What is Doctrine?

‘Doctrine’ has been part of military vernacular for at least a century. Nonetheless, it is a concept which is rather under-explored. The aim of this article is thus to break doctrine down into its component parts in order to grasp what a military doctrine actually is. Thereafter, the article points out different ways to utilise doctrine as a military devise. A doctrine cannot be, or rather should not be, all things to all men. On the contrary, doctrine can be a tool of command, tool of education or a tool of change. The main upshot of the article is that the future of doctrine is far brighter than its critics want us to believe.     

Supply licensing when the manufacturer strategically commits to invest in R&D

This article proposes a strategic reason for a proprietary component supplier to license her technology to a competitor or a manufacturer: her anticipation of the manufacturer's strategic commitment to invest in research and development (R&D). We address this phenomenon with a game theoretic model. Our results show that the manufacturer's full commitment to invest in R&D enables the supplier to license, sell a larger quantity through the supply chain, and charge lower prices. These results are robust to the type of demand uncertainty faced by the manufacturer within the class of increasing generalized failure rate distributions. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 61: 341–350, 2014     

The “motivated bias” dilemma in warfare and intelligence

The goal of this article is to challenge the assumption of rationality in the behavior of decision-making units involved in security, defense, intelligence and warfare and to consider the influence of “motivated bias” in such instances. A review of motivational literature within international politics and a discussion of literature applying “motivated biases” to warfare and strategic surprise will offer an alternative view of the primacy of rationality in such decisions.     

A Clash of Wills: Hizballah's Psychological Campaign Against Israel in South Lebanon

This article analyzes Hizballah's war against Israel in south Lebanon as a psychological contest where public opinion, perception, and persuasion were the real determinants of victory. Hizballah successfully mobilized popular support for its war by communicating nationalist and religious themes to different sectarian groups in Lebanon. At the same time, it used classic guerrilla warfare as a carefully calibrated psychological tool to erode the morale of Israeli forces, their Lebanese allies, and the Israeli public's support for the war. Hizballah's sophisticated media capability, particularly combat video footage aired on its satellite TV station and the Internet, played a critical role in amplifying the effects of its attrition campaign. By orchestrating information-age media and guerrilla tactics, this strategy has important implications for the future of irregular warfare.     

Comparison between constant‐stress and step‐stress accelerated life tests under Time Constraint

By running life tests at higher stress levels than normal operating conditions, accelerated life testing (ALT) quickly yields information on the lifetime distribution of a test unit. The lifetime at the design stress is then estimated through extrapolation using a regression model. In constant‐stress testing, a unit is tested at a fixed stress level until failure or the termination time point of test, whereas step‐stress testing allows the experimenter to gradually increase the stress levels at some prefixed time points during the test. In this work, the optimal k‐level constant‐stress and step‐stress ALTs are compared for the exponential failure data under complete sampling and Type‐I censoring. The objective is to quantify the advantage of using the step‐stress testing relative to the constant‐stress one. Assuming a log‐linear life–stress relationship with the cumulative exposure model for the effect of changing stress in step‐stress testing, the optimal design points are determined under C/D/A‐optimality criteria. The efficiency of step‐stress testing to constant‐stress one is then discussed in terms of the ratio of optimal objective functions based on the information matrix. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 00: 000–000, 2013     

Churchill's naval holiday: Arms control and the Anglo‐German naval race, 1912–1914

Brian Johnson, The Secret War. London: BBC, 1978. Pp. 352; £6.50.

R. V. Jones, Most Secret War: British Scientific Intelligence 1939–45. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1978. Pp. xx + 556; £7.95.

Solly Zuckerman, From Apes to Warlords 1904–46. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1978. Pp. 00 (Information not available from publisher); £8.50.

Adrian Preston, ed., General Staffs and Diplomacy before the Second War. London: Croom Helm, 1978. Pp. 138; £5.95.

W. G. F. Jackson. ’Overlord’: Normandy 1944. London: Davis Poynter, 1978. Pp. 250; £6.75.

Richard K. Betts, Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crises. Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 1977. Pp. 292 + index + appendices; Np.

Gerard J. Mangone, Marine policy for America—The United States at Sea. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1977. Pp. 370, £17.50.

F. M. Richardson, Fighting Spirit. London: Leo Cooper, 1978. Pp. 189 + xv; £7.50.

Allen R. Millet, Ed., A Short History of the Vietnam War. London &; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978. Pp. 169; £2.75.

Robert P. Berman, Soviet Airpower in Transition. Washington: Brookings, 1978. Pp. 82; $2.95 (Paper).     

采用空气轴承的大行程快速刀具伺服系统

随着对结构化超精密部件需要的不断增加,出现了加工具有高的表面光洁度以及形状精度的非旋转对称镜片的新技术。根据现有的快速刀具伺服系统,研制出了最大行程为16mm的新型快速刀具伺服系统(图1)。以前的快速刀具伺服系统采用了弹性导向机构,而现在的快速刀具伺服系统则采用了空气轴承,并且用了一个高频直线电机来驱动这个系统。由于采用了一个新的功率放大器,使得这个系统能够最高达到100Hz的频率以及1mm的振动幅度。这篇文章给出了这种新型快速刀具伺服系统的技术细节。