Stranglehold: The Context,Conduct and Consequences of an American Naval Blockade of China

The mounting challenge posed by China's military modernization has highlighted the need for the United States to analyze its ability to execute a naval blockade. A blockade strategy is viable, but it would be limited to a narrow context: the United States would have to be engaged in a protracted conflict over vital interests, and it would need the support of key regional powers. The United States would also need to implement a mix between a close and distant blockade in order to avoid imperiling the conflict's strategic context. If enacted, a blockade could exact a ruinous cost on the Chinese economy and state.     

Germany’s Answer to Standard Oil: The Continental Oil Company and Nazi Grand Strategy, 1940–1942

German grand strategy during World War II included making Europe independent of oil imported from sources controlled by the United Kingdom, the United States, and the USSR. The first step was to wrest control of oilfields. Producing and distributing the oil, however, required the creation of a company capable of replacing the evicted British, American, and Soviet suppliers. Therefore, in 1941, the Third Reich established the Continental Oil Company. Analysis of the company’s foundation and operations sheds light on the objectives of the Third Reich, including the postwar economic development of Axis Europe and the extension of German hegemony beyond the USSR into the Middle East.     

针对国家导弹防御系统突防措施研究

美国为了追求绝对的安全,不顾国际社会的反对,贸然发展其国家弹道导弹防御系统。为了追求世界的制衡,必须研究如何突破弹道导弹防御系统。简述了NMD的发展演变,在分析了美国的国家导弹防御系统构成的基础上,针对其使用的拦截手段,重点分析了弹道导弹突破NMD的7种可能措施。     

Choosing the Right Sidekick: Economic Complements to US Military Grand Strategies

ABSTRACT

Scholars and practitioners of grand strategy agree that the use of military force should be supplemented by appropriate economic policies. However, strangely few accounts of economic complements to military grand strategies have been presented in recent discourse on US grand strategy. This paper takes a first step to fill this information gap. I first assess the role that could be played by economic measures under two types of grand strategies – one focusing on the balance of power and the other emphasising influence and order. Second, I introduce what I call ‘the influence-capability dilemma’ and discuss tradeoffs in adopting certain economic policies in order to help the US sustain pre-eminence in the international system. Third, I discuss how the US should address this dilemma of economic means in dealing with the rising China.     

Resilience as the EU Global Strategy’s new leitmotif: pragmatic,problematic or promising?

A striking difference between the EU’s 2016 Global Strategy and its 2003 predecessor is the ubiquity of resilience as a new leitmotif, understood as the ability of states and societies to reform, thus withstanding and recovering from internal and external crisis. Resilience provides a middle ground between over-ambitious liberal peace-building and under-ambitious stability, (re)directs attention to local resources and practices, and is ambiguous enough to be acceptable to everyone. The Global Strategy’s leitmotif is an example of the rise and spread of resilience in international discourses about crisis management and humanitarian emergencies. Although there are risks inherent to the way in which resilience reframes risks and crises, its added value lies in its power as convening concept, opening up international organizations to new ways of thinking and working, and providing a common ground for engagement.     

基于OODA环的信息化战场信息安全保障SD建模分析?

为深入研究信息化战场信息安全保障,提高保障效能,利用OODA环理论对信息化战场信息安全保障过程进行了分析与研究,明确了观察、判断、决策和行动每个阶段的任务与事件,并运用系统动力学方法对基于OODA环的信息化战场信息安全保障过程进行建模分析和模拟仿真,仿真结果表明随着时间推移,保障方得到的信息增多,判断和决策的正确率也随之增加,OODA环周期开始减小,保障效能随之大幅提升。研究结果对于提升信息化战场信息安全保障效能具有一定的参考价值。     

数据库系统安全模型的设计

本文首先分析了有关数据库安全所需要解决的几个问题,并基于 discretion 和mandatory 存取策略,以及完整性和数据库加密策略,提出了一个较完整的数据库系统的安全模型。     

Contracting Out Security

Private security companies (PSCs) currently receive a great deal of attention in the news media, in sensationalist reporting, and increasingly in scholarly books and articles. While the scholarly books and articles make significant contributions to our understanding of this global phenomenon, there are several impediments to analysis that must be recognized and overcome if analysis is to be improved. Three of these impediments are reviewed in this article. The author suggests that US government material is currently available to minimize impediments and offers a framework to make analytical sense of it. Since contracting out is based on contracts, and unless the complexities of awarding and managing contracts are understood, recommendations made to reform the process of contracting out security are unrealistic.     

Squad leaders today,village leaders tomorrow: Muslim auxiliaries and tactical politics in Algeria, 1956–1962

From 1956 to 1960, the French Army developed a force of Muslim auxiliaries (supplétifs) as a major component of its strategy to combat the National Liberation Front (FLN) insurgency in Algeria. Aside from their military utility in hunting down the guerrillas in the mountains and forests, the supplétifs were instrumental in undermining FLN legitimacy in the countryside. The rapid growth and employment of the supplétif force dismantled FLN political control in the villages, undermined the enemy's unity, and critically weakened the revolutionaries' claim to represent all of Algeria's Muslims. The military and political activities of France's Muslim soldiers also projected an image of Muslim–European unity behind the French cause, and portrayed the French Army as the only legitimate political force in numerous villages. These political successes, however, were limited to the local, tactical level of revolutionary warfare, and the Army was never able to convert the supplétifs into a force of decisive, strategic political significance. They thus had little ultimate impact on the outcome of the conflict.     

The Hunt for Martín Caballero

While the success of Colombia's fight against illegal armed groups, led by Fuerzas armadas revolucionarias de Colombia – ejército del pueblo (FARC-EP), is generally lauded as evidence of the effectiveness of both COIN doctrine and security assistance, the configuration of Colombia's counter-insurgency effort remains largely unstudied. This article will explain the success of one of those campaigns carried out principally by the Colombian marines (Colmar) in an area of northern Colombia known as the Montes de María. Contingent factors shaped the success of this campaign, beginning with the fact that the Montes de María forms an area where insurgents, relative late comers to the region, found it difficult to put down deep roots. However, operations to eradicate them were complicated by the inexperience of the Colmar, and by constraints placed by Colombia's Constitutional Court on COIN methods modeled on those successfully applied by the British in Malaya and Kenya. Therefore, Colmar officers initiated their five-year campaign by building up a base of popular support in the towns and targeting insurgent logistical networks. This bought time to strengthen the Colmar's combat and intelligence capabilities, and take the offensive that eventually isolated and killed the leader of the FARC in the Montes de María, Martín Caballero. Unfortunately, the failure of the Colombian government to follow up the Colmar victory by installing a regional and local governments viewed as legitimate by the population, and to resolve long standing land tenure issues, has meant that, so far, the Colmar looks to have delivered a tactical victory in a strategic vacuum.