Contrasting the Impacts of Combat and Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Relief Missions on the Mental Health of Military Service Members

Abstract

We study the differential impacts of combat and humanitarian assistance/disaster relief (HA/DR) missions on the mental health of U.S. Marine Corps members. The deployment experiences of any individual Marine are plausibly random conditional on the observable characteristics which are used to assign Marines into units. Leveraging this exogenous variation, we compare the incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and suicide deaths among Marines who deployed to either Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) or HA/DR missions between 2001 and 2011. We find that the hazard of PTSD is close to eight times higher among Marines returning from OEF/OIF compared to those never deployed, and just 1.33 times higher among those returning from HA/DR (and never participated in OEF/OIF). Those returning from OEF/OIF missions are 1.81 times more likely than those never deployed to die by suicide when they were still active duty, and the hazard increases to almost 3 after they have left the military. In contrast, we find no difference in the hazards of suicide death between those that deployed to only HA/DR missions and non-deployed Marines.     

见证中国海军战略的创建——纪念刘华清诞辰100周年

刘华清1982年出任海军司令员后,以现实海洋环境为依据,以毛泽东、邓小平战略思想为理论指导,以军事战略方针为全局决策指导,锐意创新,用5年时间,创建了系统的海军战略,落实了邓小平"近海防御"战略思想,突破了单一战略局面,推动了海军宏观决策的跃升,进而推进了海军的全盘工作。作者曾参与了系统海军战略的初创,本文全面回顾了这一历史过程,并对海军战略文本用"作战+建设"论取代"战争全局"论,文本表述未能体现刘华清贯彻毛泽东"战争全局"论的不足及影响作了澄清。     

小型舰艇的历史定位与中国式均衡海军

如何构建一支均衡的海军舰队,一直是困扰各国海军发展的一个重要问题。当前中国海军正面临从以潜艇为主力的舰队结构向更为均衡的结构发展的关键时刻,未来中国海军舰队应采取什么样的结构,是继续保持以小型舰艇为中心,适当发展大型水面舰艇,还是以大型水面舰艇为中心,以小型舰艇为辅助的结构模式?本文从小型舰艇的战略意义、德国和苏联海军的经验教训以及新中国海军的历史发展三个方面探讨了这一问题。     

Scheduling combat logistics force replenishments at sea for the US Navy

The Replenishment at Sea Planner (RASP) is saving the U.S. Navy millions of dollars a year by reducing fuel consumption of its Combat Logistics Force (CLF). CLF shuttle supply ships deploy from ports to rendezvous with underway U.S. combatants and those of coalition partners. The overwhelming commodity transferred is fuel, ship‐to‐ship by hoses, while other important packaged goods and spare parts are high‐lined, or helicoptered between ships. The U.S. Navy is organized in large areas of responsibility called numbered fleets, and within each of these a scheduler must promulgate a daily forecast of CLF shuttle operations. The operational planning horizon extends out several weeks, or as far into the future as we can forecast demand. We solve RASP with integer linear optimization and a purpose‐built heuristic. RASP plans Replenishment‐at‐Sea (RAS) events with 4‐hour (Navy watch) time fidelity. For five years, RASP has served two purposes: (1) it helps schedulers generate a daily schedule and animates it using Google Earth, and (2) it automates reports command‐to‐ship messages that are essential to keep this complex logistics system operating.     

The United States and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) in East Asia: Connecting Coercive and Non-Coercive Uses of Military Power

Abstract

Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) is increasingly important for East Asian militaries, but there is little scholarship on how HADR relates to broader national strategies. This article considers US involvement in HADR in East Asia in relation to changing conceptions of national power. HADR is frequently described as use of ‘hard’ military assets to further soft power goals. Looking at recent US experiences, this article shows that HADR also serves instrumental ends linked to traditional military objectives. Rather than considering power as ‘soft’ or ‘hard’, it argues that HADR illustrates connections between non-coercive and coercive uses of military power.     

Walking the Line: Brokering Humanitarian Identities in Conflict Research

ABSTRACT

Increasingly, academic research in conflict-affected contexts relies on support from humanitarian organizations. Humanitarian organizations constitute sites of study in and of themselves; they partner with academics to roll out surveys or randomized program interventions; and they frequently facilitate security, logistics and transportation for independent researchers. We use a research partnership between IRC, the World Bank, and academic researchers in the UK, the US and eastern DR Congo, to explore the effects of humanitarian affiliation on conflict field research. In investigating when, how and under what conditions humanitarian identities are adopted by researchers (and how these affiliations shape research dynamics) we identify three paradoxes. First, “wearing humanitarian clothes” to facilitate research logistics can both facilitate and constrain access. Second, humanitarian affiliations invoked by researchers to ensure security and protection in volatile research sites can undermine the “insider” status of local staff. Finally, working through humanitarian organizations allows local and international researchers to benefit from the protections and privileges afforded to humanitarian employees without providing any of the services on which privileged access rests. In this article, we map out decisions faced by local and international researchers concerning when to adopt and discard humanitarian identities, and the fraught logistical, ethical and methodological consequences of these decisions.     

