Irregular Forces Research Articles

Lebanon's Armed Forces and the Arab-Israeli War, 1948––49

In military histories of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Lebanon's role, however minor, is almost entirely missing. This article seeks to fill this gap with a detailed examination of the involvement in the war not only of Lebanon's army but also of the irregular forces——notably the Arab Liberation Army——operating separately from its territory. The analysis——which covers the military and political constraints affecting both actors, their military performance, and the implications of their performance——is located within the historiographical debate on the 1948 war, and more specifically within the context of the Israeli ““new history”” approach of debunking the David versus Goliath argument.

Can Reading Clausewitz Save Us from Future Mistakes?

Answering question: No, though to read commentators, we'd never know An Author for All Seasons Some works are so broad in scope, so inclusive, even of contradictions internal to themselves, that they can be used to justify almost anything. One such book is that patchwork written over many centuries and by many hands that we call Bible. For Renaissance, it was Virgil's Aeneid, opened at random to provide divination (Sortes Virgilinae). For Victorian era, it was works of Shakespeare, a mine of quotable quotes removed from their contexts. For theorists of in last several decades, it has been Carl von Clausewitz's On War. The Weinberger Doctrine of 1984, for example, considered by many strategists template of first Gulf War, is both drawn from and cites Clausewitz. (1) Widely held to have summarized lessons of Vietnam War, former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger's six points for committing troops called for broad public support before engagement and a clear definition of objectives, things that were presumably lacking in case of Vietnam. Weinberger invoked Clausewitz to justify necessity of defining objectives clearly: No one starts a war--or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so--without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war, and how he intends to conduct it. Clausewitz's most celebrated assertion, however, as almost all commentators point out, is that war is a continuation of policy [or politics: German is Politik] by other means. This is linked to his equally famous of violence, chance, and subordination, which is commonly represented as people, military, and government. In recent years this trinity has typically been invoked to justify necessity of achieving backing of people. Weinberger refers to this in fifth of his points. And his final point, that the commitment of US forces to combat should be a last resort, seems a reasonable conclusion from Clausewitz's insistence that is not separate from politics, but a continuation of In Second Gulf War as in first, (second) Bush Administration was clearly acting with an eye to this reading of Clausewitz. After all, Administration achieved widespread domestic if not international support precisely by defining its reasons for war. To be sure, these have changed over time. Initially Administration beat a largely one-note drum of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to justify invasion. More recently, absent any such weapons found to date, justifications given have been those of removing a dictator and establishing a democracy in Iraq. (2) Much post-Vietnam theory is like Weinberger's in invoking Clausewitz as patron philosopher of decisive, well-supported, and purposeful action. Usually it tries to show us in hindsight what went wrong, and how paying attention to Clausewitz could have steered us right from start. The problem is that what counts as decisive action for one viewer may count as a colossal misreading of situation for another. Those who disagreed with Administration invoked Clausewitz as well. Randolf T. Holhut quotes Clausewitz's most famous phrase and then goes on to propose that real reason Administration went to was because Iraq was a test case for using bombs to accelerate privatization of a nation's economy. (3) Administration critic William S. Lind, in an article titled A Warning from Clausewitz, quotes Clausewitz to warn that statesmen and commanders must be clear about what sort of they are fighting. (4) The Administration might with justification have responded that they were very clear about this. According to Lind, Administration was trying to fight a second generation (nation against nation) war, when in fact what it should have been embarked upon was much less well defined fourth generation involving irregular forces, fifth column fighters, and guerilla actions. …

