Military Effectiveness Research Articles

International law, military effectiveness, and public support for drone strikes

Despite the increased emphasis on domestic politics in the study of international law, scholars remain divided about whether and how international law affects domestic institutions. Moreover, while public support is a core ingredient for sustainable, legitimate policies in a democracy, research at the individual level of analysis remains limited. Weighing in on these areas of study, we investigate the use of drone strikes for counterterrorism, a subject of considerable debate. Proponents in the government point to drones as both effective for disrupting terrorist networks and compatible with international law. Critics from groups such as international organizations (IOs) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) respond that attacks create more terrorists than they kill and violate legal commitments. The central question we ask in this article is whether these international legal criticisms impact public support for drone strikes, the centerpiece of US counterterrorism policy, or whether individuals are more persuaded by effectiveness-based arguments. Employing a survey experiment of a nationally representative sample of the United States, we find IO and NGO criticisms can shape public attitudes even around an important national security issue like drone strikes, but are most influential when messages center on legal critiques rather than matters of effectiveness. Our findings speak to fundamental questions about the domestic politics of international legal commitments, the role of IOs and NGOs in shaping political debates, and the durability of US counterterrorism policy.

International Law, Military Effectiveness, and Public Support for Drone Strikes

Despite the increased emphasis on domestic politics in the study of international law, scholars remain divided about whether and how international law affects domestic institutions. Moreover, while public support is a core ingredient for sustainable, legitimate policies in a democracy, research at the individual level of analysis remains limited. Weighing in on these areas of study, we investigate the use of drone strikes for counterterrorism, a subject of considerable debate. Proponents in the government point to drones as both effective for disrupting terrorist networks and compatible with international law. Critics from groups such as international organizations (IOs) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) respond that attacks create more terrorists than they kill and violate legal commitments. The central question we ask in this article is whether these international legal criticisms impact public support for drone strikes, the centerpiece of US counterterrorism policy, or whether individuals are mo...

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution in Articulating and Representing Strategic Management and Effectiveness of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Domestic and global revolution of its major milestones and goals, pillars of the clerical or managerial and leadership of the revolution. For this purpose, in a historical-descriptive study library method to this important work And then the most influential factors in this study and given the position of supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the supreme leader of strategic management in guiding the revolution and the Islamic Republic Of Iran's military effectiveness and studied Finally, in analyzing the measures taken About the position and dimensions and consequences strategies and suggestions for improving the expression of the divine youth.

Coup-Proo fing and Military Ine fficiencies: An Experiment

Coup-proofing occurs when a leader arranges his military to prevent military leaders from overthrowing him. However, coup-proofing often has the additional effect of lowering the military's effectiveness in conflict. Coup-proofing is discussed in the context of the Nouri al-Maliki's regime in Iraq before two formal models are presented. The first model shows when coups are possible, leaders select military commanders with lower ability but higher loyalty. The second model shows that when coups are possible, leaders rotate their military commanders to prevent any one commander from becoming too powerful. The paper then presents experimental tests of the models. The results of these laboratory experiments show that leaders are more likely to select loyal commanders or rotate their commanders under the coup treatment relative to groups with no leadership turnover or with leadership turnover according elections. Thus, when faced with the possibility of a coup, leaders intentionally lower their military effectiveness. This paper captures the dynamics behind a fundamental inefficiency introduced into groups when leadership is valuable, delegation is necessary, and powerful subordinates can remove the leader from office.

Does military expenditure hinder economic growth? Evidence from Greece and Turkey

The relationship between economic growth and military expenditure has been extensively studied but its findings are inconclusive and contradictory. The primary reasons behind such disparities include the linear and nonlinear behavior of military expenditure on economic growth and the analysis of different techniques. This study examines the effect of military expenditure on economic growth in Greece and Turkey, which have higher military expenditure burden among the NATO11NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organization. countries using a modified Barro model. The autoregressive distributive lag bounds testing (ARDL) for cointegration is used to determine the long run effect. A vector error correction model (VECM) has been used to analyze the short run effect between the variables. The military expenditure displays a significant negative effect on economic growth for Turkey for both short and long run. In contrast, there is no significant military expenditure effect on economic growth for Greece.

Climatic and environmental aspects of the Mongol withdrawal from Hungary in 1242 CE.

