Military Doctrine Research Articles

Israel’s inter-war campaigns doctrine: From opportunism to principle

ABSTRACT What started as opportunistic operations has gradually given rise to Israel’s prevailing military doctrine of Inter-War Campaigns (IWC). This article provides a comprehensive analysis of a phenomenon that has shaped conflicts in the Middle East, one that has been overlooked in the literature. The IWC utilises advantageous conditions to formulate continuous military campaigns below the threshold of severe conflict. This article argues that the IWC creates and manages limited competitive conflicts intended to mitigate adversaries’ force buildup in preparation for war. It provides the first account of the doctrine’s development, analyses its enabling factors, and discusses its degree of success.

Tackling Verification and Validation Techniques to Evaluate Cyber Situational Awareness Capabilities

Since cyberspace was identified as a domain of operations, defence practitioners started a race with academy, researchers, and industry and military organizations working together towards defining related lines of capability development (e.g., DOTMLPFI) and exploring the needs and opportunities they entail. An essential cornerstone of adapting to the convergence of the cyber domain with conventional theaters of operation is the need for producing tools for easing to acquire cyber situational awareness (CSA), from which human operators shall be able to perceive, reason and project situations and events observed in cyberspace that may vertically/horizontally propagate from technological to tactical, operational and strategic planes. Benefiting from the higher maturity level of civilian capabilities for cybersecurity, the military sector has embraced the challenge of creating related beyond state-of-the-art CSA enablers that comprise the existing technological background while adopting concepts such as operations, missions or courses of action (CoAs), properly aligning them with military doctrine. Beyond ongoing development efforts, there is a wide methodological gap in the lack of suitable CSA verification and validation (V&V) frameworks, which are expected to analyze if related capabilities meet the requirements to operate in the military context; at the same time supporting the thorough development life-cycle of brand new cyber defence technologies. With the motivation of closing the identified gap, this research introduces a novel V&V framework able to guide the evaluation of CSA-related tools, which makes converge purely military aspects with dual-use state-of-the-art V&V approaches. Three core CSA evaluation concepts are discussed in-depth: software, operational and application tests. They range from the daily application of new capabilities to their ability to enable the acquisition of a joint operational picture understandable by human decision makers.

A legal review of sieges in modern war

Abstract This paper examines the relationship between Western military doctrine, international law, and the impact of sieges in war. This paper examines three case studies – the battles of Mosul (2016–2017), the Second Battle of Donetsk Airport (2014–2015), and Ghouta – to analyze the effect of international law on the conduct of sieges and how that impacts the attacker, the besieged, and the innocent bystanders. In the end, we find that Western military doctrine is inadequate to address siege situations, which in turn can result in mishandling siege situations from an international law standpoint. Additionally, we find that international law, as well as applied law, provides the actors therein sufficient leeway to create the conditions for the siege to continue to be used well into the future.

Applying Political Knowledge in Modern Combat: How the U.S. Military Can Use Social Science to Achieve Cross-Cultural Competency

Culture is a prominent theme in U.S. military doctrine, and the Department of Defense has invested much effort in improving the cultural competency of military professionals. This article utilizes first-person reflections of the author, a political scientist who worked in an advisory capacity for the Army in Afghanistan in 2012, to support arguments for applying the social sciences as a way to address the need for improved cultural competency training provided to military personnel. Observations are described, followed by brief analyses of how knowledge of social science concepts, methods, and theories proved to be an instrumental means through which the author’s missions were understood at the time and ultimately conducted in a manner that improved the chances of success. This article therefore provides a unique perspective on the value of social science education, specifically political science, to obtain cultural competency among military personnel engaged in modern combat operations.

Russia's evolving military strategy in response to NATO expansion: Continuity and changes

This article analyses the changes and continuities in the Russian Military Strategy in response to NATO’s expansionist policies. The methodology used is inter-disciplinary in nature as the discourse is based and conceptualised in the historical context with social insights into the contemporary development of events. The paper is divided into two sections: the first concerns NATO’s expansion, both during and after the cold war period; and the second examines the proposed Russian Military Strategy in response to NATO's increasing eastward expansion. It is concluded that Russia’s national security concepts and evolving expressions of military doctrine closely follow the process of NATO's expansion. The nature of forward deployment, defence concept and military strategy that NATO adopts are decisive in formulating and influencing not only Kremlin's perception but also its reaction, especially in the military field to alliance enlargement.

