Naval War Research Articles

Book Review: After Jutland: The Naval War in Northern European Waters, June 1916–November 1918

Book Review: After Jutland: The Naval War in Northern European Waters, June 1916–November 1918

Military Anthropology: Soldiers, Scholars and Subjects at the Margins of Empire. By Montgomery McFate (New York, Oxford University Press, 2018) 487 pp. $45.00

McFate came to prominence as an early advocate of U.S. military engagement with anthropologists in order to grapple with “adversary culture” after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. She was an architect of the “Human Terrain System” that embedded social scientists within the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2006 and 2014. She has deplored and sought to reverse what she sees as a historical anomaly of estrangement between the military and academia in the post-Vietnam era. She continues to advocate for this approach as a professor at the Naval War College and as an author of books like this one, which seeks to develop practical lessons for military anthropology from various historical episodes—ranging from Donald Barrows’ ethnographic work for the U.S. military in the Philippines from 1901 to Don Marshall’s in Vietnam in the 1960s and a half-dozen other examples drawn mostly from British imperial experience. In this way, this book resembles a more sober and extended version of John Nagl’s Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam (Chicago, 2002), which sought counterinsurgency lessons from Malaya and Vietnam; Nagl and McFate were in fact both contributors to David Petraeus’ Counterinsurgency Field Manual (Chicago, 2007), another quasi-anthropological product of the Iraq War.Although McFate’s avowed intent is to build bridges between academia and the military, she admits that this book, as “written primarily for a military audience,” is unlikely to contribute much to the bridge-building goal (11). The book is peppered with military acronyms and insider observations; it is also full of capsule lessons in basic social science for those presumed to be unfamiliar with, or indeed hostile to, such an enterprise. It has a military tone, too, given McFate’s technocratic approach to social science, which often feels decidedly less anthropological than reminiscent of economics or quantitative sociology. She regrets anthropology’s failure to develop “a scalable, adaptable theory of society that could be used operationally by the military” (38, 328). In an essay on Ursula Bower’s “military leadership” of the Naga during World War II, she yearns for a neat formula such as Fisher’s “fifty-seven key findings pertaining to cross-cultural military leadership” (106–107).1 She commends Gregory Bateson’s highly scientistic ideas about the manipulation of cultural pattern as he applied them in service of the Office of Strategic Services. She even inscribes Tom Harrisson’s idiosyncratic unconventional warfare in Borneo as a sophisticated species of “qualitative, inductive pattern recognition” (172).More comfortably for most anthropologists, McFate acknowledges that these unified field theories nearly always break down in practice and that there is no replacement for deep cultural knowledge, a necessary complement to, or often replacement for, “firepower,” and thus alien to the American “way of war.” But although McFate, like any good ethnographer, pays close attention to this kind of context, she gives relatively little credence to the radically different contexts in which military ethnography takes place. She equates anthropologists’ feelings of responsibility for their subjects with the military’s concern for the “host nation,” without taking much account of what being the “host” of a violent military intervention by another nation actually means. When she says that “the social conditions of the host nation must be considered as part of national strategic objectives,” readers can only wonder which nation’s objectives are in question (323)—assuming that a unitary nation is to be considered in the first place. Because she deliberately eschews case studies of Iraq and Afghanistan, though constantly seeking lessons for those enterprises, McFate is not able to reflect much upon U.S. military intervention in deeply divided societies.McFate may or may not be correct to imagine that the military’s objectives would be better achieved with more anthropological awareness. It is at least arguable that deeper cultural engagement in a complex and fractured (not to mention war-torn) society might exacerbate rather than resolve the “morasses” to which recent U.S. military interventions have led. But what is even more puzzling is why she imagines that anthropologists outside the military ought to embrace these objectives. In her view, anthropologists have a role “analogous to that of professional soldiers”; they have “an obligation as citizens to reduce the errors caused by a lack of socio-cultural knowledge and thereby improve their execution” (39–40). Her book shows some anthropologists behaving in just such a way. But apart from the major changes in the culture and politics of academia since the 1960s, which have driven academia and military further apart, her own narrow, technocratic account of what “socio-cultural knowledge” can do, without a proper consideration of the military and political contexts of its application, is unlikely to draw them back together. Quite the contrary.

