Croatia's bitter harvest: Total National Defence's role in the Croatian War of Independence

Croatia's successful bid for independence was one of the defining moments of the immediate post-Cold War period. Nevertheless, the means that Croatia used to obtain independence remains relatively unexamined by academics. This article focuses on the early period of Croatia's bid for secession, and specifically the role that Yugoslavia's policy of Total National Defence played in facilitating its independence. Unlike in Slovenia, where the legacies of Total National Defence facilitated Slovenia's bid for secession, in Croatia the decision of its political leaders meant that the country largely neglected its positive legacies, resulting in a protracted four-year struggle.     

中学学习型教师团队建设探索——以华山中学为例

学习型组织具有五个要素,即自我超越、改善心智模式、建立共同愿景、团队学习、系统思考,学习型教师团队同样要符合这些特征。为此,华山中学开展了积极探索,提出创建学习型教师团队的关键是:建立共同愿景,提升生命力;改变学习方式,增强学习力;变革管理模式,培养创造力。初步营造出了凝心聚力实现又好又快发展的良好教育氛围,促进了学校教育实践的全面开展。     

美军思想教育的历史特点与启示

思想教育是加强军队全面建设、完成各项任务的中心环节,各国军队都十分重视。美军是当今世界各国军队建设中总体水平最高的一支军队。其社会制度性质的不同,决定了美军与我军在思想教育内容上有着本质的区别,但美军对军人进行思想教育的方式方法有值得我们借鉴的地方。考察美军思想教育的历史,总结其特点,得出几点启示,目的是为了不断创新发展我军思想政治教育的形式方法,增强实际效果。     

从王安石变法看政策执行的必备要素

政策的执行是一项系统性工作,其中领导者的综合素质、直达基层的领导骨干、及时高效的反馈机制、牢靠的群众基础以及周密配套的实施方案,都是政策执行的必备要素。讨论政策执行的必备要素,对于政策的执行乃至当前的改革,都具有非常重要的现实意义。     

The People’s Liberation Army and China’s Smart Power Quandary in Southeast Asia

Abstract

China has a strong interest in pursuing a smart power strategy towards Southeast Asia and has worked laboriously to engage with regional countries economically, socially, and politically. But China has been only partially successful in achieving its goals in the region. This paper argues that China’s security policy towards Southeast Asia significantly contradicts many other objectives that Beijing wishes to accomplish. Given the deep-seated, narrowly-defined national interests of the Chinese military in the South China Sea disputes, it is likely that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will continue to pose the main obstacle to the effective implementation of a Chinese smart strategy in Southeast Asia.     

Just How Important Are ‘Hearts and Minds’ Anyway? Counterinsurgency Goes to the Polls

Despite all the talk of ‘hearts and minds’ being the key to counterinsurgency, local public opinion is rarely studied and when it is, it often yields surprising conclusions. Through analyzing polling data from Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, this article shows that public opinion is less malleable, more of an effect rather than a cause of tactical success, and a poor predictor of strategic victory. As a result, modern counterinsurgency doctrine’s focus on winning popular support may need to be rethought.     

‘What Kind of War is This?’

This article explores the nature of the American war in Vietnam in an effort to determine whether it was a response to an indigenous uprising or an external effort by the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) to use a wide array of policies and programs to unite North Vietnam and South Vietnam under the party’s leadership. It argues that, although there initially were elements of the South Vietnamese population that rose against the southern leadership, the CPV gained control of their resistance and relegated it to a secondary role in the CPV war effort.     

Myth and the small war tradition: Reassessing the discourse of British counter-insurgency

In recent years a number of commentators have posited that the British reputation for conducting small wars has suffered in the wake of setbacks in Iraq and Afghanistan. The argument here contests whether such a tradition can be truly said to have ever existed. A close examination of this supposed tradition reveals it to be a myth. In fact, rarely have the British armed forces claimed a facility for counter-insurgency or small war. Invariably, commentators outside the Army have ascribed the tradition to them. Most notably, commentators in the United States keen to discern practices of minimum force or rapid institutional learning generated the narrative of British COIN expertise. Ultimately, what this myth reveals is that, when deconstructed, it is political will, not an ingrained understanding of fighting insurgencies, that has determined Britain's success, or otherwise, in so-called small wars.     

Applying a bootstrap approach for setting reorder points in military supply systems

This paper develops and applies a nonparametric bootstrap methodology for setting inventory reorder points and a simple inequality for identifying existing reorder points that are unreasonably high. We demonstrate that an empirically based bootstrap method is both feasible and calculable for large inventories by applying it to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force General Account, an inventory consisting of $20–30 million of stock for 10–20,000 different types of items. Further, we show that the bootstrap methodology works significantly better than the existing methodology based on mean days of supply. In fact, we demonstrate performance equivalent to the existing system with a reduced inventory at one‐half to one‐third the cost; conversely, we demonstrate significant improvement in fill rates and other inventory performance measures for an inventory of the same cost. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 47: 459–478, 2000     

《士兵突击》：军营文化的理性回归

电视剧《士兵突击》关注普通士兵的成长经历和战友情感,阐释现代人生命的意义,从真实表现生活、高扬英雄主义和青春励志等三个层面表达了对和平年代军营文化的理性思考。