INDIAN MILITARY DOCTRINE AND ITS IMPACT ON SOUTH ASIA’S STRATEGIC STABILITY

India’s aggressive military doctrine exploits the questionable space for a limited war under a nuclear overhang. This doctrine is designed to dilute, if not fully compromise, the notion of nuclear deterrence. Indian military high command has often boasted about waging a conventional war against Pakistan. India’s unilateral decision to repeal Kashmir’s special constitutional status has further exacerbated the volatility of the hitherto conflict-prone environment in South Asia. India’s doctrine manifests in the offensive deployment of S-400 missile systems along Pakistan’s border, further supplemented by the positioning of Dassault Rafale fighter jets. While it might temporarily alter the region’s strategic stability equation, Pakistan must rebalance this shift in its strategic stability. There is a need to review the notion of strategic stability as it applies to the region’s nuclear balance of power. This paper analyses India’s aggressive military doctrine fuelling its desire to wage a limited conventional war against Pakistan, examines the effects of growing military asymmetry, evaluates the impact of the short but swift military action in February 2019, and finally endeavours to determine the stabilizing impact of the nuclear deterrent on South Asia’s strategic stability. Bibliography Entry Ali, Muhammad, and Syed Mussawar Hussain Bukhari. 2022. "Indian Military Doctrine and Its Impact on South Asia’s Strategic Stability." Margalla Papers 26 (1): 74-84.

The front line transporter as the embodiment of the USSR military doctrine in the middle of the 20th century

The paper based on a source analysis of the history of creation, design, and production of LuAZ-967, LuAZ-967M, against the background of the processes of implementing projects of small tactical high mobility wheeled vehicles for the armies of European countries, shows that the developing, testing, and commissioning a front line transporter became a deepening of the process of motorization of the Soviet army. The designs of similar vehicles have been analyzed. An attempt to assess the degree of uniqueness of the front line transporter design and its place in the history of technology, as well as its potential as a reminder of science and technology has been made. The experience of using various civilian and military vehicles in the army required the creation of a special small transporter. In each of the countries, developing their designs, embodying new original or time-tested ideas, ones developed vehicles both for the army and for separate armed forced formations. Features of the automotive industry of the countries were reflected in the design of army vehicles. The works and operation Volkswagen Type 82, Volkswagen Schwimmer Type 166, DKW Munga, Volkswagen Type 181 in the armed forced formations in Germany had a significant impact on the spread of the concept of an army small transporter. In France, production of a licensed sample of Willys and the original Citroën Méhari was launched. The Steyr-Daimler-Puch vehicle (Austria) has become one of the most original, successful developments of a small transporter for difficult operating conditions. The development of a front line transporter in the USSR fully corresponded to the challenges of the time and it was carried out through similar stages. The first transporter projects developed by the Scientific Automotive Institute used heavy motorcycle engines mastered in production. It was the lack of the necessary engine for the vehicle that was the main reason for the long proof of the project. Only after the involvement of the designers of the automobile plant in Zaporizhzhia and the installation of units of the mass-produced ZAZ vehicle in the transporter made it possible to prove the design and to master small-scale production. The use of the most powerful engine of a production vehicle, which would correspond to the concept of a small army vehicle, had enabled to master mass production for the army and the development of vehicles for the civilian market. An analysis of the front line transporter design, its systems, compared with its foreign counterparts, suggests that it is a Soviet refinement of the concept of a small army vehicle, a more specific means directly for the battlefield. At the same time, it was developed taking into account foreign developments and similar designs, imitating individual designs, adapting to the capabilities of the USSR automotive industry.

PREFACE

PREFACE

Estrategia militar de la OTAN: doctrinas y conceptos estratégicos. Recepción en España

NATO's military strategy and doctrine have become one of the main references for Western strategic thinking and for the development of military strategy and doctrine in Spain. The Alliance's strategy started from a very specific scenario in the Cold War to expand after it towards a stabilization role outside Europe, and paradoxically return to the starting point afterwards due to the return of the Russian threat. Along this path, key concepts were developed on the use of conventional military power, nuclear weapons and new forms of asymmetric or hybrid conflict. Despite the fact that Spain entered NATO late and in a very peculiar way, NATO strategy and doctrine were essential to modernize both the armed forces and the strategic thinking in our country.

40 años de la pertenencia de España a la OTAN: desafíos pasados y futuros de una relación procelosa

This article explains the fundamental elements of the relationship between Spain and NATO in view of its 40th anniversary of membership of the Atlantic Alliance. This work, both in its historical reconstruction and its analysis of the challenges that characterise Spain's position in the organisation, aims to examine three key elements of this relationship: the ambiguous position of Spanish elites and society with respect to NATO membership and the relationship with the US; the legalistic and multilateral nature, with an explicit preference for the EU, of national defence policy; and the complexity of the 'Southern Flank', that is, the system of multiple and different threats to Spain's security from North Africa, where NATO struggles to provide a satisfactory response. The article concludes by underlining the unusual relevance, for a middle power like Spain, of domestic factors in determining both the country's international posture and the main aspects of its military doctrine.

