Military Performance

2021 ◽  
pp. 248-299
Author(s):  
Zoltan Barany

In Chapter 6 the various strands of the study come together as the actual performance of the Gulf armies is appraised. Given the limited involvement of GCC countries in military operations, the available evidence to base judgments upon their battlefield effectiveness is slender. Therefore, the analysis integrates lessons that may be learned from training and large-scale exercises GCC armies have participated in. To understand Gulf armies’ deficiencies, special attention is paid to the instruction and cultural aspects of the most prestigious military specialization, pilot training. In the second section the scant foreign deployment of Gulf militaries is examined, with special emphasis on the UAE, the only GCC army with extensive experience in this area. The bulk of this chapter centers on the ongoing civil war in Yemen in which the Saudi and Emirati armed forces have played a major role, thus allowing us the opportunity to assess their performance.

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 186-192
Author(s):  
Sergey Aleksandrovich Tribunsky

The researcher highlighted (in the format of a lapidary historiographic review) historiographic sources published in the 1920s - the first half of the 1930s, which dealt with the topic of cultural and educational work in the Workers and Peasants Red Army (RKKA) during the front-line Civil War (1918-1920). In the historiographic period, the chronological framework of which is indicated above, a relatively large number of historiographic sources appeared on the history of the Russian Civil War (at the front stage of its course). They reflected, among other things, many aspects of the historical phenomenon of party political work in the Armed Forces of the young Soviet state, that historical phenomenon, within the framework of which cultural and educational work in the Red Army was born and strengthened. Moreover, such studies were carried out immediately as the Civil War continued until the end of 1922 on the outskirts of the Soviet state, although it was not so large-scale. Such historiographic sources require understanding and rethinking from the standpoint of new theoretical and methodological approaches, established in modern Russian historical science. For a lapidary historiographic review the author has selected, first of all, a complex of historiographic sources that have both direct and indirect relation to the topic of cultural and educational work in the Red Army during the front-line Civil War, which were published in the chronological framework indicated above. Of course, there are no copyright claims in the work for the completeness of coverage of the topic under consideration. This, in fact, cannot be achieved in the format of a historiographic survey, especially lapidary.


Author(s):  
Miguel Dantas da Cruz

War played a crucial role in the political and administrative development of colonial Brazil. The adoption of different government solutions, from the initial naval expeditions and proprietary captaincies to the establishment of a general government, were, in part, a response to the military challenges the Portuguese faced in the New World. In the 17th century, the leading municipalities in Brazil expanded their political prominence and reinforced their autonomy precisely when they assumed the commitment to feed the troops and pay for the army’s wages. War and military conflicts also played an important role in the formation of the colonial society in Brazil. There was a natural overlay between the hierarchical structure of the military institutions created in, or transplanted to, the colony and the hierarchical society the Portuguese established in America. The armed forces consolidated the social status of local elites; while they provided opportunities for the more marginalized groups of blacks, mixed-race, and Indians—active participants in the defense of Brazil from the outset—they also helped colonial administrators organize society along racial lines. Regulars, militias, ordenanças, and other military units filled different functions in the territory. They often took part in different military operations in a territory that was hardly suitable for large-scale operations, prolonged siege warfare, or coordinated deployment of mass infantry formations. In Brazil, similarly to other colonies in America, a distinct kind of warfare emerged, marked by a synthesis of European, Indian, and African military knowledges. It was called Guerra Brasílica, and it was both admired for its effectiveness and disparaged for not fitting nicely in traditional European military orthodoxies and for being undisciplined and supposedly “uncivilized.” The negative imageries attached to military campaigns in Brazil persisted in the minds of colonial administrators for a long time, underpinning the territory’s undeserving military status (when compared with India and North Africa)—a status that the colony seldom escaped.


Author(s):  
Sergey V. Ratz ◽  

The article is dedicated to the activities of the Soviet intelligence agencies in Spain during the Civil War of 1936–1939. By June 1936, diplomatic relations between USSR and Spain were absent. Due to the putschist revolt and the appeal of the legitimate government of Spain to the USSR, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) made a decision to establish diplomatic, military, and trade delegations in Spain. The intelligence agencies of the USSR planned operation ‘X’ for military assistance to Spain. As part of this operation, a Soviet advisory staff concerning military and foreign intelligence was formed. The author brings to light the goals of the secret service authorities of the Soviet Union, including such particular ones as the removal of Spain’s gold reserve and the creation of the 14th Partisan Corps. The article analyses the activities of the advisory staff, their role in the development of the largest military operations during the Spanish Civil War, and traces the fate of the conflict’s most active participants. Based on the analysis of new data introduced into the historical discourse in recent years, the author concludes that the secret services of the USSR played a large role in this conflict. The Soviet advisors and specialists obtained unique experiences, including conducting large-scale operations; military equipment was tested in actual battle activities; intelligence specialists enlisted information sources with great potential. Many military specialists tried and trained in Spain in 1936–1939 later played an invaluable role in the victory of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War.