International Relations of Medieval Europe in Works of D. I. Kachenovskiy (1827–1872)

The article dwells on reaearch and academic activity of D. I. Kachenovskiy at Kharkiv University. His contribution is shown to the study of international relations history at Middle Ages. It is emphasized that we are quite right to call D. I. Kachenovskiy one of most prominent Ukrainian experts in this field, despite his certain idealization of feudal society. Main teaching subjects of D. I. Kachenovskiy were international law and state law of European powers. The basic research work by D. I. Kachenovskiy became his doctoral thesis «On Privateers and Prize Proceedings Relative to Neutral Merchandise» (1855) which became widely known both in Russian Empire and Europe. D. I. Kachenovskiy admitted the appropriateness of privateering, characterized its essence and shared the opinion of well-known French scholar J.-M. Pardessus that charter by Aragon king Alfonso III of 1288 had been the first legislative act relating to privateering. The first period in European privateering history when “naval war was almost indistinguishable from piracy” lasted, by the scholar’s opinion, up to the end of XVI century. His «Course in International Law» was published in 1863, though unfinished, and embraced the antiquity as well as Middle Ages. The concept of international law development in the Middle Ages as proposed by D. I. Kachenovskiy included several basic elements. Those are: admission of the tremendous contribution of Christian Church, Roman Popes and German Emperors in elaboration of this law, influence of public order and national character of German tribes, as well as statement of general détente of mores and international tension in the Middle Ages under the effect of above-cited factors. The scholar emphasized positive influence of knighthood on customs of war and international relations. Medieval international law, history of privateering and trade, social-political and cultural life of Florence and effect of internal factors on its development were the main lines in research of the scientist. Works by D. I. Kachenovskiy exerted the substantial impact not only on students, but on his colleagues as well, and his scientific treatments mostly sustained time exam.

Military Anthropology: Soldiers, Scholars and Subjects at the Margins of Empire by Montgomery McFate

Reviewed by: Military Anthropology: Soldiers, Scholars and Subjects at the Margins of Empire by Montgomery McFate David H. Price Montgomery McFate, Military Anthropology: Soldiers, Scholars and Subjects at the Margins of Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. 352 pp. Military Anthropology: Soldiers, Scholars and Subjects at the Margins of Empire provides historical summaries of ten 20th century anthropologists' engagements with military operations. Montgomery McFate's telling of this history seeks to identify positive outcomes of these anthropological contributions and argues for increased future uses of anthropology by the military. Each chapter evaluates the effectiveness with which anthropological knowledge was incorporated into operations and analyzes recent military situations where US forces used, or could have used, anthropology in similar ways. With each historical vignette, McFate champions militarized forms of anthropology that connect the discipline to campaigns of violence and occupation, advocating for the development of a type of militarized anthropology which will trouble many anthropologists. McFate is perhaps best known to many anthropologists as the architect of Human Terrain Systems (2007–2014), the almost three-quarters of a billion-dollar failed Pentagon program that tried to embed ethnographers with soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. Human Terrain System was widely condemned by the international anthropological community, and by the American Anthropological Association, for not considering basic ethical principles of anthropological engagement (CEAUSSIC 2009). Beyond these ethical concerns, many anthropologists also critiqued the political project of militarizing anthropology (NCA 2009). Military Anthropology was written for a military rather than an anthropological audience (11), but because this book is published as an academic book, drawing upon anthropological knowledge, it deserves [End Page 969] anthropologists' critical attention. Written at the Naval War College, funded by a Department of Defense Minerva Fellowship, Military Anthropology exemplifies the sort of work many critics of the Minerva Program predicted these fellowships would produce. It draws on a limited subset of social science and includes little substantial engagement with the critical peer reviewed literature found in mainstream academic writings. McFate's reading, and writing, of this history differs from the work of many anthropologists (including my own), most significantly in her refusal to address the political and ethical issues raised by using anthropology for warfare, but also in the simplification of these complex relationships. Where many scholars find cautionary tales, McFate finds blueprints for improved means of using anthropology for militarized ends. I suspect that most anthropologists will find this book not only highly problematic in its historical representations, but also fundamentally flawed in its claims about the ease with which culture can be weaponized and for refusing to engage with the core political and ethical issues raised by military anthropology. But anthropologists are not the book's target audience. Its representations of how culture can be instrumentalized for conquest provides much for its military audience to like, and Military Anthropology may well become a classic work within military circles as a foundational text for the military training their own "anthropologists." The ten anthropologists whose stories are recounted in individual chapters are: Gerald Hickey, Robert Sutherland Rattray, Ursula Graham Bower, Gregory Bateson, Tom Harrisson, John Useem, Jomo Kenyata, Louis Leakey, Don Marshall, and David Prescott Barrows. The military engagements discussed range from colonial occupations, World War II, the Vietnam War, and the Mau Mau Rebellion. The operations include a mixture of combat, counterinsurgency, insurgency, and occupations. In order to advocate for specific types of future anthropological collaborations, McFate shapes the telling of these incidents in very specific ways. She simplifies the complexities of the military anthropologists' stories appearing in her pages. Her Gregory Bateson has fewer reservations than the Bateson other scholars have found in archival and FOIA documents; and her version of Hickey writes RAND reports that had a greater impact than other scholars have found. Ursula Graham Bower's World War II success in directing Naga warriors' military and intelligence operations is shown to reveal key traits of successful transformational leadership skills. Robert Rattray's early 20th century use of anthropological knowledge to [End Page 970] help impose indirect rule in west Africa frames arguments for adapting similar tactics in other post-conquest situations. Many anthropologists will likely not share the general admiration of the effectiveness of Rattray...