Clausewitz and the Personality Characteristics of the Battlefield Commander in British and German Military Doctrine, 1918–1941

Even after the First World War, the British and German armies remained strongly influenced by Clausewitz, for whom personality rather than mass was the best means to reduce friction. This article explores how this was reflected in their military doctrine between the two world wars. The German regulations showed a clear alignment with Clausewitz's thinking. The British tended to focus on the characteristics Clausewitz had argued were necessary for the troops, rather than for their commanders. The campaigns of 1939/40 caused the Germans to place even greater emphasis on boldness, while the British focused on steadiness and caution.

ЗАКОНОДАВЧІ ОСНОВИ ЗАБЕЗПЕЧЕННЯ НАЦІОНАЛЬНОЇ БЕЗПЕКИ УКРАЇНИ

In the conditions of transformational changes in Ukraine, the issue of national security is one of the key ones. Military intervention in relation to our state, crisis processes in the economy, politics, finance, social sphere, opposition to political extremism, separatism, collaborationism, various forms and methods of crime in today's realities are acute, painful problems that require an immediate solution. The state is the defining institution of the political system of Ukraine, the main guarantor of the constitutional system and performs the functions of ensuring national security through legislative, executive and judicial authorities, the key place among which should belong to the parliament, which provides regulatory and legal support for national security in the state. The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, within the functional powers defined by the Constitution of Ukraine, determines the principles of internal and foreign policy, the foundations of national security, forms the legislative framework in this area, approves decisions on the introduction of a state of emergency and martial law, mobilization, determination of the general structure, number, and functions of allies and participation in military-political alliances; professionalism of the personnel of the armed forces; the size of military expenditures, the state of military science and the nature of military doctrine. These factors are important objects of Ukraine's military policy. Because it is the effective functioning of the security and defense sector and defense in conditions of limited state resources and the consistent and constructive support of Ukraine by the international community that is the key to the successful provision of socio-political and socio-economic development and regional security, the restoration of peace in Ukraine. Without proper legislative support, the national security system of Ukraine will be formal and unable to protect the rights and freedoms of the Ukrainian people. The article uses a number of general scientific, legal, and philosophical methods and approaches. The worldview position of the authors is determined by the development of the modern complex state of our country, martial law, challenges, globalist military intervention of Russia, etc. All this requires characteristic approaches and methodological expansion of the problem on the basis of the civilizational approach, conceptual approaches of jurisprudence with the application of systemic methods. The theoretical and practical significance of the study includes a comprehensive analysis of the outlined issues of institutional support of the problem of national security in Ukraine at the legislative level.

Integration of military medical services and civilian health careas a key condition for the provision of medical care to military personneland the population in the event of a large-scale military conflict.

The escalation of the military conflict in Ukraine threatens with a shortage of resources for the military medical service. The solution may be the integration of civil and military medicine - it is provided for by the military medical doctrine of NATO, but does not have a systematic implementation in the Russian Federation, which even in peacetime limits the availability of medical care to military personnel, and in the event of an escalation of the conflict in Ukraine threatens to overload the military medical service . Attempts to integrate civilian and military medical infrastructure were unsuccessful due to the lack of a systematic approach to their interaction and the inability of the departments concerned to reach an agreement on the mechanisms and sources of funding.The authors propose to return to the principles of organizational integration between military and civilian medicine, which were first proposed in the ХIX century by N.I. Pirogov, successfully used by the health care of the USSR during the civil and second world wars and forgotten after the collapse of the Soviet Union. For financial and economic integration, it is proposed to include military personnel in the CHI system for medical care that military medical institutions cannot provide due to their overload, remoteness or lack of necessary specialists.It is proposed to solve the problem of paying compulsory medical insurance contributions for military personnel by replacing the compulsory medical insurance contributions paid by employers (for employees) and the subjects of the Federation (for the non-working population) with a universal compulsory medical insurance contribution automatically withheld at the same rate for all legal entities and individuals from all non-cash transactions - thereby financing additional medical guarantees for military personnel, leveling the “free rider effect” in the CHI system.

Counterinsurgency, Emergency, and Civil-Military Relations in Indonesia

The Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) has responded to a variety of national emergencies in Indonesia since 1945. This article argues that in Indonesia, the military role in emergencies is shaped by the long tradition of counterinsurgency. This article examines how historical experiences, military doctrine, and legal frameworks shaped civil-military relations in Indonesia, particularly regarding the military’s role in emergency management.