面向新任务插入的电子侦察卫星任务规划方法

针对电子侦察卫星在执行初始侦察计划的过程中新任务动态到达的情况,以最大化完成任务优先级之和,并使新任务到达后,对原侦察计划调整最小为目标,建立了具有两级优化目标的动态约束满足模型,提出了一种基于启发式规则的动态插入算法,最后通过仿真实例,对模型和算法进行了验证,实验结果表明算法一定程度上能够满足卫星新任务插入后使得原始...     

《孙子兵法》谋略思想对武警部队执勤、处突的启示

中国人民武装警察部队（以下简称武警部队）作为我国的一支重要武装力量,担负国家赋予的安全保卫和维护社会稳定任务。在当前日益复杂的斗争形势中,完成执勤、处突任务不仅要具备过硬的军事技能,而且也要善于运用谋略。《孙子兵法》中所蕴涵的“道义”、“庙算”、“知彼知己,百战不殆”等谋略思想,对武警部队执勤、处突具有很强的借鉴意义。     

舰船尾部振动的水弹性模型

采用三维水弹性理论导出了舰船尾部振动的流固耦合运动方程式;用三维结构混合有限元和三维流体边界元建立了舰船尾部振动的水弹性分析离散模型．提出了中型水面舰艇尾部整体振动的预报方法;编制了相应的计算机程序．对两型舰艇的尾部振动进行了分析计算,结果表明,预报值与实测值比较吻合．研究结果可对中型水面舰艇的减振降噪设计提供预报手段,从而改善舰船的尾部振动环境．     

Being there: US Navy organisational culture and the forward presence debate

ABSTRACT

This article argues that the US Navy’s roles (which have historically been bifurcated between warfighting and political use of force) manifest in its organisational culture as two different concepts of war: the US Navy as diplomatic actor and the US Navy as warfighting force. The conflict between these different concepts of war can be seen in the current debate about the definition and function of presence. The debate about presence is not just theoretical, but represents a deep and enduring conflict within the Navy as an organisation about its concept of war. Since the end of WWII, the Navy has been designing its fleet architecture according to a Mahanian concept of war, despite the preponderance of non-lethal missions and activities. The result is a mismatch between platforms and tasks.     

Measuring Military Professionalism in Partner Nations: Guidance for Security Assistance Officials

The U.S. spends billions of dollars in its security cooperation program to develop “professional, accountable, and capable security forces” in other nations, part of a grand strategy to improve global stability and counter violent extremism. Despite its great investment in professionalizing foreign militaries, however, the U.S. has no functional definition of military professionalism – a term that until now has been considered too vague and multi-faceted to operationalize. In this article, the author seeks to remedy this oversight, drawing from twenty years of security cooperation fieldwork in Latin America and Africa, as well as a vigorous literature review, to define four important components of military professionalism: (1) formal military education and vocational training, (2) military subordination to elected civilian officials, (3) knowledge and practice of the law of armed conflict and human rights law, and (4) a clearly established program of professional military ethics. This article provides guidelines for U.S. and European officials who work with partner nations to develop more professional military forces and, in particular, for officials managing security assistance programs with developing countries.     

弹药供应站配置地域选定辅助决策模型

建立了用于评估弹药供应站配置地域的指标体系, 利用层次分析法对各个指标进行了权重分配, 得到了弹药供应站配置方案的择优方法, 并运用模型进行了模拟决策。本模型已经在计算机上编程实现。     

Innovation for seapower: U.S. Navy strategy in an age of acceleration

ABSTRACT

A call for innovation as a means to outpace the acceleration of technological change and to bolster capabilities quickly is a central theme of contemporary U.S. Naval Strategy. The need for innovation is accepted, but the integration of readily available technologies into the Fleet is slow. Innovation unfolds according to “Navy-Time,” a cycle lasting between a long-decade and thirty-years. To accelerate the innovation process in the U.S. Navy, the article offers a Concept of Operations for Innovation that outlines how a deliberate process of analysis, weaponisation and integration can move new ideas and weapons into the Fleet in a strategically relevant time-frame.     

孙吴益州战略论析

益州战略是孙吴建国初期即定下的图取天下的基本战略。赤壁之战后,孙吴着手实施益州战略,由于复杂的三国政治、军事、外交以及地理形势等因素的作用,刘备集团占据益州,孙吴最终无法实现益州战略。基于现实,孙吴修正了益州战略,以略取、经营益州为主变为防御、联合益州为主,从而与蜀汉形成矛盾统一的关系。益州战略贯穿孙吴历史,深刻影响三国政局。     

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.     

舰炮武器动态精度海上试验精度分析

提出了在海上进行舰炮武器动态精度试验的必要性.以现有GPS的定位精度为基础,根据误差传递理论,并借助符号运算工具,对海试中作为真值的目标参数的精度进行了仿真计算与分析.结果表明:在海上进行舰炮武器动态精度试验是可行的.     

论思想政治教育激发官兵履行新使命的自觉精神

新世纪新阶段我军历史使命为国防和军队各项建设指明了新的发展方向,也对我军思想政治教育提出了更新更高的要求。广大官兵作为履行我军历史使命的实践主体,决定了思想政治教育必须努力探索激发其自觉精神的有效途径。这对于开发官兵履行我军新使命的强大精神动力,提升军队战斗力具有重要意义。