The Illusion of Control: Force and Foreign Policy in the 21st Century

Seyom BrownWashington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2003. 196pp, US$46.95 cloth (ISBN 0-8157-0262-0), US$18.95 paper (ISBN 0-8157-0263-9)As American military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan deepens, American citizens and foreign policy experts consider and debate US interventionist policies in today's international system. Seyom Brown, the Lawrence A. Wien professor of international cooperation at Brandeis University, informs this debate by providing a thought-provoking treatment of US national security posture in The Illusion of Control. Brown contends that there is a growing willingness by US government officials to use military force to achieve American foreign policy objectives and that a number of important structural variables have contributed to that trend. He is concerned that this development runs counter to long term US national interests and that certain guidelines are warranted that would temper the propensity to choose military solutions in complex international situations. He proposes a thoughtful list of guidelines for readers to consider.Brown observes that America's muscular diplomacy is derived from three key developments in the post-Cold War world. First, the international system has shifted from a bipolar to a polyarchic system in which US hegemony is challenged by a wide variety of both state and non-state actors. Second, in response to the increasing scope and diverse nature of potential threats to the US in today's polyarchic world, the author concludes that government officials are increasingly inclined to threaten the use of force in order to maintain control. Finally, given the major technological developments associated with the revolution in military affairs, or transformation as it is currently referred to, contemporary policy-makers function under the illusion, in Brown's view, that military force can bring an unprecedented degree of controllability to the conduct of war. Brown concludes, however, that these developments and the policies which they have evoked are unwarranted and can lead to unwise decision making.Although Brown describes historical examples of instances in which US officials decided whether or not to intervene using military force, he provides no empirical aggregated data that demonstrate that contemporary policymakers in Washington are more inclined to pursue military solutions than before. Because of the public rhetoric of the Bush administration in this regard, it is understandable that one could conclude that a greater propensity to intervene now exists. The matter, however, begs quantitative research, which Brown does not provide. Nor does he address this important idea using Graham Allison's bureaucratic decision-maker model in which the particular identities and interactions among specific policy-makers define the directions in which policies are made. It is possible, if not likely, that key policy-makers with specific agendas define general characteristics of foreign policy decisions in each administration, and that those characteristics can shift dramatically from one administration to the next. An investigation of such players who serve in succeeding administrations could help develop the notion of whether or not a long-term trend supporting increased usage of military force in fact exists.Control by military means is the second major theme of the book--a dangerous illusion according to Brown. Proponents of the revolution in military affairs believe that technological developments in weaponry will permit military interventions that minimize collateral damage yet overwhelm opponents' military capabilities. Battles currently being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, however, demonstrate the significant limitations of high technology equipment even against irregular military forces. Perhaps those limitations are only now being understood by policy-makers. Initial recommendations and decisions to intervene in Iraq and Afghanistan might well have reflected high confidence borne of the relatively painless interventions of the first Gulf war and against the former Yugoslavia. …

Who Owns the Rules of War? The War in Iraq Demands a Rethinking of the International Rules of Conduct

The war in Iraq requires a rethinking of the rules of conduct in war, international humanitarian law. The nature of assymetric warfare in the conflict has turned out to be less a question of technological disparities than the weaker side turning to systematic violations of the laws of war as its method. Over time, we risk creating an international system in which it is tacitly assumed and permitted that the weaker side fight using systematic violations of the law as its method. Part of this trend arises from the biases of 1977 Protocol I which blessed activities of irregular forces operating without uniforms and commingled with civilians. While the United States rejected this protocol partly because it objected to reductions in the level of civilian protection in the protocol, it was endorsed by most leading human rights organizations, seemingly out of a preference for internationalism rather than caring about the fundamental substantial issue of civilian protection. The trend of the last twenty years which has shifted ownership of the laws of war - the ability for shape and interpret them - from leading militaries to international NGOs has gone too far, and ownership of the laws of war and their meaning needs to shift partly back to the state practices of leading democratic sovereign states that actually fight wars.

Evolution of Wide Star Pairs Owing to Irregular Forces

The dynamic evolution of wide star pairs (separated by ∼104 AU for typical galactic conditions) under the influence of random interactions with background stars during transits is studied theoretically. Transits which form a roughly equilateral triangle at some time are considered. The combined effect of many transits can be separated into systematic “heating” of the pair plus random diffusion over the Kepler elements a and e. The corresponding Fokker-Planck equation is derived and its range of validity indicated. A steady state distribution over a and e is obtained.

View from the Wolves' Den: The Chechens and Urban Operations

In 1998, the United States Marine Corps was presented with an opportunity to conduct interviews with Chechen commanders and key staff officers who participated in combat operations against Russian forces in the 1994–96 conflict. While the interviews have seen wide distribution through unofficial channels, these first-hand accounts have not been officially published or presented in any professional journal. Excerpts from selected interviews are presented here and are intended to provide insights on urban operations that pit conventional against irregular forces. Topics covered in this study include the first battle for Groznyy, the recapture of Groznyy by the Chechens, urban ambush tactics, logistics and intelligence. These are the recollections of some of the key Chechen personnel and as with all first hand accounts of combat operations; the natural bias and limited perspective of the participant, the overall military and political situation at the time of occurrence and the possible agenda these participants might harbor must be taken into consideration before drawing definitive conclusions.

