The practice of strategy: South African defence in stasis

The article concerns the strategy development processes of the South African Department of Defence in South Africa. It intends to identify the probable causes of the observed failure of the South African National Defence Force to develop appropriate departmental policy and military strategy. Military strategy comprises force development, force employment, force deployment and the coordination of these elements in pursuit of national, grand-strategic objectives. (See Dennis M. Drew and Donald M. Snow, Making Twenty-first Century Strategy: An Introduction to Modern National Security Processes and Problems Montgomery, AL: Air University Press, Maxwell Air Force Base, November 2006, 103). Of these four constructs, the article concerns itself only with the first two. The article analyses two complementary approaches to strategy formation: a resource-driven, inside-out model and an interests-driven, outside-in method. The article concludes that the Department is preoccupied with the inside-out method to the lasting detriment of the declared strategic intent of the defence policy.     

Europe,Russia and the Ukraine crisis: the dynamics of coercion

This article analyses European strategy towards Russia during the Ukraine crisis between February 2014 and December 2015, conceptualising it as a coercive diplomatic strategy and analysing the relationship between its ends, ways and means. European strategy sought to reverse Russian intervention. However, this overarching aim was flanked by two ‘constraining’ aims of avoiding an escalation of the conflict and a breakdown of relations with Russia. The strategy shifted between these aims, which proved to be irreconcilable: while the EU partly succeeded in containing the conflict, it failed to reverse Russian intervention and relations between the EU and Russia deteriorated sharply.     

一种基于部分搜索的GNSS模糊度解算方法

为解决LAMBDA算法搜索策略效率不高的问题,提出了一种基于部分搜索的模糊度解算新方法。该方法的解算成功率接近LAMBDA算法,且只需对最后3维模糊度元素采取搜索策略。同时,通过合理设定搜索椭球的大小和搜索策略;大大提高了搜索效率。通过实验对该新算法与Bootraping算法、LAMBDA算法进行了比较分析,进一步验证了该新算法的有效性。     

Why did Sudan Lose a small war in Southern Sudan?

ABSTRACT

When on the wrong end of an asymmetry in the projection of hard power, weaker sides countenance the grim arithmetic of avoiding direct and massed confrontations. Invariably, insurgents have over the ages tended to employ indirect tactical methods to render their stronger opponents ineffective. Ultimately – interest asymmetry, regime type, asymmetries of strategy, and external intervention – combine in a complex interplay and pattern, to militate against a strong side. In Sudan, these factors interacted throughout the civil wars to produce regional autonomy and finally an independent South Sudan in 2011. Similar strategic logic had confronted many large African states battling insurgencies in Ethiopia, Angola, Nigeria, Zaire, and apartheid-era South Africa. Oftentimes, weakening public resolve has caused these governments to accommodate, capitulate or withdraw even if they try not to blink. Notwithstanding the regime type, it can be concluded that the majority of strong actors are prone to fail in a protracted, asymmetric conflict. Hence, the notion of linking victory in counterinsurgency to the degree of openness (democratic polyarchies); or closeness (totalitarianism) – is still valid but highly contestable in the case of Africa’s large dysfunctional states.     

Buy now,pay later: American military intervention and the strategic cost paradox

This paper explores the notion that US efforts to evade the political costs of war paradoxically contribute to the subsequent exacerbation of costs over time. Leaders seek to purchase political capital in the short term by limiting the costs and requirements of military operations, but in doing so cause strategic and political liabilities to mount in the long run. While identification of such behaviour is not new, insufficient attention has been devoted to explaining its causes, dynamics, and manifestations in relation to key decisions on and in war. Evidence derived from studies of recent American discretionary campaigns is analysed to advance an argument with respect to this pattern of self-defeating strategic behaviour.     

Strategy selection: an info-gap methodology

The evaluation and selection of military strategy requires consideration of myriad factors – social, historical, political, geographical and technological – together with vast uncertainties encompassing all these domains. Info-gap decision theory is a conceptual framework that can support these deliberations and that has substantive implications for the formulation, evaluation and selection of strategic goals and of the means to attain them. In particular, while the analyst may desire to reliably achieve the best possible outcome, info-gap theory provides a critique of, and alternative to, the paradigm of optimizing the outcome of a decision. In selecting between strategy alternatives, the analyst must sometimes choose between one alternative that is purportedly better than another, but also more uncertain. Such a choice is a dilemma whose resolution requires the analyst to balance between the different predicted qualities of each alternative and their different vulnerabilities to uncertainty. The dilemma can be managed with the info-gap methodology of robustly satisfying critical requirements.     

基于变异离散粒子群的协同空战攻击决策算法

为了提高智能协同空战攻击决策算法性能,将变异策略引入到DPSO(Discrete Particle Swarm Optimization)协同空战攻击决策算法中,提出了一种新的基于变异离散粒子群(Mutation Discrete Particle Swarm Optimization,MDPSO)的协同空战攻击决策算法。基于典型空战想定背景,仿真验证了算法的有效性。采用对比实验方法,基于准确性、可靠性和快速性等关键性能指标,分析比较了基于MDPSO协同空战攻击决策算法与多种智能决策算法,验证了基于MDPSO的协同空战攻击决策算法有着较好的综合性能。     

水下潜器自导搜索策略仿真平台设计与应用

根据研究实际需求,本文基于作战能力评估理论对水下潜器自导搜索策略仿真平台进行了开发设计,并结合建立的多指标评估体系和相应的评估方法,借助均匀设计法,将其成功应用于水下潜器自导搜索策略的设计优化中。文中首先分析了仿真平台的系统需求,进而确定了其总体构架,并针对自导搜索策略研究的特点确定了相应的人机交互界面。最后给出了进行自导搜索策略仿真优化的基本思路和方法,并通过水下潜器最优自导搜索策略方案仿真研究的实例表明,本文设计的仿真平台和研究方法不仅完全能够满足水下潜器的自导搜索策略仿真研究需求,还能有效节省科研成本,具有重要的工程应用价值。     

美军电子信息装备系统集成技术评析

信息综合集成技术已成为电子信息装备研发的重要手段。叙述了美军最新电子信息装备综合集成技术的发展目标、发展重心和发展措施;介绍了美军信息装备综合集成技术发展策略和方法;分析了其主要功能及技术特性;并对美军电子信息装备的发展现状、技术水准和存在的问题给予了较为客观的评价。     

美国陆军数据战略目标及实施

为深入研究美陆军数据战略目标及实施策略,为我军数据战略研究提供借鉴,文章对美陆军2016年发布的最新《陆军数据战略》进行分析,指出其目标是实现数据的可视化、可获取、可信任、可理解和互操作,并对美陆军数据战略的具体实施策略进行了剖析,指出美国陆军数据战略推动的是美军军事作战理论转型,从"网络为中心"转变为以"数据为中心"作战理念,其核心意图在于以数据优势实现指挥决策优势。