The politics of future war: Civil-military relations and military doctrine in Britain

AbstractTensions between civil and military authorities over issues such as budgets and strategic posture are unavoidable in pluralistic societies. Scholars of Civil-Military Relations (CMR) have identified a range of practices through which civil-military contestation occurs, and examined their implications for issues such as military effectiveness. This literature, however, has yet to incorporate critical approaches to knowledge into its analysis. Seeking to fill this gap, this article explores how the British military's presentation of its professional knowledge has been increasingly shaped by the political context of British defence policy. More specifically, it argues that the British armed forces’ presentation of opaque imaginations of future war in military doctrine has sought to entrench the role of Defence in an environment of increasingly integrated governmental responses to security challenges. To do this, the article focuses specifically on two concepts that have become increasingly significant in the British defence establishment's articulation of its professional authority and strategic purpose – Multi-Domain Integration (MDI) and the Integrated Operating Concept (IOpC). The article therefore contributes to the literature a fresh perspective of the role of military doctrine and epistemic practices in civil-military contestation, as well as a critical account of the politics of knowledge in British defence.

Armed Forces of independent Kazakhstan: creation and development

One of the most important and most acute issues in the transformation of society is considered to be the fate of the Armed Forces. The article studies the issues of the Armed Formes of the Respulic of Kazakhstan for a 30- year historical period, from the moment the country gained independence to the present. A comprehensive analysis of military reform and military doctrine is given because they are important components of the county´s main polisy directions. As a result, a result, it was confirmed that the Armed forges of the Respublic of Kazakhstan is a reliable pillar of peace and harmony, tranguility and stability, which are the bulwarks of independence.

A Failure to Innovate: The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War

The root cause for the defeat of the Armenian forces in the second Nagorno-Karabakh War was flawed military doctrine inherited from the Soviet Union. This article analyzes the major problems faced by Armenia, uncovers the main reasons for unsuccessful innovation, tests empirical findings against some of the most authoritative theories of the field, and outlines current research on the largest state-onstate warfighting of recent years, while substantiating the analysis with established scholarship in the field of military innovation.

Civil-military relations as a ‘coordination problem’? doctrine development and the multiple ‘missions’ of the Brazilian Armed Forces

ABSTRACT As the Brazilian Armed Forces are increasingly deployed outside the realm of defence against external threats (in tasks such as peacekeeping, public security, and migration management), military doctrine on Civil-Military Coordination and Cooperation (CIMIC) has emerged as a body of ‘technical knowledge’ which would support their interactions with various civilian actors. This is expressed in frequent demands by military officers for the development of a ‘Brazilian CIMIC doctrine’ reflecting both the accumulated knowledge of international partners, such as NATO and the UN, and their own experience in the ‘field’, as in their recent engagement in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). We argue that the progressive institutionalization of CIMIC military doctrine recently observed in the country reinforces a perspective according to which several domains of action traditionally attributed or led by civilian actors are seen as a legitimate part of the so-called ‘mission’ of the Brazilian Armed Forces. As a result, political disputes concerning civil-military relations and the role of military organizations outside the realm of external defence are reduced to technical challenges of coordination and cooperation between military officials, civilian state agencies and the Brazilian society. In this article, we discuss this trend by analysing the development of military doctrine on CIMIC within the Brazilian Army, and its connections with their increasing engagement in peacekeeping, public security, and migration management at home and abroad.

Reducing the risks of nuclear war to humanity

Reducing the risks of nuclear war to humanity

The centre of gravity concept: contemporary theories, comparison, and implications

ABSTRACT This article applies grounded theory and epistemological, teleological, ontological, and methodological (ETOM) lenses to describe the prevalent contemporary theories of the centre of gravity concept, originated by Carl von Clausewitz. These include the theories of John Warden, Joe Strange & Richard Iron, Antulio Echevarria II, Milan Vego, Dale Eikmeier, and Jacob Barfoed. The article then compares the theories across 14 deduced theoretical aspects and produces a comparison matrix, that can be used as an analytical tool, and discusses implications as guidance for further research and doctrine development. The article argues that the term “centre of gravity” is polluted, and that the application of the term in military planning and doctrines requires careful attention to the specific theory being applied, so that logical consistency and clear, accurate communication is achieved. Alternatively, the concept may be removed from doctrine altogether, renovated with inclusion of a new unpolluted term, or reconstructed with removal of the centre of gravity, leaving a “critical factor analysis” concept behind. This article also provides a level of granularity to the debate about the concept, that renders critics like Paparone & Davis Jr and Zweibelson partly irrelevant and can provide a more nuanced and qualitative basis for future discussion.