Strategic Triad Research Articles

Evaluating the Contribution of Lean Construction to Achieving Sustainable Development Goals

The construction industry is scrutinized and criticized for its impact on environmental degradation. Nowadays, while the lean construction philosophy and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to alleviate the adverse environmental effects of the construction industry, their synergies remain unclear and ambiguous. Therefore, this study aims to explore the synergies between lean construction principles and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their combined efficacy in mitigating the environmental footprint of the construction industry. In the study, a comprehensive three-step methodology, involving a literature review, focus group discussions, and quantitative Delphi technique analysis, was employed. The analysis uncovers that SDGs (ensuring clean water and sanitation, promoting clean energy, fostering economic growth and decent work, improving infrastructure and innovation, building sustainable cities and communities, promoting responsible consumption and production, conserving oceans, and preserving terrestrial ecosystems) have 63 extremely important linkages and 251 very important linkages with lean construction principles. The analysis results indicate that the synergies are categorized under economic (39%), environmental (42%), and social (19%) factors. Moreover, the strategic triad of lean principles, i.e., “Reducing non-value-adding, focusing on all processes, and continuous improvement”, emerged as key in fostering extremely important interactions. This study’s novelty lies in its integrating of Koskela’s lean principles with the 17 SDGs and 169 targets of Agenda 2030, offering strategic insights for aligning construction processes with the broader 2030 agenda for enhanced sustainability in the construction industry. The findings contribute to finding out the how lean construction principles serve the SDGs.

Strategic performance blueprint: Optimizing business performance through tailoring strategic postures to environmental and institutional contexts

ABSTRACT In a world where one-size-fits-all strategies are increasingly inadequate, this study examines the strategic triad of entrepreneurial orientation (EO), market orientation (MO), and entrepreneurial marketing (EM) and their context-varied effects on organizational performance. Using structural equation modeling and data representing diverse sets of U.S. organizations and industries, we demonstrate that when market growth is slow, supplier power is strong, and competitive intensity is low, EO outperforms MO and EM. Smaller organizations and those with less diverse and smaller networks are better suited for EO. MO functions best in stable markets with significant growth and limited supplier power, as well as for large organizations and those with strong and diversified networks. EM works best for mid-sized organizations and those with weak networks and in environments of high supplier power, intense competition, and high market turbulence. Offered vignettes demonstrate which strategic posture should be chosen by executives in different contexts.

“Tailored” Country Strategies in the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review

The new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), published in January 2018, stipulates a “tailored” strategy towards each country which Washington sees as presenting a nuclear challenge to the United States. Yet each “tailored” strategy is based on the same reiterated assumption that the U.S. measures and programs are developed in response to external hostile actions. The NPR cites other countries’ aggressive behavior and military buildup as the reason to reinstitute the role of nuclear weapons as the key component of the U.S. deterrent, modernize the U.S. strategic triad and dual-capable aircraft, develop new small-yield warheads, create sealaunched cruise missiles, and reinforce the C3 systems to support them. These initiatives go along with the new expanded understanding of “extreme circumstances” which allow for a U.S. nuclear response to a non-nuclear attack, as well as with other new features of the U.S. nuclear doctrine: the creation of “more usable” types of nuclear weapons, the integration of nuclear and conventional elements of planning and operations, the enhanced focus on cyber threats, and the prioritization of “flexibility,” “uncertainty,” and “hedging” – which all increase the danger of an actual use of nuclear weapons. The NPR presents Russia as a higher threat compared to China, while China – as a major challenge to the United States in the Asian region. Yet the NPR does not call these two states “adversaries” and stresses the need to avoid confrontation and an arms race. Besides Russia’s “aggressive policies,” military programs and bellicose declarations, the NPR focuses on its alleged adherence to the concept of “escalation for de-escalation” – early first use of nuclear weapons to end a conventional conflict on favorable terms – a notion that the NPR sets to counteract. The requirements formulated by the NPR towards Iran and North Korea include ensuring their non-nuclear status, countering their growing influence in the respective Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions, preventing the transfer of nuclear and missile technologies and sensitive materials to third parties and states, and convincingly demonstrating that their aggression, including a conventional one, would be met with resolute action by the United States and its allies. Yet, in a shuffle of a kind, opposite to how the Obama Administration renounced military solution to the Iran problem and chose negotiations with this country with no preliminary condition, – and at the same time preferred the tactics of isolating North Korea and disregarding its claims, – now it is with Seoul that Washington may engage with, while simultaneously demonstrating a tough line towards Teheran. Yet the shifts towards a settlement on the Korean Peninsula, along with certain signs of restraint in the NPR, offer some grounds to hope that – given political will and active international efforts – the worst-case scenarios and further deterioration of international situation may successfully be avoided.

