Expanding the Dragon’s Reach:The Rise of China’s Anti-access Naval Doctrine and Forces

Among the multiple dimensions of the tous azimuths modernisation of Chinese naval forces, the development of China’s anti-access capacity has recently elicited considerable interest. The important link between this capacity and an overarching vision of the use of force – i.e. a naval doctrine – has, however, often been left implicit. This article shows that the particular development of China’s naval anti-access forces – more precisely, forces with an impact on the naval balance – can be explained by a shift of China’s naval doctrine towards a distinctly pre-emptive posture, which, itself, stems from the set of constraints imposed by the framework of ‘local war under informationised conditions’.     

Delusion of Defeat: The United States and Iraq, 1990–1998

This article challenges the widely held belief that that the United States ‘won the war but lost the peace’ following the war with Iraq in 1991. Fears of a resurgent Iraq grew throughout the decade, despite abundant evidence that Iraq was becoming desperately weak and was no longer a threat to regional security. In fact, the United States won the war as well as the peace by any meaningful definition of the term. The article also discusses the reasons why US policymakers and observers convinced themselves that they had lost. The final section considers implications for strategy and policy in wars of limited objectives.     

Deterring ‘Able Archer’: Comments Arising from Adamsky’s ‘Lessons for Deterrence Theory and Practice’

This is a short commentary on Dmitry Adamsky’s recent article ‘The 1983 Nuclear Crisis – Lessons for Deterrence Theory and Practice’. First, it teases out nuances in the relationship between deterrence and strategy and considers deterrence to be both a strategy and an effect. Second, it explores the culminating point of deterrence in theory and considers it untenable, as it does not conform to the logic of, or to any logic analogous to, Clausewitz’s culminating point of victory. Deterrence logically cannot culminate. Moreover, any culminating point of deterrence would ignore why the potential deteree should perceive the actions of his deterrer in such a way as to render strengthened strategies of deterrence counterproductive. It is the deteree who is the only strategic actor to determine whether the deterrer is actually practising a successful strategy of deterrence or not.     

What Happened to Israeli Military Thought?

Abstract

This article addresses the following question: how can one explain the neglect of the intellectual aspects of the profession on the part of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)? The explanations offered for that neglect are a mixture of cultural and societal factors. The cultural explanation focuses on Israeli strategic culture; the traditional Israeli perception of the combination of rich experience and experience-based intuition as a winning ticket; the tendency to extol improvisation; a cult of material strength; and a strong belief in technology. The social explanation stresses the declining attractiveness of a military career for qualitative young Israelis. The article contends that change can take place only if the IDF undergoes a process of institutional intellectualism – if not willingly then one imposed by the political echelon.     

Insights from a Database of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen Militants

This article uses a novel database of 1,625 posthumously published biographies of members of two Islamist militant organizations (Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM)), all of whom were killed in the course of carrying out militant attacks. In general, each biography provides data on the militant’s birthplace, education, recruitment, and training. The number of observations in this database is a full order of magnitude larger than those of previous databases assembled from militant biographies. While the sample of militants in this database is the product of multiple selection effects, analysis of the database undermines many common myths about Pakistani militants and casts doubt on current policy approaches to mitigating Islamist militancy in Pakistan.     

反恐怖劫持事件中不同目的谈判语言的运用策略

在反劫持谈判中,为了能够解除现场的那种僵持、对抗、凝固的情形,谈判者就得运用不同目的的语言来使劫持者向预期的方向前进。从理论上讲,每一名谈判人员都希望通过和平的方式解决劫持事件。因此,我们必须学会运用反恐谈判讨价的语言、拖延的语言、劝降的语言和摊牌的语言,来使劫持事件得到和平解决或为武力解救行动创造良好时机。     

战术导弹对机场跑道多波次打击时的瞄准点选择方法

为了解决使用战术导弹对机场跑道实施多波次打击时的瞄准点选择问题,在考虑具有先前毁伤效果的累积效应基础上,按照优先打击最小起降窗口、使最小维修窗口中维修工作量最大的思路,设计了一种瞄准点选择方法,可为相应的导弹作战运用提供参考。所附算例说明了文中方法的可行性。     

对岸电子进攻中航母阵位确定方法?

针对航母编队对岸电子进攻作战提出了一种航母编队阵位确定的方法。基于航母编队在对岸电子进攻中的任务,提出了航母编队与岸边距离的基本要求,建立了航母编队与岸边距离的数学模型,仿真计算了模型中各个参数对航母编队与岸边距离的影响。这些模型可用于航母编队在对岸电子进攻中确定航母的阵位,满足航母编队作战使用的需要。     

Lost through non-translation: bringing Clausewitz's writings on ‘new wars’ back in

While Carl von Clausewitz has generally been respected as one of the most profound philosophers of war, his expertise has been regarded as somewhat limited if not even irrelevant to the so-called ‘new wars’ of the post-Cold War world. Many scholars in international relations have claimed that ‘new wars’ are essentially ‘post-Clausewitzian’ and ‘post-trinitarian’ in nature, meaning that they are no longer fathomable through a Clausewitzian framework. However Clausewitz's earlier writings were nearly exclusively dedicated to guerrilla warfare, or what he called ‘small wars’. These writings have been largely overlooked by many analysts of contemporary conflicts. By drawing on his rare and untranslated writings, the article uncovers a critical part of Clausewitz's expertise in asymmetric warfare and shows that, far from being irrelevant in an age where interstate warfare is increasingly being replaced by conflicts between states and semi-/non-state actors, Clausewitz's philosophical writings actually shed new light into the particular interactive dynamics generated during wars waged under conditions of asymmetry.