Transforming the Spanish military

The article analyses the Spanish military transformation. This process started in 2004 as a means to adapt the force structure, organization and capabilities of the Spanish military to meet present and future threats in compliance with NATO’s initiatives, thus ensuring the continuity of the equipment modernization, professionalization and the adjustment of the country’s defence architecture to the post-cold war environment. A decade later, although transformation is still a priority for the Ministry of Defence, limited political will, a lack of strategic guidance, poor resource management and the effects of the economic crisis are compromising its development. This article describes the Spanish military transformation and assesses its value in adapting the country’s armed forces to the current and prospective security environment.     

EU armed forces and social media: convergence or divergence?

This article explores how armed forces in EU member states work with and view social media in national and international settings, and what the patterns of convergence/divergence are on these issues. To that end, a questionnaire targeted at EU armed forces was constructed. An index of qualitative variation was calculated to explore the relative convergence among respondents (n = 25) on issues of risks and opportunities with using social media nationally and internationally. Consistent with previous research on European armed forces, we found higher levels of divergence than convergence. Contrary to our expectations that similar challenges, joint international standards, and membership in international organizations would foster convergence with regard to social media use in areas of deployment, we found that convergence appeared foremost pertaining to the domestic level. Policy divergence was strongest in areas of deployment.     

Implementing the Global Strategy where it matters most: the EU’s credibility deficit and the European neighbourhood

The EU Global Strategy (EUGS) is a broad and ambitious document in terms of its geographic scope and thematic priorities. However, the EU cannot devote equal attention to all aspects of the EUGS; so there is still scope for more clarity regarding the EU’s core strategic aims. This article argues that in addition to fostering internal cohesion, the EU’s strategic priority must involve stabilizing its own neighbourhood. This task has challenged the EU for decades because of an inherent credibility deficit regarding the EU’s own capabilities, yet the EUGS does not diagnose and remedy this problem as effectively as it could have. Therefore much more work will need to be done in terms of reforming EU institutions and developing common capabilities if the EU hopes to achieve its central internal and external security goals as outlined in the EUGS and related policy statements.     

Introduction: one-and-a-half cheers for the EU Global Strategy

EU High Representative Federica Mogherini presented her EU Global Strategy (EUGS) in June 2016. Encircled by security crises, it is difficult to think of something more important for Europe than collective action with the aim of weathering the storm. The EUGS, in this respect, seeks to define common ends and identify means. So what do we make of the EUGS? What does the EUGS tell us about the current role of the EU in global affairs? And how will the withdrawal of the UK from the EU affect foreign and security policy? As a way of introduction to the forum, this article notes that the EUGS focuses on the neighbourhood, puts the interests of European citizens first, identifies civilian means, and has created momentum on security policy. The key question, however, remains whether there is any interest in the EUGS beyond the foreign policy elites.     

Analysis of a production system in a general configuration

We consider a production system comprising multiple stations (or workshops) such as an entry station, a set of work stations, a central station, and an exit station, which are arranged in a general configuration. A worker (or a vehicle tool) is assigned to each station, who sends a part from the station to the destination station according to the required process path of the part. Any part is allowed to visit a work station more than once if its process path requires. We propose a new control strategy with the push policy for instructing each worker to send a part and the kanban mechanism for controlling the work‐in‐process (WIP) in each work station. As all work stations have limited local buffers, the central station is used for storing blocked parts temporarily. Such a production system is modeled as an open queueing network in a general configuration with a Markovian part sending policy and a machine no blocking mechanism. The queueing network is analytically characterized. Some important performance measures are compared with other control strategies. A semi‐open decomposition approach is applied to the queueing network for computing the blocking probabilities when parts arrive at the work stations. An algorithm is developed based on the semi‐open decomposition approach. Numerical experiments show the quality of the solutions obtained by the algorithm as well as a property of a performance measure. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 48: 128–143, 2001     

To free or not to free (ride): a comparative analysis of the NATO burden-sharing in the Czech Republic and Lithuania

ABSTRACT

The recent rise in the defence budgets among the NATO members reawakens the free-riding dilemma. This article provides an analysis of the defence spending of two new member states, the Czech Republic and Lithuania. Based on the free-riding theory, we explain why some of the new NATO members decide to increase their defence budgets (Lithuania), and others do not (Czech Republic). In contrast to the majority of works which focus either on the US as the biggest spender or on the “old” members of the Alliance, we explain under what circumstances some of the small European states who became new NATO members started to increase their defence budgets even though they do not have to, and the literature suggests that free-riding is easier. In the process, we identify three crucial factors that in?uence the decision-making process in this regard: the level of threat perception, economic situation, and the US pressure.     

The case for Bush revisionism: Reevaluating the legacy of America’s 43rd president

This article reassesses the foreign policy legacy of George W. Bush in light of the emerging historical record of his administration. We conclude that, whereas Bush’s foreign policy was in widespread disrepute when he left office in 2009, that reputation is likely to improve – perhaps significantly – in the coming years. We identify six particular arguments that lend credence to an emerging ‘Bush revisionism.’ To be clear, we do not necessarily argue that the balance sheet on Bush’s foreign policy was positive, but the arguments presented here are likely to generate a more sympathetic and favorable historical assessment of Bush’s presidency over time.     

Theories of Non-Balancing and Russia’s Foreign Policy

The beginning of the twenty-first century has witnessed the emergence of balancing responses to the US hegemony, among which Russia’s foreign policies stand out as corresponding to what is understood as ‘hard balancing.’ Why is the United States being balanced against? This paper categorizes the existing theories of non-balancing into six conditions that together guarantee the absence of balancing and demonstrates that the current unipolar system can satisfy only one of them. This eases the systemic constraints and makes balancing possible. The paper then presents three cases of balancing with reference to President Putin’s foreign policy. It argues that even though in terms of relative military capabilities unipolarity still holds, the emergence of counter-hegemonic balancing is indicative of important changes in the nature of post-Cold War American domination.     

Small footprint,small payoff: The military effectiveness of security force assistance

After 15 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, many now see ‘small-footprint’ security force assistance (SFA) – training, advising and equipping allied militaries – as an alternative to large US ground-force commitments. Yet, its actual military efficacy has been little studied. This paper seeks to fill this gap. We find important limitations on SFA’s military utility, stemming from agency problems arising from systematic interest misalignment between the US and its typical partners. SFA’s achievable upper bound is modest and attainable only if US policy is intrusive and conditional, which it rarely is. For SFA, small footprints will usually mean small payoffs.     

韩国反导政策:调整、原因及影响

韩国自20世纪90年代起开始考虑反导系统的构建以来,其反导政策经历了"明确反对加入美国反导体系,自主构建韩国型导弹防御系统"到"强化韩美、韩美日反导合作,谋求实质上融入美国反导体系"的显著调整与变化。韩国反导政策的演变与朝鲜核、导威胁的与日俱增、韩国自身反导能力的不足及美国的极力推动等因素密不可分。当前,韩国开始部署"萨德"末段高空区域反导系统,韩美反导合作日益深入,并向韩美日三边合作拓展,且取得了实质性的进展。韩国强化与美、日的反导联合,在军事、外交、安全方面引发了广泛影响。