Ellet's Brigade: The Strangest Outfit of All

Chester G. Hearn has written a detailed organizational and operational history of the little-known Mississippi Ram Fleet and Mississippi Marine Brigade during the Civil War. Primarily, it is a study of how the Ellet family conceived the fleet of rams, organized the marine brigade, and recruited personnel. Hearn provides insight into why more than a dozen members of the Ellet clan simultaneously fought each other for command, feuded with Union army and navy bureaucrats, and battled the Confederate enemy as they struggled from 1862 to 1864 to help Adm. David Dixon Porter and Gen. Ulysses S. Grant gain Union control over the lower Mississippi, Yazoo, and Red rivers. Authorized by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, these units performed naval and amphibious operations for both War and Navy departments. Neither the Union army nor the navy fully incorporated these irregular forces in regular chains of command, however, or gave the Ellets clearly defined missions. So the Ellets sent their units off on their own, developing concepts of riverine warfare as they went. The rams might be found smashing Confederate boats on the Mississippi River to secure Union control of Memphis or helping Grant besiege Vicksburg. Next, the amphibious force could be seen wandering about interior Arkansas, raiding local plantations in search of contraband cotton or burning Rebel villages. The Ellet brigades seemed to be undisciplined, almost paramilitary units. Nevertheless, Hearn contends persuasively, they contributed to Union success on the rivers of the Confederacy and should not be neglected by historians.

Linear and nonlinear irregular waves and forces in a numerical wave tank

A time-domain higher-order boundary element scheme was utilized to simulate the linear and nonlinear irregular waves and diffractions due to a structure. Upon the second-order irregular waves with four Airy wave components being fed through the inflow boundary, the fully nonlinear boundary problem was solved in a time-marching scheme. The open boundary was modeled by combining an absorbing beach and the stretching technique. The proposed numerical scheme was verified by simulating the linear regular and irregular waves. The scheme was further applied to compute the linear and nonlinear irregular wave diffraction forces acting on a vertical truncated circular cylinder. The nonlinear results were also verified by checking the accuracy of the nonlinear simulation.

The Long Seventeenth Century in Latin America

During the last thirty years, the nature of historical chronology has changed drastically. Fernand Braudel was among the first to show that historical time is neither uniform nor linear, but rather multiple, irregular and socially determined. However, Braudel and his followers have merely carried to an extreme a conceptual revolution already initiated by Marc Bloch in the 1920s. In his studies on the Middle Ages, Bloch identified several time scales: the linear time of Christian history, the circular time of nature and liturgy, the times of the peasant, the townsman and the merchant, and so on. In short, historical time has been transformed in such a way as to prompt a new search for direction and order in historical studies. The new concept of different and irregular time scales forces us to continually redefine the duration of certain phenomena in order to understand them. Chronologies no longer have the same enduring character that provides a definite and reassuring order for the past, as positivism and historicism had claimed to do. In order to be useful at all, chronologies have to be diverse and indicate dates demarcating durations, if only because it is now a generally accepted fact that the time scales of collective mentalities are not the same as those of the economy, politics, or demography.

The Romance of War, or the Highlanders in Spain: la Guerra Peninsular y la novela británica

Wellington's Peninsular campaigns aroused considerable interest among British historians and reading public throughout the nineteenth century and even into the present decade of the twentieth century. The most recent historian of the war, David Gates, in The Spanish Ulcer (1986), counts some three hundred published personal memoirs and diaries, mainly British, in his bibliography. The war in the Iberian Peninsula was savagely fought by British, Spanish, Portuguese, and French troops, as well as by Spanish and Portuguese irregular forces (the guerrilleros). When not fighting, British and French troops at times fraternized and observed a chivalrous respect for each other. The sufferings caused by the war were immense, including the looting and devastation of French-occupied Spain, the starvation of many Spaniards and Portuguese, and a very high casualty rate among the troops involved. Indeed, British soldiers frequently collapsed and died under the excessive loads they were compelled to carry'.For the British, the campaign represented the success of a small and previously despised army, under the remarkable leadership of Wellington, over Napoleon's veterans. Spanish historians, on the other hand, stress the Spanish contribution to the successful outcome of the war.

