Did the Russian General Staff experiment with free play during VOSTOK-2018?

The VOSTOK-2018 strategic field training exercise (FTX) that took place in mid-September 2018 rehearsed forces’ integration and combat preparedness across multiple strategic directions. Regarding combat readiness, the research question outlined in this paper relates to whether the General Staff experimented with mission-command - a key component of Russia’s modern military thinking. The answer is clearly no: operational creative manoeuvring hardly featured during the VOSTOK-2018 drills for clearly identified reasons. At the systemic level, little room was left for initiatives since the drills focused on implementing and testing command and control (C2) systems. At the structural level, VOSTOK-2018 was not oriented towards mission-command but ‘mission-control’ and streamlining centralised decision-making processes down to the tactical level. At the symbolic level, free play was not exercised due to the participation of China in the drills, and the necessity to impress Chinese military observers.     

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.     

面向战术训练的装备模拟器的设计

模拟器是战术训练系统的重要组成部分,分析了战术训练模拟器的主要功能要求,从模拟器总体体系架构设计、结构和布局设计、设备设计和选型、软件体系设计等方面介绍了模拟器的总体设计内容,分析了模拟器设计中的关键技术,提出了设计中的应对措施。     

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.     

Revisiting the rise and fall of the Somali Armed Forces, 1960–2012

The history of the Somali Armed Forces, principally the army, forms an important part of studying the Somali civil war. Two key themes are evident from 1960: the pursuit of an irredentist agenda beyond reasonable limits, which led to the downfall of Siad Barre’s regime, and the clan divisions and agendas that Barre used to shore up his rule in the 1980s and that have bedeviled the rebirth of the Somali Army in the twenty-first century. With the twentieth-century context covered, and in some places reinterpreted, this article then focuses on the uncertain rebirth of the Somali Armed Forces since 2008, using a host of primary and United Nations official sources. Assistance efforts have been focused on Mogadishu, but limited success has been made in forming truly national armed forces. Future prospects are uncertain, but there are some signs of hope.     

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.     

军用航空机务维修人员安全知识结构评价研究

随着军用航空装备复杂性、安全性的提升,对广大机务维修人员安全知识结构提出了更高的要求。以某机务部队现状为依据,研究航空机务维修人员安全知识结构评价问题。利用工作分析法对航空机务维修人员的工作进行了深入分析,建立了航空机务维修人员安全知识结构指标体系,通过构建基于熵权的改进BP神经网络模型对建立的知识体系结构进行评价。以某单位实际调研数据为基础,利用MATLAB仿真实现了模型的训练和测试,对机务维修人员的安全知识结构进行量化分析,为机务人员的安全知识能力培养提供决策依据和参考。     

军队科研机构推进国防知识产权转化运用

军队科研机构作为国家科技创新体系的重要组成部分,承担了大量科技创新任务,产生了许多具有自主知识产权的高水平科技成果,推动军队科研机构国防知识产权转化运用,是贯彻军民融合发展战略的必要途径。分析了军队科研机构国防知识产权转化的现状及制约转化的现实障碍,并结合实际探讨了推进军队科研机构国防知识产权转化的建议举措。     

无人舰艇技术及军事应用研究

随着无人飞机的大量研发和广泛应用,无人化智能武器越来越受到世界各国的重视。在海洋争端愈演愈烈的今天,世界军事强国又纷纷把目光投向海上无人作战舰艇,无人舰艇技术得到突飞猛进的发展。近期,美国高调宣布将在中国南海打造以"无人飞机"和"无人舰艇"为骨干的"无人军团",以期全面遏制我海军的行动,加强无人舰艇技术研究已迫在眉睫。从世界无人舰艇发展历程出发,详细阐述了无人舰艇的技术特点和应用前景,重点分析了我军无人舰艇发展应用对策。研究表明,无人舰艇作为未来海航作战中不可忽视的力量,必将走俏未来战场,深度改变战争格局。