Building A New Luftwaffe: The United States Air Force and Bundeswehr Planning for Rearmament, 1950–60

Rearming Germany was a long and complicated process. It was especially difficult to create a new German air force. The army generals who dominated the Bundeswehr cadre did not even want an air force but rather a small arm air corps. Moreover, Adenauer's defense staff failed to adequately budget or plan for a new air force. As rearmament began, US Air Force leaders, working closely with the small Luftwaffe staff in West Germany's shadow Defense Ministry, basically took charge of the process to ensure that the Germans built a new Luftwaffe on the American model – a large, multipurpose force organized as an independent service and fully integrated into NATO. The first Bundesluftwaffe commanders allied themselves to the Americans, often in opposition to their army comrades, to overcome the political problems caused by Adenauer's poor defense planning and create a modern air force on American lines.     

To Be or Not To Be: The Development of Soviet Deck Aviation

Few issues were as contentious in the development of the Soviet Navy as the role of aircraft carriers and sea-based aviation. Despite the continued insistence by the highest naval authorities and scientific experts that surface combatants simply could not be protected in the open ocean without the support of ship-borne aviation, Soviet leaders – for a variety of reasons – resisted aircraft carrier development until the final decades of the Cold War. In examining one of the most defining and telling asymmetries of the Cold War at sea, the author argues that while the USSR was economically and technologically capable of building aircraft carriers of any class, bureaucratic infighting, misperceptions of cost and practicality, and the inherent flaws of a totalitarian system ultimately created an impossible gap in capabilities between the two sides. The priorities and direction of Soviet weapons and defense technology development during the Cold War was largely a factor of the military-political situation taking shape at home, and in the world. As a rule, the navy was assigned missions that corresponded to its capabilities at a given point in time, rather than the other way around. Often, the navy lacked the material resources needed to implement its core mission. The availability of these resources, in turn, depended on the country's economic situation, its scientific potential, the technological state of its industry, as well as the subjective influence of political and military leaders on the priorities of technological development. The impact of the country's socioeconomic imperatives was undoubtedly also felt in the sluggish pace of development of ship-borne aviation and aircraft carriers in the USSR.     

【邀请论文】美军未来司令部探析——成立背景、主要职能与未来前景

新一轮科技革命的快速发展正推动战争形态从信息化向智能化演进。美军作为二战后始终位列世界第一的军事力量,正在积极设计未来战争以应对当前的“大国竞争”,2018年刚刚成立的陆军未来司令部正是在这一背景下产生的。未来司令部隶属于美国陆军,主要负责美陆军新型武器装备的研发、未来作战概念创新以及新兴军事科技的测试和应用。成立两年以来,未来司令部已经拥有了一套完善、严密的组织架构,创造了包括C5ISR作战概念在内的一系列理论成果,在空基导弹、远程精确火力系统等新型作战装备上也取得了众多进展。本文基于大量前沿文献研究,廓清了未来司令部的组织架构,总结了其主要职能,并对这一新设司令部的发展前景进行了展望和预测,期望能够为推进军队现代化和未来化建设提供有益启示。     

GPA条件下我国军队服务采购研究

2019年底,我国就加入《政府采购协定》谈判提交了第7份出价清单,军队作为采购实体首次列入其中。在此背景下,我国军队采购在体制机制上应尽快接轨《政府采购协定》的规则,以适应新形势下军队采购的发展需要。当下,服务采购在军队总体采购中的规模和体量正在日益壮大,而相应的军队服务采购的制度、管理和实践却亟待改进。本文首先从采购模式、运行机制、政策法规、业务发展四个方面介绍了军队服务采购的现状,然后从统管力度、法规制度、运行程序、监督仲裁、目录分类五个方面指出了GPA条件下军队服务采购工作存在的问题,最后针对加入GPA将给予军队服务采购工作的影响,给出了相应的对策建议。     

陆军作战仿真模型标准化研究

模型标准化是规范仿真模型开发,避免低水平重复建设的重要环节。在对陆军作战仿真模型体系进行分析和归纳的基础上,对仿真模型架构、模型构建、模型管理以及模型交互进行了标准化设计,提出了基于插件机制的“柔性”仿真模型架构、仿真实体组件化建模机制、采用“方案－单元－实体－组件”方式的仿真实体管理机制以及采用消息驱动、事件订购和分发方式的模型交互机制。     

What explains the failure of U.S. army reconstruction in Afghanistan?

ABSTRACT

This author wrote his doctorate thesis on post-conflict army reconstruction, submitting it in 2011. Continued research on the subject in the intervening seven years indicates that his theoretical propositions can be refined and improved. This article examines refinements to the model, and then applies those refinements in detail to the Afghan case. In so doing, it shifts the focus from potentially altruistic state-building to a case that was driven by pure national-strategic interests. Issues surrounding the liberal peace ideology dominate recent army reconstruction in conflict-affected states. The liberal peace underpinning is of supreme importance, so much so that in many discussions, it is internalised and accepted virtually without thought. This paper will advance the body of knowledge by establishing, for the first time, a theoretical basis for the widespread failure of army reconstruction in Afghanistan. The empirical basis builds on extensive previous research by other scholars. The resulting model can also be applied to better explain outcomes in other similar cases.