IRREGULAR WAVE LOADING ON A CONICAL STRUCTURE

The horizontal forces, vertical forces and overturning moments exerted by waves on a fixed model of a 45" conical structure are presented. Irregular wave loading tests were conducted for a range of conditions described by base diameter on peak period wave length D/Lp from 0.31 to 1.76, water depth on peak period wave length h/Lp from 0.11 to 0.63, and significant wave height on peak period wave length Hm./Lp up to 0.07. Time series records, spectral densities and transfer functions for the irregular wave loading tests are used to illustrate the nonlinear nature of the measured wave loads. In most cases, similar trends in wave loading were observed for irregular and regular wave tests. For deep-water waves, the irregular and regular force measurements showed spectral peaks at the second harmonic of the wave frequency even though the waves themselves had relatively small second-order components. However, unlike the regular wave loading results, the fundamental spectral peak frequency for the irregular wave forces occurred at a frequency considerably lower than the peak frequency of the waves. Although linear diffraction theory provided a reasonable estimate of the wave forces for waves of low steepness, larger deviations were often present for higher wave steepness results. Comparison of theory and experiment for overturning moments was generally very poor for most wave conditions.

Response of guyed tower to irregular waves for linear and nonlinear behaviour of mooring cables

The dynamic response of a guyed tower to irregular waves has been studied by the finite element method. Hydrodynamic interaction is taken into account by the added water mass concept, and the fundamental frequencies are determined using (i) a lumped-parameter two-dimensional beam model and (ii) a three-dimensional truss finite element model. The effect of the mooring guy lines is simulated using one-dimensional boundary elements. The example structure analyzed is the Exxon test guyed tower erected in water of 89.3 m depth in the Gulf of Mexico. The measured wave height – time history reported by Exxon is used to determine the wave forces. Irregular wave forces are computed using the linearized Morison's equation. The nonlinearity of the mooring system is computed using an iterative technique in which the cable configuration is corrected using successive solutions. The tower response in terms of offset-time history to wave forces is determined for both linear and nonlinear cable behaviour. The computed frequencies and the responses agree reasonably well with the available measured values. Key words: guyed tower, irregular wave forces, linear and nonlinear mooring cable stiffness, dynamic response.

A comparison of hip joint forces in sheep, dog and man

The hip joint forces of sheep and dogs were measured with instrumented endoprostheses and the results were compared with reported data concerning these forces in man. In all animals load directions with 0 to 30° inclinations relative to the femoral axis predominated. The transverse components mostly acted from medio-ventral directions. While the force orientations varied little during each single stance phase, they changed rapidly during the swing phase. Strong inter-and intra-individual differences of load directions were found in all animals. Irregular forces, acting upwards or transverse to the femur, were frequently observed. Maximum joint forces were up to 110% of body weight and depended more on the postoperative time than on the walking speed. Load orientations in the animals were similar to those reported for man. In this regard sheep and dogs appear equally well suited for tests of hip endoprostheses for man.

WAVE FORCES INDUCED BY IRREGULAR WAVES ON A VERTICAL CIRCULAR CYLINDER

In order to examine the irregular wave forces on a small diameter cylinder, laboratory experiments have been conducted on water particle velocities and wave forces with various kinds of irregular waves. As the results, it is indicated that the time variation and the spectral distribution of wave forces can be calculated adequately from the water level variations by using the methods proposed by Reid1' and Borgman2' respectively. Moreover, with respect to the irregular wave forces on a large diameter cylinder, a new calculation method was shown by means of applying Reid's linear filters1' to MacCamy and Fuchs's diffraction theory.

WT4 Millimeter Waveguide System: Mechanical Design of Sheathed Waveguide Medium

The mechanical design of the sheathed waveguide medium for the WT4 System provides means for the fusion joining of waveguide modules into a continuous transmission line and for limiting the distortions added by the joining and installation processes. In addition the fusion-joined steel sheath guarantees a much higher degree of protection for the medium than is present in any of the existing long-haul transmission lines. A summary of the development program of the sheathed waveguide medium used in the recent field evaluation test is presented herein. Results are given of the study conducted to establish the welding procedures used and steps in the evolution of the welded coupling design are reviewed. A discussion is given of the behavior of the two-stage mechanical filter that attenuates the effects of the irregular soil forces acting on the sheath. Estimates of the field test losses attributable to the joining and installation processes are also given.