The Japanese Empire: Grand Strategy from the Meiji Restoration to the Pacific War by S.C.M. Paine, and: To Stand with the Nations of the World: Japan's Meiji Restoration in World History by Mark Ravina

Reviewed by: The Japanese Empire: Grand Strategy from the Meiji Restoration to the Pacific War by S.C.M. Paine, and: To Stand with the Nations of the World: Japan's Meiji Restoration in World History by Mark Ravina Scott C.M. Bailey The Japanese Empire: Grand Strategy from the Meiji Restoration to the Pacific War. By s.c.m. paine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. 210 pp. $24.99 (paper). To Stand with the Nations of the World: Japan's Meiji Restoration in World History. By mark ravina. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. 312 pp. $29.95 (hardcover). Japan underwent tremendous economic, military, political, and cultural transformations during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Scholars of Japanese history and world historians who study Japan are involved in a process of intense debate about modern Japanese history, in an attempt to dissect how Japan made the transition to modernity. The process of that transitional period, between tradition and modernity, and how Japan emerged from the transition as a completely changed nation, and as a fully-fledged imperial state, is a main consideration in both of these very riveting studies. A common question addressed in both of these books is the degree to which the Japanese leadership, including the emperor himself, as well as the Meiji oligarchs or the later Diet party leaders and members of the imperial council, military leaders, were orchestrators of the changes which took place in the country. What drove the overall architecture of historical change in Japan, especially in terms of the planning of empire and military development? And did the other myriad changes which occurred during the Meiji era happen as a result of deliberate internal planning, or was it a natural outgrowth from an era of increasing international contacts, or a combination of the two factors? S.C.M. Paine of the United States Naval War College argues that Japan's modernization project in the Meiji involved a deliberate westernization of the country, which she contrasts with Qing China's self-strengthening movement, which rejected westernization (p. 6). This had major consequences for the immediate futures of both nations. Meiji Japan developed rapidly towards a militarized and industrialized nation, while the Qing's economic and military development was [End Page 448] minimal at best. This split in pathways for the two nations was a major contributing factor to conflict between the two in the first Sino-Japanese War. Paine writes that, "Japan took a U-turn on the road to civilization when it traded in sinification for westernization and the Chinese have never gotten over it" (p. 7). These deliberate choices also resulted in a relatively easy victory for Japan in the war because, "Japan westernized, China did not, and there were consequences" (p. 15). This was reflected in the enormous technological disparity between the two nations at the time, in which Japan's infrastructure was extensive, and China's was not, because, according to Paine, "Railways disrupt fengshui …" (p. 24). Paine found that the break which took place between the two nations in their attitude towards westernization has created an over one century long "downward spiral" of relations "from which … neither country has emerged" (p. 42). A strength of The Japanese Empire is its attention to the details of the many military campaigns which Japan has fought since the Meiji period. She includes chapters which are titled "The First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895)," "The Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905)," "The Second Sino-Japanese War (1931–1941)," and what she calls "The General Asian War (1941–1945)."1 Each chapter describes military strategy, outcomes of particular battles, underlying and proximate causes, and complex discussions of the intersection of military planning and international relations theory. For military historians, this book will be especially useful, especially since Paine has also effectively integrated source materials from Japanese historians. The intellectual scale of the book is immense, and Paine moves seamlessly from detailed discussions of battlefield tactics to larger strategic concerns of the military and the government. One of the major arguments she makes is that the Japanese leadership faced a tough strategic decision as to whether pursue its military strategy and relations from the standpoint of...

