Conflict dynamics and costs in the Greek Civil War 1946–1949

Using a new set of data from Greek Army sources, US military archives, and Communist Party documents, the paper provides a quantitative analysis of the armed confrontation that took place in Greece during 1946–1949. A dynamic Lotka–Volterra model is estimated, pointing to the existence of a conflict trap that explains the prolongation of the civil war and its dire consequences for the country. A regional analysis finds that the mobilization of guerrilla forces was crucially affected by morphology and the local persecutions of political rivals. Using neoclassical growth-accounting, the economic cost of the conflict is estimated to surpass an annual GDP, in line with similar findings in contemporary civil wars. The same framework is employed to assess the outcome in counterfactual situations discussed in this paper.     

A Critique of the Right Intention Condition as an Element of Jus ad Bellum

According to just war theory, a resort to war is justified only if it satisfies the right intention condition. This article offers a critical examination of this condition, defending the thesis that, despite its venerable history as part of the just war tradition, it ought to be jettisoned. When properly understood, it turns out to be an unnecessary element of jus ad bellum, adding nothing essential to our assessments of the justice of armed conflict.     

Case Study Commentary and Analysis: The Moral Sword of Damocles

Case summary, by James Cook (Case Study Editor):

In the final issue of the 2015 volume of the Journal of Military Ethics, we published a case study entitled “Coining an Ethical Dilemma: The Impunity of Afghanistan’s Indigenous Security Forces”, written by Paul Lushenko. The study detailed two extra-judicial killings (EJKs) by Afghan National Police (ANP) personnel in an area stabilized and overseen by a US-led Combined Task Force (CTF). To deter further EJKs following the first incident, the CTF’s commander reported the incidents up his chain of command and used the limited tools at his disposal to influence local indigenous officials directly. Apparently, the ANP unit took no notice. In his commentary on the case study, Paul Robinson considered moral compromise in war more generally. Coalition troops in Afghanistan, for instance, have encountered not just EJKs but also sexual abuse of minors, killing of non-combatants, kidnapping, torture, and widespread corruption. What should the soldier on the ground do if indigenous personnel violate Laws of Armed Conflict (LOAC) with impunity? Refusing to serve will not right or prevent moral wrongs, while staying on to fight the good but futile fight will mire the soldier in moral compromise. “?… [S]oldiers faced with this dilemma have no good options. The systemic failings surrounding them mean that it is probable that nothing they do will help”. In a concluding note, I suggested that while an individual soldier may indeed have no good options, as Paul Robinson suggests, that soldier’s military and nation at large are obliged to do what they can. At least, they must keep to the moral high ground so as not to give indigenous security forces an excuse to misbehave, and determine the nature of crimes such as EJKs: are they outlaw acts or in fact endorsed by the indigenous culture and perhaps even government? Below Colonel Dave Barnes, himself a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom, analyzes Paul Lushenko’s case study at “?…?the local, tactical level: If a commander is in this situation – where her unit witnesses an EJK or other war crime – what should she do?”     

电子战条件下飞机敏感性分析及其减缩技术

介绍了电子战和飞机生存力及敏感性的内涵,构建了飞机敏感性量化评价指标层次体系。定性分析了电子干扰对雷达探测概率和导弹脱靶距离标准差的影响,并以算例说明了干扰效能的增大会引起导弹制导精度的降低和脱靶距离的增大,从而得出:电子干扰对飞机的敏感性和生存概率有重要的影响。引入了干扰效能因子的概念,并分析了将干信比J/S作为一种干扰效能因子考虑的可行性及优点。最后给出了降低飞机敏感性的电子战措施。     

信息战的内容与现状

详细介绍了信息战的基本知识,重点分析了北约在科索沃的信息战的著名战例,对现代战争的信息战形式和措施也作了阐述。     

军用移动电站战伤修理的若干问题

分析研究了电站平时修理和战伤修理的主要区别,提出了电站战伤评估逻辑图和战伤修理方法。     

基于微分对策理论的信息战模型

基于兰彻斯特作战理论,提出了一个新的微分对策模型来研究在交战双方均有信息战系统协助作战的条件下的最优火力分配策略。又运用微分对策理论对该模型进行分析和求解,并对所得到的结论作出符合战术意义的解释。     

液体火箭发动机控制的新方向

为适应航天飞行任务对推进系统高性能、安全性、可靠性、经济性的需要,在液体火箭发动机控制方面,开展了大量研究工作,出现了一些新方向和新领域。比较集中的研究领域是液体火箭发动机健康(状态) 监控和智能控制。本文介绍液体火箭发动机控制的智能水平演变趋势,健康(状态) 监控系统和智能控制系统的框架、结构,以及与这些系统直接相关的故障模式、传感器技术和故障检测算法。     

The Afghan model in northern Iraq

In Operation ‘Iraqi Freedom’, as the Coalition's heavy forces fought in the South, in the North a handful of special operations forces, working with Kurdish rebels, clashed with the Iraqi army along the Green Line. In operations reminiscent of those used a year earlier to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan, the lightly armed and heavily outnumbered Coalition forces called in air strikes to defeat Iraq's regular and Republican Guard army divisions. This article tells the story of these operations and discusses some of their implications for future US military policy. The success of the Afghan model in Iraq goes a long way toward demonstrating the efficacy of new air-heavy tactics and shows the strategic value of using light indigenous allies to replace heavy US land forces in both conventional combat and occupation operations.     

Westmoreland was right: learning the wrong lessons from the Vietnam War

Fourth Generation Warfare is a theory of contemporary warfare that posits a number of different ideas that are able to shed light on current conflicts. Whilst much of the debate has been concentrated on the linear development of warfare and also on analysis of the current situation of US forces in Iraq, it has resonance for a number of different conflicts taking place in Africa, if only because the US has become involved in contemporary conflicts in Somalia and the Mahgreb. There are clearly significant issues with the US-centric, flawed linear approach to history, but the actual analysis of modes of warfare has much to offer policymakers in a continent that is under-represented in the literature, and is also in danger of being forgotten in the shadow of analysis of Iraq. This paper moves on from criticising the stepped approach to history and looks at patterns of warfare in contemporary Africa, arguing that there is much in the theory that could be used to explain seemingly illogical tactics or patterns, and thus has much to tell policymakers engaged in conflict analysis.

Rebellions can be made 2 per cent active in a striking force, and 98 per cent passively sympathetic.1 ?1. T.E. Lawrence, ‘Science of Guerrilla Warfare’, 1929, published in Malcolm Brown (ed) T.E. Lawrence in War and Peace: An Anthology of the Military Writings of Lawrence of Arabia (London: Greenhill Books, 2005) p.284.