The Mongol invasion of Eastern Europe, and especially its sudden withdrawal from Hungary in 1242 CE, has generated much speculation and an array of controversial theories. None of them, however, considered multifaceted environmental drivers and the coupled analysis of historical reports and natural archives. Here we investigate annually resolved, absolutely dated and spatially explicit paleoclimatic evidence between 1230 and 1250 CE. Documentary sources and tree-ring chronologies reveal warm and dry summers from 1238–1241, followed by cold and wet conditions in early-1242. Marshy terrain across the Hungarian plain most likely reduced pastureland and decreased mobility, as well as the military effectiveness of the Mongol cavalry, while despoliation and depopulation ostensibly contributed to widespread famine. These circumstances arguably contributed to the determination of the Mongols to abandon Hungary and return to Russia. While overcoming deterministic and reductionist arguments, our ‘environmental hypothesis’ demonstrates the importance of minor climatic fluctuations on major historical events.

Military medical and health care system in the Song Dynasty

The military medical and health care system in the Song Dynasty manifested as two aspects, namely disease prevention and medical treatment. Disease prevention included ensuring food and drink safety, avoiding dangerous stations and enjoying regular vacations, etc. Medical treatment included sending medical officials to patrol, stationing military physicians to follow up, applying emergency programs, establishing military medical and pharmacy centers, dispensing required medicines, and accommodating and nursing sick and injured personnel, etc. Meanwhile, the imperial court also supervised the implementation of military medical mechanism, in order to check the soldiers' foods, check and restrict the military physicians' responsibilities, etc., which did play a positive role in protecting soldier's health, guaranteeing the military combat effectiveness, and maintaining national security.

Technology and Politics: Have the ICTs Turned into a Domain for Civil–Military Relations in Turkey?

The implications of technology have been widely acknowledged in international relations. Studies ranging from the causes of war and military effectiveness to terrorism and nuclear proliferation have explored how technology shapes international politics. However, the implications of technology in domestic politics have not been scrutinised much. This paper helps fill this vacuum through an analysis of Turkey’s civil–military relations. Although civilian control over the Turkish military has improved in the past decade, this process has not been smooth. With a focus on the recent court cases involving the military, the 2007 e-memorandum and the transfer of electronic military intelligence apparatus to the civilian authority, this paper demonstrates how technology has become an important domain for civil–military relations in Turkey.

Correspondence: Battling over Pakistan's Battlefield Nuclear Weapons

In Battlefield Nuclear Policy, Jaganath Sankaran argues that Pakistan's threat to employ tactical nuclear weapons in a war with India is not credible because the use of such weapons would cause the immediate deaths of hundreds of thousands of Pakistani civilians while achieving negligible military effects.1 Sankaran, however, misunderstands how Pakistan is likely to employ nuclear weapons during wartime; he overstates the likely number of Pakistani civilian casualties from the initial use of tactical nuclear weapons; and he understates the potential negative battlefield consequences for the Indian army. Why would any rational Pakistani leader pull the trigger if it inevitably meant the death of so many Pakistani innocents and only a few Indian military personnel? If Sankaran's analysis is to be believed, no leader would. Thus, Pakistan's threat to use tactical nuclear weapons to deter Indian conventional operations has been a bluff. That conclusion is dangerous, because if Indian policymakers believe it, they might discount the likelihood of Pakistani nuclear use in the event of conventional military operations, potentially risking calamity. Language: en

Garbage In, Garbage Out: Challenges of Model Building in Global History, A Military Historical Perspective

This paper examines two prominent recent attempts to explain the phenomenon of the “rise of the West,” Ian Morris’s model of “Social Development” and Philipp Hoffman’s model of military power (Morris 2010, Morris 2013, Hoffman 2012, Hoffman 2015). Whereas most recent scholarship on the rise of the West has focused on economics, Morris and Hoffman widen the scope of comparison to other areas, in particular focusing on the measurement and explanation of divergences in military effectiveness. By drawing on recent work in China’s military history, the author shows that both models – but particularly that of Morris – are inadequate, falling back on older narratives of Western military superiority that have been challenged or disproven by recent scholarship in global military history. The article suggests, however, that the two models – and especially that of Hoffman – do raise significant new questions for future research, and it concludes by noting that what social scientists need more than new models at present is a closer attention to the rapid and ever increasing proliferation of scholarship in non-Western countries, and in particular that of the Sinophone world.

Evaluating the Purple Force: Jointness in War and Peace

In recent years, the proliferation of joint, collaborative organizations in the U.S. military has been remarkable, and the term “jointness” has become a favored buzzword in the U.S. defense community. The arguments in support of increased interservice collaboration in U.S. military are generally based on the belief that jointness will improve warfighting capabilities. But, despite the embrace of jointness and its purported benefits in war and peace, little research in political science has sought to evaluate whether these collaborative efforts have actually improved overall military effectiveness. Accordingly, this paper evaluates historical cases of interservice collaboration in the U.S. to uncover whether and how jointness can make militaries more effective and efficient. More specifically, this paper assesses the successes and failures of joint coordination during the 20th century through qualitative case analysis of tactical airpower operations in WWII. In doing so, this paper identifies the conditions under which obstacles to joint effectiveness are most likely to be overcome.