European Policies Towards China and the United States: Can They Support a Strategic Triad?

Does a strategic triad exist? This article argues that the international order is undergoing a transformation that points towards a ‘new bipolarity’ between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. This new bipolarity is characterized by deep interdependence and mixed motives, rather than by the ideological antagonism and power struggle of the East-West conflict. It also is a much weaker axis of world order than the old bipolarity. This means it will likely fall short of providing the levels of global governance the world will need to cope with the challenges and opportunities produced by the relentless advance of globalization. To form this new bipolarity into a strategic triad, it would require the existence or ascent of a third party (a state, a coalition of states, or the European Union (EU)) with the capacity and credibility to influence the policy behaviour of both Washington and Beijing. In the case of the EU, what is missing is the capacity of the EU to act as a third party with its own, independent policy agenda that is taken seriously by both China and the United States.

Reinforcing Lessons for Business from the Marketing Revolution in U.S. Presidential Politics: A Strategic Triad

ABSTRACTThe role of marketing in presidential politics in the United States has introduced lessons for marketing executives on how to more effectively build up brand loyalty and fend off competition. The same technological breakthroughs in marketing that have powered corporate America were used by the Obama presidential campaigns in both 2008 and 2012 to microtarget potential donors and voters, carry out massive fund‐raising campaigns, and energize a base of citizens through newly minted movements at a level of sophistication not witnessed previously in other sectors. The same techniques continued to be used in the 2016 presidential campaign, and the paradigm shift in marketing put forward in this article is represented with the introduction of a Strategic Triad that integrates the use of Big Data, microtargeting, and social media by organizations in the political, for‐profit, and nonprofit sectors.

The Bomb that Keeps on Ticking …And Keeps Us Safe

The United States Air Force has returned from its nuclear modernization and intellectual holidays. The B61 Life Extension Program and nuclear capability for the F-35 fighter are at the leading edge of a flight plan that vectors the institution to rebuild the nation's extended deterrent; its two legs of our strategic triad; and nearly all nuclear command, control, and communications infrastructure, to deter emerging nuclear threats and assure allies new and old. This flight plan is framed by new efforts across the cognitive domain of war so that all airmen understand how vastly different twenty-first century deterrence is from the Cold War.

Community-Based Intervention for Prevention of Dementia in Japan.

Population aging is accelerating, with prolonged life expectancy and a decrease in birth rate. As age is a significant risk factor for dementia, we are confronted with an ever-increasing prevalence of mild cognitive impairment (MCI)/dementia. Thus, the Japanese National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology launched a project to promote community-based research, including the development of an effective screening system for high-risk groups and intervention for dementia prevention. This review introduces the project, the Obu Study of Health Promotion for the Elderly, with the following strategic triad: 1) Identification of the target population by population screening; we regarded patients with MCI as the target population, and developed a screening test battery to identify MCI in a population screening setting. 2) Scientific evaluation of community-based intervention; we developed an interventional method combining exercise and cognitive training ("cognicise"). In practical settings, "cognicise" is programmed into multicomponent exercise intervention, which was reported to have benefits of cognitive improvement and reduction of brain atrophy based on randomized controlled trials. 3) Standardization of the methods of population screening and community-based intervention for evidence-based policy making and widespread implementation. Dementia prevention, or at least delaying the onset of dementia and/or stopping/slowing the progression of dementia, should benefit the whole society as well as individuals. It is our continuing challenge to improve the screening system and community-based intervention for dementia prevention through accumulation of evidence.

