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.     

美军“力量提供者”系统与野营装备建设

以美军“力量提供者”系统为研究对象,介绍其功能参数和模块组成以及部署流程,并对其先进性和不足之处进行综合评价。对照现有野营装备建设现状,提出应该加强野营装备研究、增强战略投送能力、建立专业保障力量等思考,以提高未来信息化联合作战中野营装备建设水平。     

Governmental Re-organization in Counterinsurgency Context: Foreign Policy Program Transfer and Operation Switchback in South Vietnam

Foreign policy program transfer, the shifting of implementation responsibility for a foreign policy program from one organization to another, is a ubiquitous, yet under-studied, counterinsurgency phenomenon. This article conceptually develops program transfer as an important object of study; analyzes, using archival sources, an empirical case of program transfer, Operation Switchback, drawn from US counterinsurgency practice in South Vietnam; and formulates two preliminary theoretical claims related to program transfer: (1) transferred programs will tend to be altered in accordance with the characteristics of the gaining organization, and (2) program transfer may act as a signal or early-warning indicator of foreign policy change.     

‘A Brave New World for Chinese Joint Operations’

A key organizational challenge for all modern militaries is instituting an effective command-and-control (C2) structure for joint operations. China has been a relative latecomer to joint operations, with a persistent weakness in joint C2. Reforms launched in early 2016 sought to overcome this challenge by establishing a permanent two-level joint C2 structure. Although not a ‘tipping point’ that will lead ineluctably to stronger operational effectiveness, this reform is nonetheless an important milestone in an evolutionary process towards better PLA joint operations. The result could be added operational challenges for several of China’s neighbors and the United States.     

Accounting for army recruitment: White and non-white soldiers and the British Army

A statistically based enquiry into recruitment into the British Army over the period 1987-2000 shows that two factors tend to induce young men to enlist: high levels of unemployment in the civilian sector and positive signals from the authorities that the Army is in a recruiting phase. The same result obtains, broadly speaking, in the context of both white and non-white (ethnic minority) recruitment, although the willingness of ethnic minority young men to contemplate an Army career is only about a quarter of that of white men, other things being equal. Correspondingly, the Army shows no signs of reaching the target agreed with the Commission for Racial Equality in 1997 for a 1 percentage point increase annually in the percentage of recruits being drawn from the ethnic minorities. This article has something to say about how the Army might improve its performance in this regard by offering more in-service training and education to otherwise underqualified recruits and concentrating recruitment effort on regions of high ethnic minority unemployment.     

Allies at War: British and US Army Command Culture in the Italian Campaign, 1943–1944

This article compares the philosophy and practice of command in the British and US Armies during the Italian Campaign of 1943–44. It assesses pre-war influences on the command approach adopted by each army, and shows how refinements derived from wartime experience enabled British and American commanders to successfully utilise mission command principles to outfight the German Army in the latter years of World War II. This examination directly challenges the historical consensus that Allied commanders were disadvantaged by an inability to exploit the advantages of mission command, and that the German Army retained superior command practices, despite its other failings, throughout the fighting between 1939 and 1945. These conclusions hold additional relevance to modern military organisations which have emphasised mission command as the optimal solution to effective command in battle since the 1980s, but from an inaccurate understanding of German, British and American command traditions and experience that persists to this day.     

The Morale Maze: the German Army in Late 1918

The state of the German Army’s morale in 1918 is central to our understanding not only of the outcome of World War I, but also of the German Revolution and, indeed, through the pernicious ‘stab-in-the-back-myth’, on Weimar politics and the rise of the Nazis, too. This article presents new evidence from the German archives, blended with statistical analysis, to show that the morale of some units held up better than previously thought almost to the end, and thus to suggest three things. First, it proposes that some historians have placed too much reliance on English-language sources alone, such as British Army intelligence reports, which have various flaws as evidence. Second, it argues that, while historians have increasingly moved away from generalisations about German morale, this process has further to run. Third, it suggests that no single tipping point can be identified, and that morale alone does not provide a sufficient explanation for battlefield defeat. Indeed, much of the data can only be explained if the tactical realities of the war in late 1918 are clearly understood.     

Major Stepan Stebelski of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army: examples of insurgency leadership and tactics

This is a biographical analysis of Stepan Stebelski (‘Khrin’) and his time in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. His military command is an example of classic insurgency tactics and strategies. He was trained in underground tactics before the Second World War, used his image very effectively during his time in the UPA, and used his knowledge of the terrain to become an exceptional enemy against Soviet and Polish authorities.     

Ho Chi Minh and the origins of the Vietnamese doctrine of guerrilla tactics

In a very important sense, the Vietnamese military history of the communist era began in 1941, when Ho Chi Minh prepared ‘Guerrilla Tactics’ (Cach Danh Du Kich).1 ?1. Ministry of Defense Center for the Military Encyclopedia Ministry of Defense Center for the Military Encyclopedia. 1996. Tu Dien Bach Hoa Quan Su Vietnam, Hanoi: People's Army Publishing Company.  [Google Scholar], Tu Dien Bach Hoa Quan Su Vietnam, 69. The publication of this essay, which was a manual on the tactics, techniques, and procedures of guerrilla warfare, preceded the founding of the first armed propaganda unit (Tuyen Truyen Doi Vo Trang) on 22 December 1944, which later became the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN, Quan Doi Nhan Dan); as well as the revolutionary writings of Truong Chinh (1946–1947) and Vo Nguyen Giap (1959). The fact that ‘Tactics’ was published by the Viet Minh reinforces the claim made by the PAVN that it was the first authoritative Vietnamese writing on this important subject.     

Explaining the (il)legality of Uganda's intervention in the current South Sudan conflict

During the night of 15 December 2013, fighting broke out between factions of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in Juba, the capital of the Republic of South Sudan. The fighting pitted forces loyal to President Salva Kiir against those loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar. Five days later, Uganda sent troops into South Sudan, advancing a number of reasons for intervention, including that it had been invited by the legitimate government of South Sudan to ensure order; it needed to evacuate Ugandan citizens caught up in the fighting; it had been asked by the United Nations Secretary-General to intervene; and that the regional organisation, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development had sanctioned the intervention. As the conflict escalated, Ugandan troops started fighting on the side of forces loyal to Kiir. The underlying reasons for the intervention were clearly economic, but those advanced were legal. This article discusses both sets of reasons and concludes that the economic reasons are more persuasive. Nevertheless, while some of the legal arguments (such as being invited by the legitimate government of South Sudan) can be asserted, others are clearly dubious. In addition, the participation of Ugandan troops in the fighting on the side of the Kiir government renders the intervention illegal.