Hybrid warfare through the lens of strategic theory

Hybrid warfare is the latest of the terms/concepts that have been used within the defence community in the last three decades to label contemporary warfare. It has been officially adopted in the core strategic documents of NATO, EU and national governments and has already inspired many articles, policy papers and books; however, this paper is unique in the sense that it analysis the hybrid warfare concept through the lens of strategic theory. It is argued that hybrid warfare does not merit the adoption as a doctrinal concept. Strategic theory instead, which lies at the nexus of all dimensions of warfare, provides a better viewpoint to approach contemporary warfare. It concludes that efforts should be directed towards exploring warfare under the light of eternal principles instead of proving the emergence of new types of warfare.     

Asia-Pacific Demand for Military Expenditure: Spatial Panel and SUR Estimates

This article investigates the demand for military expenditure for a sample of key Asia-Pacific countries. Spatial panel demand estimates are presented for three joined spatial units using a fixed-coefficient spatial lag model based on a two-step efficient GMM estimator. Spatial autoregression estimates are next presented for 1991–2015, founded on alternative kinds of country connectivities, such as contiguity, inverse distance, discrete distance, and power-projection considerations. Finally, 11 select countries’ demands for defense equations are estimated using seemingly unrelated regressions. From alternative perspectives, these estimated models indicate how Asia-Pacific countries respond to the defense spending of other countries. In the spatial runs, free riding is prevalent despite the growing military might of China, which apparently is not generally viewed as a threat. For the sample period, the projection of Chinese or American power is a relevant spatial factor. The main threat is reflected in non-U.S. allies’ reaction to U.S. allies’ defense spending during 1991–2015 and to Chinese defense spending after 2002.     

基于特征值的单矢量水听器目标检测算法

针对水下目标检测在低信噪比与非平稳背景噪声情况下性能下降的问题,结合特征值检测算法原理,给出一种单矢量水听器联合信息互相关检测算法。该算法利用电子旋转导向角度与振速信息构成一种组合振速,并结合声压信息得到一种互相关值,在大快拍无信号条件下,该值满足渐进高斯分布;将该值除以解析振速与声压信息的协方差矩阵最小特征值,得到一种检测统计量;通过与门限值比较,实现目标检测。理论分析可见,所提检测算法无须背景噪声的先验信息,并且可以通过调节导向角度提高检测性能;在单目标情况下,利用检测统计量与导向角度的对应关系可实现目标方位估计。仿真与实测数据结果表明,相比于单矢量水听器最大最小特征值检测算法与能量检测算法,所提算法检测性能优良,适合于单矢量水听器目标预警检测。     

美军智能化武器装备体系发展

智能化武器装备体系是军事智能化的基础和前提。智能化武器装备体系的集约高效发展,首先需做到找准定位,精准聚焦。本文针对美军的智能化武器装备体系,梳理了其发展,总结了其在各作战领域的典型作战运用,并分析了其下一步的发展趋势。     

遥感数据用户需求融合处理技术

遥感数据是国家的基础性和战略性资源,在经济建设、国防建设、抢险救灾、生态环境保护等方面得到了广泛的应用,发挥着越来越重要的作用,各行各业对遥感数据的需求也越来越多。因此,如何提高对地观测资源的利用率,提高服务响应速度成为迫切需要解决的问题。采用自然语言处理技术,提出了一种用户需求融合处理方法,该方法可以有效地融合归并相同或者相似的用户需求,实现一图多用,引入需求预测和需求融合技术以提高需求融合效率,从而提高对地观测资源的利用率,达到事半功倍的效果。     

The security sector and the plunder of Zimbabwe’s Chiadzwa alluvial diamonds: the ‘goat mentality’ in practice