Diversity and Citizenship in Modern Military Organization

Nations attempt to reproduce their armed forces for the present and future in the way they were constituted in the past. However, the relationship between military service and citizenship—coupled with processes of globalization, migration, wartime mobilization, and the decline of conscription-based mass armies—has created pressures for the extension of the recruitment base to previously excluded or limited groups. The integration of the U.S. military on the bases of ethnicity, race, sex, gender, and sexual orientation exemplifies how obstacles to integration are raised and overcome, producing military forces that reflect the increasingly diverse populations they serve; thus, allowing excluded groups a greater claim to citizenship rights and allowing nations to draw on the human capital that they hold for purposes of national security. In the past, diversity was believed to mitigate against social cohesion and military effectiveness; however, more recently, emphasis has been on task cohesion and the contribution of diversity to effectiveness.

Different Threats, Different Militaries:Explaining Organizational Practices in Authoritarian Armies

Why do some states generate competent, professional military organizations, while others fail to do so even when they have the required economic, demographic, and technological endowments? Variation in states’ military organizational practices—their core policies related to promotion patterns, training regimens, command arrangements, and information management—holds the key. This article develops a typology of such practices and explains why and how they vary in response to the internal and external threats facing particular regimes. The article then subjects this argument to a carefully designed plausibility probe comparing the threat environments and military organizational practices of two states whose differences are both intuitively and theoretically puzzling: North and South Vietnam during the period 1954–1975. The initial evidence provides support for the theory and casts doubt on existing explanations of military organizational behavior focused on external threats, democracy, or the degree of political intervention in the military. The findings have important implications for foreign policy, as well as for future research on authoritarianism, civil-military relations, and military effectiveness.

ТРАНСФОРМАЦИЯ НАТО В КОНТЕКСТЕ ГЛОБАЛЬНОГО ФИНАНСОВО-ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКОГО КРИЗИСА

The article focuses on the main aspects of NATO development in the context of global financial and economic crisis. The consequences of this crisis have greatly influenced not only the economic sector of Euro-Atlantic countries, but all spheres including the defence policy. The central part of the article is devoted to the impact of budget cuts on NATO. The author pays attention to the fact that since the onset of the crisis, national governments of NATO member countries have implemented cuts to defence programmes and assets. This problem was deepened by disparity of the NATO defence shares between the EU member states and the U.S., as well as differences in defence budgets of the U.S. European allies. Today, non-U.S. NATO countries’ share is just 27% of NATO defence budget (to compare with 36% in 2000). Moreover, only four European allies – Estonia, Greece, the United Kingdom and Poland – met in 2015 the NATO target of the 2% of GDP spent for the defence. The fact is that such a situation potentially endangers critical capabilities of NATO. In addition, as a result of funding difficulties, most European countries were forced to reduce investments in equipment, as well as in research and development. So, the author comes to a conclusion that global financial and economic crisis has become an important milestone in the ongoing process of NATO transformation. The allies have been challenged not only to find necessary resources for maintaining the existing alert level, but also for overcoming capability disparities. Thus, the concept of “Smart Defence” and the “Connected Forces Initiative” are both under consideration in the article. The author insists that these efforts are part of broader measures undertaken to bolster military readiness and effectiveness of the Alliance. Along with it, the decisions made at September 2014 Wales Summit are also described as a very important element of NATO transformation which marked its new stage. Finally, taking a fast-paced international environment into account, the author concludes that the eventual economic recovery and a broad NATO reform will help to keep the Alliance relevant.&nbsp

The French Army’s Tank Force and Armoured Warfare in the Great War: The Artillerie Spéciale by Tim Gale