2018 ◽  
pp. 1149-1162
Author(s):  
Konstantin N. Kurkov ◽  
◽  
Alexander V. Melnichuk ◽  

The article studies some of the more complicated and sensitive issues of the Civil War in the South of Russia – relations of the Armed Forces of South Russia with the Krai governments of the Don and the Kuban and separatist movements as an important factor in the Whites’ defeat in the South of Russia. Both issues are covered in ‘Defamation of the White Movement,’ one of the last works of General A. I. Denikin. Its manuscript has been introduced into scientific use by the authors. Commanders and military authorities of the Volunteer Army with A. I. Denikin at its head were not tied down by regional interests and could pursue national interests in their policy in order to restore an all-Russian unity destroyed by the revolution. Regional concerns of the Don, Kuban, Little Russian, Caucasian independentists were in direct conflict with the national tasks that the Volunteer Army and the Armed Forces of South Russia strove to solve. Unlike the Don Ataman P. N. Krasnov, who was forced to cooperate with the occupation authorities of Imperial Germany, whose troops had occupied the territory of the Great Don Army for the most of 1918, and unlike other regional administrators in the German-occupied territories, the Whites did not cooperate with the occupiers and at times counteracted their anti-Russian policy. Denikin's propaganda successfully used this fact to fall back on traditional patriotic sentiments and to eat away at the Kremlin regime’s support. Centrifugal tendencies in the South of Russia did not allow the Volunteers to consolidate anti-Bolshevik forces and made an armed resistance to the Bolsheviks impossible. Hence A. I. Denikin’s uncompromising stand on separatist aspirations of independentists. In his view, it was the separatists’ activities in different regions of the former Russian Empire that hindered the successful offensive of the armed forces of South Russia, for instance, on the Moscow direction. Internal dissent was exacerbated by intervention of foreign forces – German occupation forces, the Allied Intervention, and active Bolshevik influence on the outskirts of the former Empire. The article compares Denikin’s text with testimonies of contemporaries and writings of historians. Thus, the authors have been able to show that his slender work reliably and accurately recreates the complex and dramatic situation, which led to the defeat of the anti-Bolshevik forces in the Civil War.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 245-264
Author(s):  
Andrey Ganin

The document published is a letter from the commander of the Kiev Region General Abram M. Dragomirov to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in the South of Russia General Anton I. Denikin of December, 1919. The source covers the events of the Civil War in Ukraine and the views of the leadership of the White Movement in the South of Russia on a number of issues of policy and strategy in Ukraine. The letter was found in the Hoover Archives of Stanford University in the USA in the collection of Lieutenant General Pavel A. Kusonsky. The document refers to the period when the white armies of the South of Russia after the bright success of the summer-autumn “March on Moscow” in 1919 were stopped by the Red Army and were forced to retreat. On the pages of the letter, Dragomirov describes in detail the depressing picture of the collapse of the white camp in the South of Russia and talks about how to improve the situation. Dragomirov saw the reasons for the failure of the White Movement such as, first of all, the lack of regular troops, the weakness of the officers, the lack of discipline and, as a consequence, the looting and pogroms. In this regard, Dragomirov was particularly concerned about the issue of moral improvement of the army. Part of the letter is devoted to the issues of the civil administration in the territories occupied by the White Army. Dragomirov offers both rational and frankly utopian measures. However, the thoughts of one of the closest Denikin’s companions about the reasons what had happened are interesting for understanding the essence of the Civil War and the worldview of the leadership of the anti-Bolshevik Camp.


Author(s):  
О. Кravchuk ◽  
V. Symonenkov ◽  
I. Symonenkova ◽  
O. Hryhorev

Today, more than forty countries of the world are engaged in the development of military-purpose robots. A number of unique mobile robots with a wide range of capabilities are already being used by combat and intelligence units of the Armed forces of the developed world countries to conduct battlefield intelligence and support tactical groups. At present, the issue of using the latest information technology in the field of military robotics is thoroughly investigated, and the creation of highly effective information management systems in the land-mobile robotic complexes has acquired a new phase associated with the use of distributed information and sensory systems and consists in the transition from application of separate sensors and devices to the construction of modular information subsystems, which provide the availability of various data sources and complex methods of information processing. The purpose of the article is to investigate the ways to increase the autonomy of the land-mobile robotic complexes using in a non-deterministic conditions of modern combat. Relevance of researches is connected with the necessity of creation of highly effective information and control systems in the perspective robotic means for the needs of Land Forces of Ukraine. The development of the Armed Forces of Ukraine management system based on the criteria adopted by the EU and NATO member states is one of the main directions of increasing the effectiveness of the use of forces (forces), which involves achieving the principles and standards necessary for Ukraine to become a member of the EU and NATO. The inherent features of achieving these criteria will be the transition to a reduction of tasks of the combined-arms units and the large-scale use of high-precision weapons and land remote-controlled robotic devices. According to the views of the leading specialists in the field of robotics, the automation of information subsystems and components of the land-mobile robotic complexes can increase safety, reliability, error-tolerance and the effectiveness of the use of robotic means by standardizing the necessary actions with minimal human intervention, that is, a significant increase in the autonomy of the land-mobile robotic complexes for the needs of Land Forces of Ukraine.


