美国陆军网络装备作战评估及启示

作战试验能有效地推动装备体系的建设发展,本文通过分析美国陆军网络集成评估与联合作战评估的作战试验特点,提出军队开展装备作战试验的几个建议。首先,总结了美国陆军网络集成评估到联合作战评估的发展演变,主要包括网络集成评估的地位和作用、网络集成评估的实施流程以及13次网络集成评估和3次作战评估的有关情况;其次,分析了网络集成评估的一系列作战试验特点,诸如实际作战需求牵引、逼真场景构建、试训一体化模式、部队战斗力的直接生成以及作战能力的军民融合式发展等;最后,提出了网络集成评估带来的若干启示,从满足实战能力需求开展作战试验、突出装备体系的互操作能力评估、探索试训结合的作战试验模式、组建专门的作战试验部队及鼓励工业部门参与作战试验等方面推动军队作战试验的发展。     

美国陆军官方网站多模态话语分析与军队形象建构

本文以Kress、Van Leeuwen和 Painter等学者的视觉语法理论为基础,从再现意义、互动意义和构图意义三个方面对美国陆军官方网站“相册”栏目进行多模态话语分析,挖掘网页的符号资源,探寻多模态语篇生成意义、传递信息和构建形象的具体机制。在此基础上,借助Halliday、Hasan、Bateman和Bhatia等学者的多模态语类分析理论,探究模态间的互动关系,分析网页的整体设计、语类特点和宣传手段等。研究发现,该网站通过象征意义、情感互动和显著性差异等手段,影响读者对美军的认知,引导读者对美军产生积极联想,从而回避现实问题,为美军塑造正面形象。在深入发掘网页的交际目的、结构潜势和互动机制的基础上,搭建多模态语类分析框架,揭示军事网站设计和社会文化背景的复杂关系,助力军队形象建设。     

Bringing Military Conduct out of the Shadow of Law: Towards a Holistic Understanding of Rules of Engagement

In this article, I outline a holistic approach to the military concept of “Rules of Engagement” (ROE), which complements the legal aspects of ROE with considerations of operational and political requirements for the use of military force. Drawing upon two illustrative cases from the US military experience with the use of ROE, I demonstrate that ROE for any particular military operation should be formulated to balance optimally, if not harmonize fully, the legal, operational and political concerns related to the use of force. In this task, political decision-makers and military practitioners alike are confronted with unavoidable and real-life dilemmas. How these dilemmas are handled has significant implications for how legal requirements concerning accountability and concerns for civilian lives in military combat can be preserved through ROE.     

Buy now,pay later: American military intervention and the strategic cost paradox

This paper explores the notion that US efforts to evade the political costs of war paradoxically contribute to the subsequent exacerbation of costs over time. Leaders seek to purchase political capital in the short term by limiting the costs and requirements of military operations, but in doing so cause strategic and political liabilities to mount in the long run. While identification of such behaviour is not new, insufficient attention has been devoted to explaining its causes, dynamics, and manifestations in relation to key decisions on and in war. Evidence derived from studies of recent American discretionary campaigns is analysed to advance an argument with respect to this pattern of self-defeating strategic behaviour.     

Introduction

ABSTRACT

The new nuclear history can make a critical contribution by forcing us to reconsider or reframe the theoretical premises of the concepts we apply to our understanding of the present – and with which we try to navigate the future. It bears on fundamental questions, such as: How should the US manage its alliances? Should it establish a multilateral nuclear policy dialogue in Asia? In what depth should it discuss issues of doctrine and targeting with its Asian allies? What capabilities might reassure European allies in light of current Russian revisionism? Could nuclear war be limited and controlled in an East Asian maritime arena? Do nuclear weapons strengthen an alliance, or do they introduce a divisive bone of contention? Is extended nuclear deterrence (END) stabilizing or is it on the contrary pushing the allies to ask for more? What is the relationship between nuclear and conventional forces in END credibility? How do nuclear alliances contribute to international security and international order? The lessons and insights from these papers, which look at five historical cases of US extended deterrence during the Cold War, should help us think about crucial current issues, and be of use both to historians who want to have a better understanding of the Cold War past and to policymakers who are currently grappling with these issues.     

Bridging the Gap: Mobilisation Constraints and Contractor Support to US and UK Military Operations

The increasing use of private military and security companies (PMSCs) has attracted considerable scholarly attention due to its corrosive effects on US democracy. Drawing on neoclassical realism, this article provides a comparative dimension to the study of the political drivers of military privatisation by analysing contractor support to US and UK operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Domestic political constraints have shaped both US and UK response to the need for more boots on the ground, increasing the propensity to use contractors as a force multiplier in spite of their problematic impact on military effectiveness.     

Pakistan’s response to US foreign policy towards South Asia 1977–1993

Relations between the USA and Pakistan have been tenuous since the 1947 partition of British India and the subsequent creation of the former. The 1979 Soviet intervention in Afghanistan focused the attention of the international community on South Asia. This article will examine the foreign policies of three successive US Presidential Administrations between 1977 and 1993, and how their decisions and corresponding actions were interpreted by the Pakistani government and its people. The key finding is the trend of the ebb and flow of US interest in Pakistan. The primary research conducted for this article shows that Pakistanis recognize this trend and consider it hypocritical of the US government. The current conditions in South Asia are ominously similar to those of 1992 with the drawdown of US and NATO troops from Afghanistan. Policy-makers would be wise to review the events of 1977–1993 so that the cycle is not repeated again.     

基于模糊层次分析法的装备采购风险评价

针对装备采购风险评价中的目标模糊、难以精确化问题,综合运用模糊Delphi法,模糊数的排序理论和模糊语言变量决策方法,提出了装备采购项目风险评价的模糊层次分析法,较好地解决了传统层次分析法自身存在的问题及其评价过程中的模糊信息处理问题,算例分析结果证明了方法的合理性和有效性.     

From rivals to partners: AirSea Battle and the US air force–navy relationship

AirSea Battle (ASB) has generated significant publicity, controversy, and debate among scholars, analysts, commentators, and observers of US defense strategy. However, a research gap exists concerning formal analysis of the impact of the operational concept on the relationship between the US Air Force (USAF) and the US Navy (USN). The impact of the ASB operational concept on the USAF–USN relationship is examined across the issue areas of strategy, budgets, weapons procurement, and training. These four issue areas represent important areas of historical conflict and competition between the Air Force and Navy. The conclusion is that ASB is ushering in a new era of Air Force–Navy partnership that advances the inter-service dynamic from “jointness” toward integration. The emergent USAF–USN partnership therefore represents a significant development in US defense politics and defense strategy.     

Epidemics,national security,and US immigration policy

What are relationships between epidemics, national security, and US immigration policy? This question is important because it sheds light on transnational or nontraditional security areas, American immigration policy, and a pressing issue for US leaders who have recently faced epidemics such as the West Africa Ebola outbreak that began in 2013. This article answers it and lays ground in the area by reviewing epidemics in world history, using International Relations and Security Studies works to specify dangers of contagions for states, and identifying three general immigration measures that American leaders have utilized from the seventeenth century to the present day to protect against contagions, which are (1) policies restricting entrance of foreigners thought to carry specified diseases, (2) the isolation or quarantining of immigrants with contagious disease, and (3) delegating the President with authority to stop immigration in the event of an epidemic abroad. This study has implications for research and contemporary US immigration policy.