While the human rights impact of the deployment of state security agencies in the Chiadzwa diamond fields has been explored, it is important to continue to expose the increasing tendency within the sector to take public resources that should be protected by the state and used for the benefit of the people and channel them for personal gain. The security sector stranglehold of President Robert Mugabe and the ruling political party, the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), has facilitated the siphoning of Chiadzwa diamond revenue into the pockets of individual security personnel. The unfolding sociopolitical crisis in Zimbabwe has also meant that these security personnel have been deployed beyond conflict zones and into traditionally civilian domains, with dire consequences for the public purse. With this in mind, it is asserted that these issues have driven state security agencies to enrich themselves through what is termed in this article as a ‘goat mentality’. The article thus explores the ways in which state security agencies have been deployed and gone on to promote personal enrichment in the Chiadzwa diamond fields.     

Quantitative monitoring of military transformation in the period 1992–2010: Do the protagonists of transformation really change more than other countries?

Military transformation is a complex, slow, asymmetric, changeable, political, and not necessarily completely rational process that clearly needs an effective monitoring mechanism. This paper fills a gap in current literature by creating and testing a model for multi-dimensional and multi-level quantitative monitoring of military transformation applicable in any country. The model is based on 10 transformation indicators that reflect changes in organizational structure, personnel structure, weapon systems, and defense spending. Its application on a sample of seven countries (USA, United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, and China) in the period from 1992 to 2010 unexpectedly shows that the USA – a protagonist in the transformation process among allies as well as globally – has carried out the smallest relative change. The non-directed transformation index indicates that Russia carried out 51.8% more change (or 34.1 index units), and the directed index indicates that Poland carried out 157.2% (or 40.8 index units) more change than the USA.     

New sources of military change – armed forces as normal organizations

The literature on how European states have adapted to the post-cold war security environment ffocuses invariably on different understandings of military transformation, a process which is seen as inherently different from other forms of organizational change. However, as this paper argues, new management practices, going back to the introduction of so-called New Public Management (NPM) reforms throughout Europe in the 1980s, have eventually penetrated also the last bastion of the old state – the defense sector. Taking a critical approach to the idea of military transformation and existing theories of military change, the paper demonstrates how other international developments have pushed towards what may be seen as a “normalization” of Europe’s defense sectors. This has important implications for how we approach and understand change in contemporary defense organizations.     

Soldiering the terrain of war: Zimbabwean soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (1998–2002)

The paper reveals how Zimbabwean soldiers who fought in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (1998–2002) were challenged by the terrain of war. While soldiers are trained to live and fight in dreadful wars, I argue that immersing oneself in the war terrain is neither mathematical nor calculative; rather, war tactics to be employed are defined by the context in which soldiers operate in. When soldiers reflect on and about the war, they unconsciously produce accounts that are often not completely heroic, but a life lived in fear as well an issue that they had never anticipated when they set out to war. A main finding of this study is that while these soldiers were deployed to fight against the rebels, they find difficulties in locating physical features from map reading to the ground, distinguishing the enemy from civilian people and deployed for days without eating a proper meal as well as seeing their fellow soldiers dying in the context of war. The paper provides a vantage point in which we can also understand that trained soldiers do not exert total power over war terrains, they are sometimes challenged by the war situation itself.     

Rethinking military behavior during the Arab Spring

Why did some Arab militaries remain loyal to authoritarian rulers amid mass uprisings during the Arab Spring while others defected to the opposition? One popular explanation shows this variation with reference to the degree of military institutionalization: institutionalized militaries defected, while patrimonial militaries remained loyal. This article argues that the institutionalization hypothesis does not provide a complete account of the mechanisms through which the degree of military institutionalization leads to either defection or continued loyalty. This shortcoming stems from the fact that scholars have treated military institutionalization as a catch-all concept for three distinct variables: ethnic stacking of the military, patronage distribution, and organizational factionalization. Examining the interaction between these variables highlights the mechanisms through which military defection occurs, and therefore that disaggregating institutionalization into its component parts provides a more complete explanation of military behavior during the Arab Spring.