‘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.     

着眼信息化条件下作战需求充分发挥军队律师职能作用

信息化条件下作战对战争各要素提出了更多更高的要求,法律支持与保障作用凸显、不可或缺。作为军事行动法律保障的专业力量,军队律师唯有积极应对战场环境透明化、军事打击快速化、作战行动精确化的作战特点,坚持运用为主,做好平战转化,紧贴作战需求,提供及时、精准的全程化和全方位法律保障,才能充分发挥其职能作用,运用法律武器确保作战意图的最终达成。     

复杂网络理论的防空反导系统网络特征

网络中心战是未来战争的主要作战样式,网络复杂性也是需要研究的重要问题之一.提出基于复杂网络的防空反导系统网络模型,并对网络模型的拓扑结构、统计特征和中心度进行了研究.针对防空反导体系结构问题,复杂网络理论是一种有效揭示网络内部特性的分析工具,对于网络模型的建立和优化具有很好的理论指导意义.     

基于网络中心战的C2BMC信息分发模型研究

美军导弹防御的C2BMC系统是应用网络中心战思想较为成功的案例之一.旨在通过建立其信息分发模型探索其成功原因,达到加深对网络中心战思想理解的目的.首先介绍了C2BMC系统的发展现状,然后对导弹防御系统信息流的类型、特点进行深入分析,提出了导弹防御作战信息分发系统的概念,并在此基础上建立了概念级、指挥结构级和描述级的C2BMC系统信息分发模型,为获取信息优势、建设信息化装备提供理论支持.     

网络中心式空战仿真研究

将网络中心战思想引入空战仿真研究,提出基于复杂适应系统理论的网络中心式空战模型.对网络中心式空战子模型进行设计,使空战单元根据对局部环境的感知所获取的态势信息来调整自身个性,调整规则依据约束变量的设定和决策元规则.通过仿真实验着重考察了具有自适应性的空战单元在空战对抗中的作战表现,实验结果初步验证了其战斗效能优势.     

电子作战目标威胁评估方法初探

为了对电子作战目标进行威胁评估,主要立足于电子战环境,分析了电子作战目标威胁评估的内容与作用,并系统深入地研究了当前常用的目标威胁评估方法,对判断敌情及电子对抗作战指挥具有一定的指导意义。     

A chessboard model of the U‐boat war in the Atlantic with applications to signals intelligence

This paper uses a simple Monte Carlo model to analyze the influence of signals intelligence on the Second World War's Battle of the Atlantic. The principle measure of effectiveness is the number of U‐boat days of attack to which convoys were subjected. A secondary measure is the number of convoyed ships sunk. The model is validated against historical data and then used to explore the effectiveness of the two sides' signals intelligence. Allied use of signals intelligence is shown to have been capable of completely offsetting German use of signals intelligence, and then some. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2005     

Abd el-Krim's guerrilla war against Spain and France in North Africa: An adventure setting for screen melodramas

The Riffian rebel leader Mohammed Abd el-Krim Al-Khattabi (1882–1963) became an important early guerrilla leader by successfully initiating extensively organized resistance in the Moroccan Rif against Spanish and French imperial power in the early 1920s. The Rif War triggered a wave of adventure films since the 1930s. This article will look at some of these, especially Sergeant Klems (1971) and The Wind and the Lion (1975), and suggest that they can be seen in terms of the wider impact of screen Orientalism derived from the iconic film Lawrence of Arabia (1962) directed by David Lean. The article will show that these films promoted what it terms a colonial gaze by underlining many stereotyped cinematic clichés relating to the Islamic cultural area and Abd el-Krim's revolt that stretch back to the early history of cinema.