The armed forces of Europe have undergone a dramatic transformation since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Handbook of European Defence Policies and Armed Forces provides the first comprehensive analysis of national security and defence policies, strategies, doctrines, capabilities, and military operations, as well as the alliances and partnerships of European armed forces in response to the security challenges Europe has faced since the end of the cold war. A truly cross-European comparison of the evolution of national defence policies and armed forces remains a notable blind spot in the existing literature. This Handbook aims to fill this gap with fifty-one contributions on European defence and international security from around the world. The six parts focus on: country-based assessments of the evolution of the national defence policies of Europe’s major, medium, and lesser powers since the end of the cold war; the alliances and security partnerships developed by European states to cooperate in the provision of national security; the security challenges faced by European states and their armed forces, ranging from interstate through intra-state and transnational; the national security strategies and doctrines developed in response to these challenges; the military capabilities, and the underlying defence and technological industrial base, brought to bear to support national strategies and doctrines; and, finally, the national or multilateral military operations by European armed forces. The contributions to The Handbook collectively demonstrate the fruitfulness of giving analytical precedence back to the comparative study of national defence policies and armed forces across Europe.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Alexandra Phelan ◽  
Jacqui True

Abstract A growing body of scholarship connects the participation of women and the inclusion of gender provisions to the sustainability of peace settlements. But how do women's groups navigate gender power structures and gendered forms of violence within complex and fragile political bargaining processes aimed at ending large-scale conflict? The 2016 Colombian peace agreement, internationally applauded for its inclusion of strong gender provisions and women's participation as negotiators and peace advocates, is a significant case for examining these questions. Drawing on original case material, including interviews of key actors on different sides of the conflict – this article analyses the political bargaining dynamics within and among women's movements, the Santos government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC). We argue that the inclusion of women was pivotal in transforming the elite bargaining process and power structures of Colombian society enabling a gender-based approach to the substantive peace agenda addressing transitional gender justice for sexual violence survivors and gender-equal redistribution through land and rural reform programmes. The study suggests that deeply situated political bargaining analysis is essential to navigating gender in elite bargains rather than a one-size-fits-all approach to inclusive peace.


Electronics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 782
Author(s):  
Shuo Cao ◽  
Honglei Qin ◽  
Li Cong ◽  
Yingtao Huang

Position information is very important tactical information in large-scale joint military operations. Positioning with datalink time of arrival (TOA) measurements is a primary choice when a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) is not available, datalink members are randomly distributed, only estimates with measurements between navigation sources and positioning users may lead to a unsatisfactory accuracy, and positioning geometry of altitude is poor. A time division multiple address (TDMA) datalink cooperative navigation algorithm based on INS/JTIDS/BA is presented in this paper. The proposed algorithm is used to revise the errors of the inertial navigation system (INS), clock bias is calibrated via round-trip timing (RTT), and altitude is located with height filter. The TDMA datalink cooperative navigation algorithm estimate errors are stated with general navigation measurements, cooperative navigation measurements, and predicted states. Weighted horizontal geometric dilution of precision (WHDOP) of the proposed algorithm and the effect of the cooperative measurements on positioning accuracy is analyzed in theory. We simulate a joint tactical information distribution system (JTIDS) network with multiple members to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm. The simulation results show that compared to an extended Kalman filter (EKF) that processes TOA measurements sequentially and a TDMA datalink navigation algorithm without cooperative measurements, the TDMA datalink cooperative navigation algorithm performs better.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Li ◽  
Fengyin Xiong ◽  
Zhuo Chen

AbstractBiomass gasification, especially distribution to power generation, is considered as a promising way to tackle global energy and environmental challenges. However, previous researches on integrated analysis of the greenhouse gases (GHG) abatement potentials associated with biomass electrification are sparse and few have taken the freshwater utilization into account within a coherent framework, though both energy and water scarcity are lying in the central concerns in China’s environmental policy. This study employs a Life cycle assessment (LCA) model to analyse the actual performance combined with water footprint (WF) assessment methods. The inextricable trade-offs between three representative energy-producing technologies are explored based on three categories of non-food crops (maize, sorghum and hybrid pennisetum) cultivated in marginal arable land. WF results demonstrate that the Hybrid pennisetum system has the largest impact on the water resources whereas the other two technology options exhibit the characteristics of environmental sustainability. The large variances in contribution ratio between the four sub-processes in terms of total impacts are reflected by the LCA results. The Anaerobic Digestion process is found to be the main contributor whereas the Digestate management process is shown to be able to effectively mitigate the negative environmental impacts with an absolute share. Sensitivity analysis is implemented to detect the impacts of loss ratios variation, as silage mass and methane, on final results. The methane loss has the largest influence on the Hybrid pennisetum system, followed by the Maize system. Above all, the Sorghum system demonstrates the best performance amongst the considered assessment categories. Our study builds a pilot reference for further driving large-scale project of bioenergy production and conversion. The synergy of combined WF-LCA method allows us to conduct a comprehensive assessment and to provide insights into environmental and resource management.


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