Reviewed by: The French Army’s Tank Force and Armoured Warfare in the Great War: The Artillerie Spéciale by Tim Gale Robert Doughty (bio) The French Army’s Tank Force and Armoured Warfare in the Great War: The Artillerie Spéciale. By Tim Gale. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013. Pp. xvi+263. $124.95. The French faced extraordinary challenges as they developed, fielded, and employed tanks in World War I. The idea of tanks came from a search in 1915 for new methods of overcoming tactical stalemate on the battlefield and rapidly coalesced into the manufacture of several different models in 1916. Much debate occurred at that time over what a tank could and should do, and much time and energy was consumed in overcoming technical [End Page 479] problems associated with moving a heavy vehicle across a battlefield and having it fire at the enemy. Bureaucratic squabbles erupted over who would be in charge of various aspects of the tank’s development and who or what would provide the resources. At the same time, tanks entered battle not only to test technology but also to test concepts for the tank’s employment and to achieve operational and tactical success. To tell the story of France’s tank force and explain how it became the largest and most technologically advanced of the war, Tim Gale did considerable research in the archives of the Service historique de Défense at Vincennes. Of the many strengths of Gale’s book, none is more impressive than his reliance on primary materials, including correspondence and after-action reports. He also used works by authors such as Jean Perré and Léon Dutil to enable him to rise occasionally above the minutiae of official correspondence. Adding to the value of the book, Gale capably covers some of the bureaucratic disagreements within the French military as well as some of the major battles, none of which were resounding successes, fought by tanks on the western front. Including the battles and the bureaucratic disputes enables Gale to analyze the introduction of a fundamentally new weapon system in an ongoing war. Although the role and basic design of the tank may be relatively clear today, it was by no means clear during the war. In some cases sharp debates occurred not only over the role of the tank but over the type of armor, armaments, communications, fuel tanks, etc. for a tank. The new tanks were systems of systems and each system had to be developed in accord with the others. Trial and error, as well as casualties, gradually revealed the better (but not always the best) design or use of technology, and the French eventually fielded the FT-17, the most successful tank introduced during the war. Though the technology and employment of French tanks sometimes failed in 1917 and 1918, they were used, as Gale argues, in the “most sensible way” (p. 224) in the last battles of World War I. He emphasizes that French success with tanks indicates a higher level of military effectiveness than is usually attributed to the French. Several weaknesses detract from the high quality of this book. First, it reads too much like a thesis or dissertation. Gale’s argument gets lost in details and in paragraphs not smoothly integrated into the narrative. Also, the author frequently uses abbreviations for units or items and compels the reader to refer to the abbreviation list at the front of the work. On pages 168–69, for example, Gale uses at least forty abbreviations, some of which are obvious (DI for Division d’infanterie) but others that are not (RMLE for Régiment de Marche de la Légion Étrangère). Additionally, the author provides insufficient information about developments in the British and German armies. A fuller explanation of what other belligerents were or were not doing could have made the narrative more understandable and useful for the reader. [End Page 480] Similarly, Gale frequently refers to General Heinz Guderian, who commanded the German XIXth Panzer Corps in May–June 1940 but who had no experience with tanks in World War I. He uses information from Guderian to evaluate French methods and technology in...

Military purges and the recurrence of civil conflict

Literature on coup-proofing often suggests that such activities reduce military effectiveness, which could provide an environment ripe for civil conflict. However, if coup-proofing is dangerous, why do leaders engage in these strategies? We argue that a specific type of coup-proofing, military purges, deters domestic unrest by demonstrating the strength of the regime via the removal of powerful but undesirable individuals from office. We use original data on military purges in non-democracies from 1969–2003 to assess quantitatively how this type of coup-proofing activity affects the likelihood of civil conflict recurrence. We find support for our expectation that purges of high-ranking military officials do in fact help prevent further civil conflict. Purges appear to provide real benefits to dictators seeking to preserve stability, at least in post-conflict environments.

Forced to Fight: Coercion, Blocking Detachments, and Tradeoffs in Military Effectiveness

Our theories of soldier motivation have largely overlooked the role that coercion plays in manufacturing and maintaining unit cohesion. Yet nearly 20% of all belligerents in wars since 1800 have deployed specialized units designed to monitor and sanction their own soldiers violently. Despite the widespread nature of these detachments, however, we have neither a systematic treatment of their tactical and operational effects nor of the tradeoffs associated with their battlefield use. This paper draws on new crossnational data and a case study of Soviet practices at Stalingrad and Kursk to explore four tradeoffs stemming from the use of blocking detachments. In brief, these detachments can bolster a military's staying power, but at the cost of sharply increasing casualties and worsening loss-exchange ratios. In keeping with the volume's intent, the paper concludes with a broader discussion of these tradeoffs at the war-fighting and political levels before proposing additional avenues of research on coercion and soldier motivation.

Will Army 2025 be a Military Profession?