Ядерное сдерживание в период конфронтации

The article focuses on the main aspects of nuclear deterrence concept, including the mechanism of its application during the period of international tension. The author pays attention to the strategic triad configuration which makes nuclear deterrence more effective and reliable. Along with it the credibility of nuclear deterrence is also under consideration as a very important element of the overall problem analysis. The central part of the article is devoted to the problem of nuclear targeting and possible application of nuclear weapons in case the deterrence failed, and the decision to use these weapons were taken. The author argues that there is no rational variant to apply nuclear weapons without unpredictable and deadly reaction from the opposite side. There is no hope to achieve any positive result after the first use of nuclear weapons – whether strategic or tactical. Thus, a massive counterforce strike cannot prevent from a massive retaliation resulting in the complete annihilation of the rivalries. A limited strike against strategic offensive forces of the opponent can be interpreted as a massive strike ending with massive retaliation. A single strike cannot solve any military problem and, moreover, may give strategic initiative to the opponent. Tactical nuclear forces can be used in different, but generally “unproductive” ways – whether against the own territory, or by solving only limited tasks, while producing an unpredictable reaction from the opponent. The author comes to a conclusion that the nuclear weapon is only an instrument of self-destruction which cannot solve any security problem. It can only play a symbolic role in terms of the country's prestige, and nothing else. Finally, the author insists that the strategic stability concept started to play a counter-productive role in the U.S.-Russia strategic relations, and must be substituted by a new approach to security. This approach should reject the central idea of strategic stability which calls for preserving a powerful retaliatory potential. Acknowledgements. The publication is prepared with financial support of the Russian Foundation for Humanities; Project № 15-37-11136 “The Influence of Technological Factors on the Spectrum of Threats to National and International Security, Military Conflicts and Strategic Stability”.

The New Great Game: Pakistan’s Approach to Afghanistan after 2014

A modern day Great Game is playing out in Inner Asia once again. Like the Great Game of the nineteenth century, it centers on Afghanistan, a land that falls outside every state's sphere of influence and has always been intensely hostile to foreigners, making it a perfect playing field. China, India, Russia, and the United States are the major powers embroiled in competition in and around Afghanistan, but Pakistan is also very much in the game. As the most significant front-line state, as well as the country of first asylum to the largest number of Afghan refugees (and largest refugee population in the world from 1982 to 1997), Pakistan correctly saw itself as having invested much in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. This investment cost Islamabad a great deal, however, even as it provided a great opportunity. Afghan mujahideen operated from Pakistani soil to attack Afghanistan, causing retaliatory attacks by the Soviet and Afghan governments that accompanied all the ills that millions of refugees can inflict on a poor state. At the same time, Pakistan's Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) used the Afghan war of the 1980s to refine its strategy of leveraging asymmetric actors to influence events in hostile or less-governed spaces in the country's immediate neighborhood. This goes to the heart of the security dilemma facing Pakistan today, which also helps explain its problem with India and how Afghanistan after 2014 fits into that relationship.The Great Game construct offers much to our understanding of post-2014 Afghanistan and the factors that will likely drive the competition there. This essay articulates Pakistan's primary national interests in Afghanistan and how those interests can be expected to play out in the context of the interests of the other major actors that are also engaged there. It will conclude with some predictions about Pakistan's post-2014 approach to Afghanistan.Pakistan and Afghanistan: Historical ContextEven before the partition of 1947, Pakistan's security consciousness has been dominated by the perceived threat posed by its larger neighbor India, with which it has fought four wars and numerous smaller conflicts. India's sheer size has helped it prevail in all these military exchanges, prompting Pakistan to invest more and more in its military over time. Today, Pakistan has a large and very professional military with a poor track record against India's military, a large nuclear arsenal with robust delivery systems (postured against India's Cold Start conventional doctrine), and an active use of asymmetric actors (guerrillas, insurgents, irregulars, and terrorists), especially in the contested area of Kashmir. This strategic triad both reflects and reinforces the fixation of the Pakistani military on India, motivates Pakistan's spending and doctrines, and causes it to focus increasingly on building, funding, training, and running asymmetric actors outside Pakistan.In the 1990s, after the Soviet Union collapsed and the United States extricated itself from Afghanistan, only Pakistan remained deeply engaged there. Russia, the United States, China, and India all had other priorities: modern Russia was a weakened successor to the Soviet Union, the United States was focused on the Persian Gulf and Eastern Europe, China was reeling from the Tiananmen Square uprising, and India was set adrift from its treaty arrangement with the Soviet Union in the wake of the latter's collapse. The United States left Afghanistan largely in the hands of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, with a decade of increasingly virulent Islamism and destructive civil war as the result. In the latter half of the 1990s, Iran also became engaged in supporting its clients in western, central, and northern Afghanistan, deepening the civil war into ethnic-sectarian cleansing.The Afghan war that erupted after September 11, 2001, changed the regional equation. Today, the United States plays the dominant role, but a rising China, emerging India, re-emerging Russia, troubled Iran, and other regional players all are actively involved in Afghanistan, as are multilateral and nongovernmental organizations. …

Towards 2020 Strategic Triad Partnerships in ICT and Healthcare: Bridging the Chasms in Canada and the European Union

This study examines the management challenges and practices of partnerships between the information and communication technology and healthcare sectors through interviews with selected executives of ICT and healthcare organizations in Canada, Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Underscoring the implications for current and future healthcare executives in Canada, the article also takes a glimpse of the world of strategic partnerships management between these two sectors in the year 2020.