The Etappe Kanaren: A case study of the secret supply of the German Navy in Spain during the Second World War

The secret supply of the German Navy during the Second World War has scarcely been studied until now. The goal of this article is to study one of the more active supply areas of the Etappendienst at the beginning of the war, the one known as Etappe Kanaren, as part of the Grossetappe Spanien-Portugal. In this research primary sources from German Naval War Command have been consulted. Among the main conclusions, it should be pointed out, on the one hand, the intense activity to support the Kriegsmarine during the first years of the war, despite the distance from mainland Spain and the British pressure, which finally stopped the supply operations. On the other hand, we have confirmed the active role of the Spanish government in relation to the Etappendienst: Spanish authorities allowed the supply operations, but pressure from the Allies forced the Spanish government to impede these activities.

German Supply Ships and Blockade Runners in the Canary Islands in the Second World War

At the start of the Second World War a number of German merchant ships took refuge in the Canary Islands. The German authorities took control of them and some were used as blockade runners and others as supply ships for the German navy. The preparation and departure of these ships was performed with the consent and support of the Spanish government, in contradiction of its obligations as neutral country. The ships based in the Canaries made a small but significant contribution to the German naval war in the Atlantic. Their contribution to U-boat operations was limited but was relatively important for auxiliary cruisers. However, Spain paid a high price for this contribution to the German naval effort in the Atlantic. British suspicion of Spanish collaboration strengthened the diplomatic and economic pressure on the Spanish government and by 1943 the remaining German vessels in the Canaries were prevented from sailing. Using the archives of the German and Spanish authorities, this article outlines the activities of the German supply ships and blockade runners operating from the Canary Islands and demonstrates the difficulties and consequences that Spain faced in its approach to non-belligerence during the Second World War.

Maritime Strategy Is Grand

Maritime Strategy Is Grand James R. Holmes (bio) Michael Green's book By More Than Providence: Grand Strategy and American Power in the Asia Pacific Since 1783 is sure to gladden the heart of any American maritime strategist. He opens and closes with references to Alfred Thayer Mahan, the most influential saltwater strategist of the fin de siècle era and the second president of the U.S. Naval War College. What's not to like? Mahan is best known as the prophet of sea battles, whereby the victor wrests "command of the sea" from the defeated, driving the enemy's flag from important expanses or at most allowing it to appear there "as a fugitive."1 But battle was a means to an end for Mahan, not an end in itself. The goal of amassing "overbearing power" at sea was to pry and hold open commercial, diplomatic, and military access—in that order of importance—to lucrative trading regions such as East Asia.2 For him commerce, not naval strife, was king. The navy was the servant of diplomacy, and diplomacy was the servant of commerce—commerce that yielded tax revenue to fund the navy and the diplomatic apparatus. That made for a virtuous cycle well suited to an insular industrial power such as the United States. But while Mahanian strategy provides a scaffolding for Green's study, By More Than Providence is about far more than sea power. It is dedicated to the proposition that the United States can make and execute grand strategy, harnessing the full panoply of statecraft instruments to achieve a "better state of peace," as English strategist B.H. Liddell Hart put it.3 Green's verdict (pp. 4–5, 541) is that U.S. grand strategy in the Asia-Pacific has proved effective on the whole, even though it has been "episodic and inefficient" at times (p. 541). To oversimplify, U.S. strategy [End Page 132] aims at keeping access to the region open while preventing another hegemon or alliance from dominating the East Asian rimland—and thereby constituting a trans-Pacific threat to North America. A foe commanding all those resources could reach out and do the United States harm. Hence the imperative to meet gathering dangers from forward positions along the rimland. That Washington is capable of grand strategy is a statement some eminent commentators would dispute. In his book American Diplomacy, for instance, the father of containment George Kennan, who makes numerous appearances in Green's book, likens democracy to "one of those prehistoric monsters" that slumbers "in his comfortable primeval mud" until someone whacks off his tail "to make him aware that his interests are being disturbed," whereupon the beast "lays about him with such blind determination that he not only destroys his adversary but largely wrecks his native habitat."4 Inattention to the strategic surroundings, a dearth of forethought, and clumsy use of power are U.S. hallmarks of grand strategy in Kennan's telling. Green demurs. Indeed, the central claim he puts forth in By More Than Providence is that the United States formulated and carried out grand strategy in a deliberate, if sometimes haphazard way, long before the phrase came to be. He maintains it did so starting in 1783—in other words, from the time the country won independence from the British Empire. Kennan was wrong to denigrate U.S. strategy-making. Washington does more than lie inert or flail around. It seems that Green has plunged into a larger theoretical controversy. The phrase "grand strategy" is of relatively recent provenance, coming into vogue in the middle of the twentieth century.5 It did not exist for much of U.S. history, and therefore U.S. leaders cannot have practiced it. Right? Well, not so much. As Beatrice Heuser counsels in her treatise Strategy before Clausewitz, practitioners undertook strategic thought and action long before the 1830s, when Prussian sage Carl von Clausewitz composed his masterwork On War.6 Or as Michael Handel points out, "One does not [End Page 133] necessarily have to read On War to be a Clausewitzian, since most of his ideas can be arrived at independently through the application of logic...