The military in development

All the wars since 1945 have taken place in the poorer parts of the world. The military coup has become the rule rather than the exception in Third World countries. Budgetary outlays by Third World governments are, in general, dominated by military expenditure while roughly half the technology imported by Third World countries is military-related. These facts alone, and many more could be cited, indicate the importance of the military contribution to the process of economic and social change in the Third World. And yet the subject has received remarkably little scholarly attention. Most of the work was undertaken by apologists for the US military aid programme in the early ‘sixties; the analysis tended to be scant and the substantiation anecdotal. There were a couple of more solid statistical studies but these did not reach very definite conclusions. A lot of information about the size of military spending, the size of armed forces, and the size and nature of military equipment has been collected at a number of research centresl but by and large this is not directed towards any specific analysis so that its usefulness is limited. Similarly, there have been a considerable number of historical studies of the armed forces in Third World countries but these have largely analyzed the role of the military in politics and in war, ignoring the implications for economic and social development. Finally, much of the classical Marxist literature on militarism is relevant to the subject but it is only recently that radical critics of the military have attempted to apply these ideas to the current situation in Third World countries. This survey summarizes what has been or could be said about the military in development from a reading of this disparate literature. Inevitably, it tends to attribute a coherent body of thought where none exists. Inevitably also, there are major gaps; for example very little has been written about the role of irregular or guerilla forces and about post-revolutionary armies the Red Army in the Soviet Union and the People’s Liberation Army in China, both of which have contributed in fundamental ways to development processes. The topic is examined in the light of two aspects of the military which are common to all societies. The first is the role of the military as organized force. The use of this force whether explicitly in war or implicitly through political intervention, can determine the balance of power, the complexion of government and the prevailing social and economic conditions. The second aspect of the military is its role in the allocation of resources, whether or not this is part of a conscious policy. The armed forces absorb resources people, equipment, money but they may also mobilize resources through the concentration of skills, infrastructures, etc. The interesting questions are about the various forms these aspects take in different societies and whether we can generalize about the forms taken in the Third World.

Role of irregular forces in weakly nonstationary self-gravitating systems

Role of irregular forces in weakly nonstationary self-gravitating systems

An Experimental Study of Irregular Wave Forces on a Coastal Dike

ABSTRACTThe force caused by the wave action on a dike is one of the main factors in the design of coastal dikes. In order to make clear the relationship between incident waves in deep water and wave forces on a dike, experimental investigations were carried out in a wave channel equipped with an irregular wave generator. The main interest lies in the effect of wave irregularity.The frequancy distribution of irregular wave forces changes from wide distribution in deep water to narrow one in shallow water. The relationship between the significant wave height and the significant wave force which is defined by the same method as that for the wave height is expressed as P1/3= wH (h+1.25 H1/3). In addition, an approximately constant response is obtained over the frequency range in which the major wave energy is contained. As far as the waves attack a dike in a breaker zone, there is no large difference between irregular and regular waves because of the narrow distribution of wave heights.

An Experimental Study of Irregular Wave Run-Up on a Coastal Dike

ABSTRACTThe force caused by the wave action on a dike is one of the main factors in the design of coastal dikes. In order to make clear the relationship between incident waves in deep water and wave forces on a dike, experimental investigations were carried out in a wave channel equipped with an irregular wave generator. The main interest lies in the effect of wave irregularity.The frequancy distribution of irregular wave forces changes from wide distribution in deep water to narrow one in shallow water. The relationship between the significant wave height and the significant wave force which is defined by the same method as that for the wave height is expressed as P1/3= wH (h+1.25 H1/3). In addition, an approximately constant response is obtained over the frequency range in which the major wave energy is contained. As far as the waves attack a dike in a breaker zone, there is no large difference between irregular and regular waves because of the narrow distribution of wave heights.

FLUID FORCE ON ACCELERATING BODIES

The force exerted by a liquid on a moving body always depends on the preceding velocity and acceleration of the body. The Basset-Lai equation, derived from the linearized equation of motion, gives the force on spheroids when convective acceleration of the water particles may be ignored. Examples prove that the history integral it contains accounts for a large portion (even all) of the force. Measured forces on a cylinder anchored in accelerating water show that history is equally important when convective accelerations are large. An important unanswered question is whether history terms that will fit a range of motions can be invented for simple non-linear problems. For non-linear repetitive motion, such as the force exerted on piles by regular waves, no explicit history term is needed. The usual division of force into inertia and velocity portions is possibly less sound than a suggested alternative form from dimensional analysis. One cannot expect to unravel the hydrodynamics of irregular wave forces, but he may use similarity principles to predict their probability distribution from measurements made elsewhere. Irregular waves will be statistically similar, altho mean heights may differ greatly, if the probability distributions of suggested characteristics of the gage records are alike. Given similar waves and structures scaled to the waves, the probability distributions of dimensionless wave forces also will be alike, and the forces at one place can be predicted from measured forces at another.