Economic dimension of the strategic nuclear triad

Nuclear weapons and their delivery platforms are expensive propositions. Since their acquisition, Nuclear Weapon/Capable States have spent billions of dollars in the development and production of their delivery platforms. Unfortunately, in all such countries the detailed cost of their nuclear spending and budget estimates is usually classified information. A detailed study of the amount of money spent on the developmental, hidden and sunk costs for acquisition of such weapons and their delivery platforms has probably never been carried out. Presently, irrespective of the economic capability of the countries involved, there exists a concerted effort to try and reduce this expenditure without compromising seriously on deterrence capability. The conventional Cold War mindset of having large nuclear arsenals for “massive retaliation.” has given way to a more rational, smaller, technologically advanced arsenal amongst all the NWS. In doing so, most of the NWS have tended to shift to the more survivable legs of the triad. The shift towards the dad or even the overwhelming dependence on the single sea‐based deterrence leg of the triad has been mainly because of economic concerns and efforts to reduce nuclear expenditure against the background of the altered post Cold War threat perception. This explains the requirement of placing the “burden of maintenance of deterrence” on the more survivable sea‐based leg of the strategic triad, even though this leg is the most expensive and technologically difficult one to maintain.

THE SOLBERG AWARD FOR 1992

Naval Engineers JournalVolume 105, Issue 4 p. 80-82 THE SOLBERG AWARD FOR 1992 PETER R. BANNISTER, PETER R. BANNISTER Peter R. Bannister has been a leading national figure in the area of electromagnetic propagation, earth conductivity, and basic ELF research. This research is now a well established cornerstone in the development of the Navy's ELF Communication System, which provides the vital connectivity between national command authority and submerged submarines. The implementation of ELF communications greatly enhances the operational effectiveness and security of these strategic forces, which represent the undersea leg of the strategic triad. Mr. Bannister's theoretical and empirical investigations of complex wave behavior constitute an integral part in the creation of an important national defense resource. Thanks to Mr. Bannister's scientific contributions, the Navy has a significantly improved strategic nuclear deterrence posture. Mr. Bannister's advancement of naval engineering through ingenious research and development make him most worthy of selection for the ASNE Solberg Award for 1992.Search for more papers by this author PETER R. BANNISTER, PETER R. BANNISTER Peter R. Bannister has been a leading national figure in the area of electromagnetic propagation, earth conductivity, and basic ELF research. This research is now a well established cornerstone in the development of the Navy's ELF Communication System, which provides the vital connectivity between national command authority and submerged submarines. The implementation of ELF communications greatly enhances the operational effectiveness and security of these strategic forces, which represent the undersea leg of the strategic triad. Mr. Bannister's theoretical and empirical investigations of complex wave behavior constitute an integral part in the creation of an important national defense resource. Thanks to Mr. Bannister's scientific contributions, the Navy has a significantly improved strategic nuclear deterrence posture. Mr. Bannister's advancement of naval engineering through ingenious research and development make him most worthy of selection for the ASNE Solberg Award for 1992.Search for more papers by this author First published: July 1993 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-3584.1993.tb02293.x AboutPDF ToolsExport 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 Volume105, Issue4July 1993Pages 80-82 RelatedInformation

The B‐1 decision: How Much is too little?

In 1977, the Carter Admimstration cancelled the B‐1 bomber program. This paper assesses the impact of that decision on national security, within the context of the overall American offensive/defensive posture and the US/ Soviet balance. It is the author's contention that the Administration, in reducing the manned bombers to secondary status, is abandoning the Strategic Triad of bombers, submarine‐launched missiles, and land‐based missiles which has been the basis of our national defense posture for 20 years. Further, the deterioration of the land‐based missile capability, a result of the increasing vulnerability of the Minuteman force to Soviet strikes and the hostility of the Administration to the follow‐on mobile MX program, means that in the 1980s we must rely essentially on a Strategic Monad—the submarine fleet. Absolutely accurate “hairline analysis” could still protect us, but should such calculations fail, should unknown factors enter—then a catastrophe unparalleled in the nation's history could occur.