Book Review: The Naval War in the Baltic 1939–1945

Book Review: The Naval War in the Baltic 1939–1945

Book Review: Naval Families, War and Duty in Britain, 1740–1820

Book Review: Naval Families, War and Duty in Britain, 1740–1820

War Course Attendance at Greenwich from 1900 to 1904

In November 1900 a ‘War Course for Captains and Commanders’ was started at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich. This course eventually evolved into a separate Royal Naval War College, and might be c...

History Detectives and the Case of the Vexing Politician

Presidential Studies QuarterlyVolume 47, Issue 4 p. 835-837 BOOK REVIEW ESSAYS History Detectives and the Case of the Vexing Politician Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, Nicholas Evan Sarantakes U.S. Naval War CollegeSearch for more papers by this author Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, Nicholas Evan Sarantakes U.S. Naval War CollegeSearch for more papers by this author First published: 28 September 2017 https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12423Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume47, Issue4December 2017Pages 835-837 RelatedInformation

Commentary on Mindfulness in Action: Discovering How U.S. Navy SEALs Build Capacity for Mindfulness in High-Reliability Organizations (HROs)

Academy of Management DiscoveriesVol. 3, No. 3 Commentaries on Previously Published ArticlesCommentary on Mindfulness in Action: Discovering How U.S. Navy SEALs Build Capacity for Mindfulness in High-Reliability Organizations (HROs)Timothy J. Vogus and Kathleen M. SutcliffeTimothy J. VogusVanderbilt University and Kathleen M. SutcliffeJohns Hopkins UniversityPublished Online:28 Apr 2017https://doi.org/10.5465/amd.2017.0047AboutSectionsView articleView Full TextPDF/EPUB ToolsDownload CitationsAdd to favoritesTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail View articleREFERENCESBraun D. E., Prusacyzk W. K., Goforth J. H. W., & Pratt N. C. 1994. Personality Profiles of U.S. Navy Sea-Air-Land (SEAL). Personnel, ▪▪▪: 94–22363 [San Diego, CA: Naval Medical Research and Development Command.]. Google ScholarCrum A. J., Salovey P., & Achor S. 2013. Rethinking stress: The role of mindsets in determining the stress response. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104: 716–733. Google ScholarFraher A. L., Branicki L. J., & Grint K. 2017. Mindfulness in action: Discovering how U.S. Navy SEALs build capacity for mindfulness in high-reliability organizations, Academy of Management Discoveries. Google ScholarJackall R. 1988. Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers. New York: Oxford University Press. Google ScholarMcDonald D., Norton J., & Hodgdon J. 1988. Determinants and Effects of Training Success in the U.S. Navy Special Forces. (NHRC 88-34). San Diego, CA: Naval Medical Research and Development Command. Google ScholarRochlin G. I., LaPorte T. R., & Roberts K. H. 1987. The self -designing high-reliability organization: Aircraft carrier flight operations at sea. Naval War College Review, 40: 76–90. Google ScholarSchulman P. R. 1993. The negotiated order of organizational reliability. Administration & Society, 25: 353–372. Google ScholarSchön D. A. 1983. The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. New York: Basic Books. Google ScholarScott C., & Myers K. K. 2005. The socialization of emotion: Learning emotion management at the fire station. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 33: 67–92. Google ScholarVogus T. J., & Iacobucci D. 2016. Creating highly reliable health care: Reliability-enhancing work practices affect patient safety in hospitals. ILR Review, 69: 911–938. Google ScholarWeick K. E. 2006. The role of values in high-risk organizations. In E. D. HessK. S. Cameron (Eds.), Leading with Values: Positivity, Virtue, and High Performance: 55–67. New York: Cambridge University Press. Google ScholarWeick K. E., Sutcliffe K. M., & Obstfeld D. 1999. Organizing for high-reliability: Processes of collective mindfulness. In B. M. StawL. L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior, 21, 81- 123. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, Inc. Google ScholarORIGINAL ARTICLE:Fraher A.L., Branicki L.J., & Grint K. 2017. Mindfulness in action: Discovering how U.S. Navy SEALs build capacity for mindfulness in high-reliability organizations, Academy of Management Discoveries. doi:10.5465/amd.2014.0146 Google ScholarFiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Vol. 3, No. 3 Permissions Metrics in the past 12 months History Published online 28 April 2017 Published in print 1 September 2017 Information© Academy of Management DiscoveriesDownload PDF

