The Dilemmas of US Maritime Supremacy in the Early Cold War

After World War II, the US Navy confronted the challenge of adapting to dramatically altered geopolitical circumstances. Moscow did not have an ocean-going fleet, and early Cold War strategy was dominated by the salient position of nuclear strategic bombing – a mission thought to be outside the purview of the navy. Traditional roles, such as protecting sea lines of communication and supporting ground forces ashore, quickly proved indispensable. However, the navy eventually also succeeded in fielding dramatic technological and institutional innovations, for example, the strategic missile submarine, which enabled the US to successfully leverage maritime power against the continental power of the USSR.     

At war with social theory: Instrumental and communicative action in US military doctrine during the War on Terror

As US counterinsurgency campaigns draw to a close, doctrine for asymmetric warfare written during the War on Terror has come under heavy criticism. While many have argued that this shift to ‘winning hearts and minds’ is evidence that the United States is taking humanitarianism and nation-building seriously, others argue that a wide gap exists between US counterinsurgency doctrine and the protection of civilians afflicted by conflict. In this article, I show that the latter is true by comparing theories of instrumental and communicative action to US doctrine for operational design, stability operations, and counterinsurgency. I argue that these texts treat the people as an object to be manipulated for the achievement of pre-determined self-interested strategic goals rather than members of a community that jointly designs operations to fulfill shared objectives. However, US doctrine does contain communicative elements that, if prioritized, would better support humanitarian and state-building objectives otherwise subordinated in the War on Terror.     

电子时间引信解除保险距离试验研究

通过测量弹丸炮口速度和引信解除保险时间的方法得出电子时间引信远解距离。在介绍某型电子时间引信实现远距离解除保险的方法和机构工作过程的同时,对远解距离进行理论分析,并对试验引信改装的实现方法作了详细说明。在此基础上,进行了电子时间引信解除保险距离测试试验并对试验结果作了分析。     

混编防空导弹网络化作战系统功能体系结构分析

混编防空导弹网络化作战系统功能体系结构分析的目的是描述系统结构、系统功能以及功能间的交互关系。基于网络中心战原理,以区域反弹道导弹为背景,描述了混编防空导弹网络化作战系统反导作战的作战过程及其任务序列;分析了混编防空导弹网络化作战系统的功能模块和功能节点划分;构建了以3层逻辑网结构为特征的混编防空导弹网络化作战系统功能体系结构,分析了3层逻辑网的组成与功能及其相互关系。     

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。     

网络舆论战的理论探析

网络舆论战是一种新型作战样式。加强网络舆论战研究,既是信息化战争的时代要求,又是实现强军目标的客观需要,对于丰富具有我军特色的现代舆论战理论体系,推动我军政治工作的创新发展,具有十分重要意义。文章通过论述网络舆论战的地位作用和主要特点,对开展网络舆论战的基本战法进行了探讨。     

基于知识图谱的现代战争研究趋势分析

运用CitespaceⅡ对CNKI文献数据库中共759篇"现代战争"标题论文进行可视化分析,对"现代战争"研究热点及前沿问题进行剖析,对进一步研究"现代战争"具有一定的借鉴价值。     

‘Full spectrum dominance’: Donald Rumsfeld,the Department of Defense,and US irregular warfare strategy, 2001–2008

This article examines the evolution of US irregular warfare (IW) doctrine and practice from 2001 onwards. It argues that, after 9/11, top-tier civilian policymakers in the US Department of Defense (DoD) and across the US government developed a heightened awareness of asymmetric threats and non-conventional forms of warfare, especially those shaped by contemporary globalisation. The result was a gradual turn towards irregular warfare, led by Rumsfeld and the DoD, designed to ensure ‘full spectrum dominance’ across all modes of conflict. This pre-dated the insurgency in Iraq and the promotion of counterinsurgency in the US Army by General David Petraeus and others. Policymakers' reluctance to acknowledge the insurgency in Iraq was not down to a failure to understand the concept of IW, but because they had viewed Iraq in conventional terms for so many years and were reluctant to admit their mistake.     

The sixteenth-century antecedents of special operations ‘small war’

The first conceptual, theoretical treatises about small war (la petite guerre) as special operations appeared only from the middle of the seventeenth century. The term is not used in the eighteenth-century sense of ‘special operations’ in older sources. The supposed absence of any treatment of the subject is surprising considering the obsession with the ‘art of war’ in the Renaissance, but other authors attribute it to a supposed antinomy between chivalric ideals and irregular warfare. But the absence of explicit manuals on the subject is not evidence of absence of advanced reflection on this kind of operations in the Middle Ages and in Early Modern times. We should thus look elsewhere, in other genres, for writings that contain and pass on military knowledge. Epics, romances, educational and military treatises, and memoirs in fact contain elements of a theory of special operations, even though these genres differ from our conception of rationality inherited from the Enlightenment.     

Guerrillas and bandits in the Serranía de Ronda, 1810–1812

The Spanish Guerrilla (1808–1812) which has given its name to ideologically motivated insurgencies is usually portrayed as a patriotic uprising against the French occupation forces of Napoleon. It was that, in part, but also many other things besides. This case study illustrates its overlap and convergence with banditry but also with social unrest turned into uprisings directed by poor Spaniards against their creditors, as in the storming of Ronda by insurgents in 1810. From the propaganda of the day to the subsequent Spanish patriotic historiography, there has been a tendency to exaggerate the amplitude of events and also the damage that was done to the French forces and the casualty figures inflicted on them.