure of its highest command organization, the Central Military Commission; abolished the former four General Departments and seven Military Regions; created five new joint Theater Commands and service-level commands for the Army and Rocket Force; and is reducing the size of its active duty force by 300,000 personnel. While seeking to overcome numerous internal obstacles, the PLA continues to develop and improve its capabilities to conduct integrated joint operations to deter a variety of threats to China’s sovereignty and territory and, if deterrence fails, to win informationized local war.     

Manpower modeling in cost effectiveness studies of usaf program to reduce the incidence of heart disease

Planning for a cardiovascular disease reduction program, soon to be initiated by the United States Air Force, has required an evaluation of its expected cost effectiveness. During the course of this evaluation, it was necessary to consider manpower flows and their expected changes in response to the disease reduction program. This paper describes several manpower models that were applied: a simple expected value equilibrium model; a cross-sectional model that considered the length of service of personnel; and a staffing model used to optimize the allocation of paramedics to the many Air Force bases of various sizes. The relevance of these models to the cost effectiveness evaluation is shown but the detailed cost effectiveness results are not presented.     

以军民融合式发展思想为指导完善文职人员制度

分析了非现役文职人员制度实行的时代背景、目前存在的主要问题以及解决对策,指出文职人员制度是我军顺应整体社会转型而实行的重大改革,是军民融合式发展思想的重要体现,完善的政策和军地双方的协调沟通,直接关系到这一改革的成败。     

大型复杂装备研制项目群风险管理研究

为有效避免研制项目出现"拖、降、涨"等恶性现象,大型复杂装备研制多采用项目群管理模式,由于同时开放了风险环境,增强了子项目间的复杂交互,使得研制项目群风险管理成为制约项目研制成功率的关键因素。目前装备研制风险管理研究以及项目群风险管理研究多是从静态或局部的角度来展开,虽然也有数值仿真方面的研究,但是对不同风险因素间的动态交互行为,及其进而造成的风险动态演化机制缺乏系统的分析,于是项目群风险演化动力学问题成为下一步的重要研究方向。     

新形势下提高集团军部队实战化训练水平的研究与思考

围绕解决当前制约集团军部队信息化条件下实战化训练水平提升的矛盾问题,着力在浓厚实战化训练氛围、设置实战化训练内容、创新实战化训练方式、创设实战化训练环境、健全实战化训练机制等方面研究提出具体对策措施,并充分发挥战法创新引领、"考比拉"促进、人才培养支撑和作风建设保证的作用,深入推进集团军部队军事训练向实战靠拢,提高部队"能打仗、打胜仗"能力。     

THE CASE FOR DEFENCE

What is the case for defence and is it a worthwhile investment? This question is addressed for two contrasting nations, namely, the UK and New Zealand. Economists have a set of standard analytical tools for addressing the question but they are difficult to operationalise. This paper provides policy‐relevant answers.     

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.     

以科学发展观为指导加强国防生军政课程建设

解放军总部制订的《普通高等学校国防生军政训练计划》,是签约高校抓好国防生在校培养工作的基本依据。作为签约高校,必须以科学发展观为指导,遵循国防生培养规律,正视问题,解决矛盾,破解难题,才能促进同防生培养工作的全面协调可持续发展,确保国防生的培养质量,以适应部队现代化建设的需要。