Aircraft carriers and the capacity to mobilise US power across the Pacific, 1919–1929

This paper analyses how aircraft carriers were developed and positioned within US Navy planning for war in the Pacific during the first decade of the interwar period. Building on Caren Kaplan's framing of military mobility as a capacity, the paper contends that as carrier technologies advanced during the 1920s so recognition of their capacity to act as more than simply mobile islands tasked with supporting the big guns of the fleet emerged. The paper draws on a range of primary sources, specifically pertaining to War Plan Orange (the US's plan for war against Japan primarily developed during the 1920s and 1930s), and analyses US Naval War College documents that positioned carriers, often aspirationally, as key tools of US Pacific power projection. Inflected through discussion of two US Fleet Problems – naval exercises which took place in 1924 and 1929 – the paper contends that the emergence of a recognition that the capabilities of both ship and aircraft needed to be considered in tandem offered new and important strategic opportunities for US war planners during the interwar period.

A Re-assessment of the Japanese Armaments Production During World War II*

This paper examines the nexus between the Japanese strategy and economic–industrial mobilization during the period 1937–1945. From 1937 to December 1941, the country was engaged in a land war of attrition in China. This war requested an immense amount of resources and was associated with armaments procurement strategy with emphasis in the army. However, the Japanese strategic vision assumed that the state was strong enough to engage in one land war against China and in a naval war in the Pacific simultaneously. The basis of Japanese strategy was a utopia. Making things worse, the naval war in the Pacific was conducted against the most industrialized powers in the world [the US and the British Empire (Britain, Australia, India, etc.)]. Finally, the internal Japanese industrial mobilization was associated with immense errors in armaments production (absence of economies of scale and scope, limited raw materials, etc.). Under these circumstances, the defeat was an expected outcome.

Take-off and landing magnetic system for UAV carriers

ABSTRACTAircrafts play a main role in modern naval wars. The navy increasingly uses unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). It can be assumed that in the future navies can largely resist the use of airplanes and helicopters. This will reduce the risk of crew loss and will also reduce the cost of having an airborne device on board. A new class of war ship has come up. This kind of ship is equipped with the automatic take-off and landing system as well as planning, navigation, and supervising of an UAV system. The article presents the magnetic take-off and landing system for UAV carriers. The system was elaborated as a demonstrator of technology in the GABRIEL project.