Abstract: Army 2025 is now being built and it needs to have all the right expert knowledge developed into its practitioners and units for immediate use when called upon. That is an immense task given the crunching defense reductions now ongoing. Analyzing the current state of the Profession using Army data on the bureaucratizing influences of the drawdown, on leadership and trust within the ranks, and on the development of moral character of future Army professionals, the author arrives at a less than sanguine conclusion. While the Army will find the necessary efficiencies during reductions, military effectiveness is the true hallmark of the success of our stewardship. ADP1--The Army (2012) (1) ********** In this article I will argue there are no guarantees that Army 2025, now being developed by its current Stewards, will be an effective participant in the military profession. In fact, there is a very good possibility it will not be, to the extreme detriment of the Republic's security. The provenance of this challenge resides within the Army's history and its unique institutional characters. And, as we shall see, the potential solution lies with the quality of the Stewards the Army develops, the leadership they provide through this decade of defense reductions, and the results they do, or do not, obtain. The Department of the Army is, in fact, an institution of dual character. It is at the same time both a governmental bureaucracy and a military profession. Thus there is a powerful, internal tension raging between the competing cultures of bureaucracy and profession. Only one can dominate institution-wide and at the levels of subordinate organizations and units. (2) Presently, and after fifteen years of war, there are indicators the culture of profession dominates that of bureaucracy, but only weakly so. (3) Stated another way, like all organizations the Army has a set of default behaviors that accurately reflect a core functional makeup. Since its establishment in 1775, that default behavior has been, and remains, one of a hierarchical government bureaucracy. Only by the immense efforts of post-Civil War leadership, both uniformed (Major General William T. Sherman) and civilian (Elihu Root), was the behavior of the Army first conformed from bureaucracy to that of a military profession, and then only within the officer corps. The remainder of the Army was professionalized later, though that status was lost in Vietnam only to be renewed in the re-professionalization that occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s. To this day the challenge remains--every morning by presence and policy, Army leaders at every level, and particularly the senior Stewards, must shift the Army's behavior away from its bureaucratic tendencies and to the behavior of a military profession. It simply does not occur naturally; it is a function almost solely of leadership. To be more specific, read carefully the contrasts laid out in the table below: Profession Versus Bureaucracy Comparison (4) Comparison Profession Bureaucracy Knowledge Expert, requires lifelong Non/expert skills based, learning, education, and learned on the job and/ practice to develop or through short duration expertise training Application Knowledge applied as Work accomplished by expert practice through following SOPs, discretion and judgment administrative rules and of individual procedures; compliance professional; commitment based based Measure of Mission effectiveness Efficiency of resource Success expenditure Culture Values and ethic based; Procedural compliance granted autonomy with based; closely supervised high degree of authority, with limited responsibility and discretionary authority, accountability founded on highly structured, task- trust; a self-policing driven environment meritocracy founded on low-trust Investments Priority investment in Priority investment in leader development; human hardware, routines; capital/talent driven by cost management; investment strategy Growth Develop critical thinking Develop tactical and skills to spur technical competence to innovation, flexibility, perform tasks adaptability; broadened perspectives Motivation Intrinsic--Sacrificial Extrinsic--Ambition to service, sense of honor get ahead, competition; and duty, work is a work is a job calling It should be clear from these comparisons of the Army's dual character that a real tension exists within the Army and its subordinate commands and agencies. …

Recouping after Coup-Proofing: Compromised Military Effectiveness and Strategic Substitution

ABSTRACTIn order to counter the threat of a coup, states often undertake a number of strategies to “coup-proof” their militaries, such as creating institutional redundancy, severely limiting interbranch communications, and basing promotions on loyalty rather than merit. As a result of such policies, however, the fighting effectiveness of these armed forces is degraded, and the marginal return on military investment is greatly reduced. We argue that leaders who have coup-proofed their militaries undertake several substitution policies in order to offset their military weakness when faced with external threats. These policies include pursuing chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons and forging alliances. We find support for these theoretical predictions in quantitative tests on data with global coverage between 1970 and 2001.

Hypersonic Boost-Glide Weapons

The United States, Russia and China are developing hypersonic boost-glide vehicles. A simple model of their trajectory is developed by assuming that the vehicle does not oscillate during the transition to equilibrium gliding. This model is used to analyze U.S. Department of Defense data on test flights for the Hypersonic Technology Vehicle-2. This glider's lift-to-drag ratio—a key performance parameter—is estimated to be 2.6. The model is also used to calculate the tactical warning time that a boost-glide attack would afford an adversary. Other aspects of boost-glide weapons’ military effectiveness are explored. Approximate calculations suggest that, compared to existing non-nuclear weapons, boost-glide weapons could penetrate more deeply but would be less effective at destroying silos. The distance at which a boost-glide weapon armed with a particle dispersion warhead could destroy a mobile missile is also calculated; it is expected to be significantly larger than for an explosive warhead.