Review of 'Naval Families, War and Duty in Britain, 1740-1820'

Review of 'Naval Families, War and Duty in Britain, 1740-1820'

Dispersed combat as mass action with finite search

Improvements to models of battle attrition are necessary because current models cannot explain battle attrition. Agent based simulations indicate that calculated attrition is substantially different when agents are not assumed to have unlimited detection capabilities. However, agent based models are limited to small force sizes and there is no evidence that the changes in calculated attrition occur for large force sizes. We develop a probabilistic model, based on Bernoulli trials, to check if limited detection capabilities result in significant changes to calculated attrition when force sizes are large, as in battle datasets. Our model is a search model and we convert it to an attrition model via the same processes used in current models, and include the same assumptions for factors other than detection range. We find two series solutions to the model, one for small force sizes, the other for large force sizes, and find numerically that the two solutions strongly overlap. The new model makes a difference to calculated attrition when force sizes are small, but not when they are large. However, the model makes a difference to calculated attrition for all force sizes if the battlefield area is increased to maintain a sparse force density. Our approach is mathematical, not requiring application knowledge, and several of the assumptions underlying mass action models are raised in our discussion. References J. V. Chase. Sea fights: A mathematical investigation of the effect of superiority of force in combats upon the sea . Naval War College Archives, RG 8, Box 109, XTAV (1902), 1902. N. R. Franks and L. W. Partridge. Lanchester battles and the evolution of combat in ants. Anim. Behav. , 45:197–199, 1993. doi:10.1006/anbe.1993.1021 G. S. Gradschtein and I. M. Ryzhik. Tables of Series, Products and Integrals . Deutcher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1996. N. C. Grassly and C. Fraser. Mathematical models of infectious disease transmission. Nat. Rev. Microbiol. , 6:477–487, 2008. doi:10.1038/nrmicro1845 D. Kahneman. Thinking Fast and Slow . Penguin, London, 2013. L. R. Kosowski, A. Pincombe and B. Pincombe. Irrelevance of the fractal dimension term in the modified fractal attrition equation. ANZIAM J. , 52:C988–C1011, 2011. doi:10.21914/anziamj.v52i0.3963 F. W. Lanchester. Aircraft in warfare: The dawn of the fourth arm . Constable, London, 1916. http://edc448uri.wikispaces.com/file/view/Lanchester+-+Aircraft+in+Warfare.pdf T. W. Lucas and T. Turkes. Fitting Lanchester equations to the Battles of Kursk and Ardennes. Nav. Res. Log. , 51:95–116, 2004. doi:10.1002/nav.10101 T. W. Lucas and J. A. Dinges. The effect of battle circumstances on fitting Lanchester equations to the Battle of Kursk. Mil. Oper. Res. , 9:17–30, 2004. http://www.mors.org/Publications/MOR-Journal/Online-Issues P. M. Morse and G. E. Kimball. Methods of Operations Research . Wiley, 1951. M. Osipov. The influence of the numerical strength of engaged forces in their casualties. Translated by R. L. Helmbold and A. S. Rehm. Nav. Res. Log. , 42:435–490, 1995. 3.0.CO;2-2>doi:10.1002/1520-6750(199504)42:3 3.0.CO;2-2 R. Peterson. On the logarithmic law of combat and its application to tank combat. Oper. Res. , 15:557–558, 1967. doi:10.1287/opre.15.3.557 A. H. Pincombe, B. M. Pincombe and C. E. M. Pearce, Putting the art before the force. ANZIAM J. , 51:C482–C496, 2010. doi:10.0000/anziamj.v51i0.2584 . A. H. Pincombe, B. M. Pincombe and C. E. M. Pearce. A simple battle model with explanatory power. ANZIAM J. , 51:C497–C511, 2010. doi:10.21914/anziamj.v51i0.2585 . B. M. Pincombe and A. H. Pincombe. Mass action models of Falklands War battles. ANZIAM J. , 57:C235–C252, 2016. doi:10.21914/anziamj.v57i0.10450 J. G. Taylor. Lanchester models of warfare. Operations Research Society of America, Arlington, 1983.

Book Review: Before Jutland: The Naval War in Northern European Waters, August 1914–February 1915

Book Review: Before Jutland: The Naval War in Northern European Waters, August 1914–February 1915

Heir to the Empire City: New York and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt. By Edward P.Kohn. New York: Basic Books, 2014. 271 pp.

Presidential Studies QuarterlyVolume 46, Issue 4 p. 961-962 BOOK REVIEW Heir to the Empire City: New York and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt. By Edward P. Kohn. New York: Basic Books, 2014. 271 pp. Jon Scott Logel, Jon Scott Logel U.S. Naval War CollegeSearch for more papers by this author Jon Scott Logel, Jon Scott Logel U.S. Naval War CollegeSearch for more papers by this author First published: 26 October 2016 https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12334Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume46, Issue4December 2016Pages 961-962 RelatedInformation