The Integration of the Evidence-Based Framework and Military Judgment and Decision-Making

This article is the second in a four-part series that discusses the integration of evidence-based framework and military judgment and decision-making (MJDM). The series is written as a conceptualization and implementation of the presidential memorandum on restoring faith in government dated 27 January 2021. The focus of the series is on integrating the evidence-based framework into defense planning and decision-making as an operational art. The series frames this integration in terms of basing decisions on the best evidence in four categories: subject matter expertise, stakeholder input, organizational data, and scholarship. It also recognizes that scholarship is the single component within the evidence-based framework not currently integrated into military planning.

NEW PERSPECTIVES OF SIMULATION MODELING IN THE OPERATIONAL ART OF MILITARY ACTION PLANNING THROUGH SOFT SYSTEMS METHODOLOGY

The contemporary operational environment is mainly determined by the dynamics of the phenomena occurring within the connections of the societal fields. Decoding the reality and designing military actions have shifted to new coordinates of the operational art, in terms of the way the factors of influence that change the status of each societal field are jointly approached. The term societal has acquired new meanings in the context of the overconnectivity of the fundamental domains of the society which are the following: political/diplomatic, military, economic, social, medical – pandemic, infrastructural, informational, environmental and geo-strategic. The operational art of military action planning is based on decoding the operational environment and includes analyses with different level of detail depending on the approached societal field. The analyses result in different models of action of the opponent that involve organizing and reorganizing the friendly formations that will be planned to take part in operations. Deciding for or against certain options for resolving a (military) crisis situation takes place following repeated simulations until favorable results are obtained. In this article, we aimed to bring to the attention of the specialists in the field of military action planning the integrative methodology of "design thinking" the main aspects related to the impact of the dynamics of the societal domains network in the perspective of the simulated modeling in military action planning.

OPERATIONAL CONCEPTS APPLICABLE TO AIR SPACE SECURITY IN THE LAND FORCES’ AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE INTEGRATION OF VSHORAD, SHORAD, SAM AIR DEFENCE MISSILE SYSTEMS

Airspace security is regulated at the level of each state according to the international treaties and conventions, in all possible situations, in times of peace, crisis or war, by integrating all the civilian and military air traffic control systems. The deep concern reaching the level of worry of the specialists in the field of airspace security is the reality of the complex operational environment of the land forces operations. In this context, due to the upgrades in the air space technology and the scale of the air actions at different altitudes, the need for the operational conceptualization of the air defence systems is well justified. For this, we redefined the airspace in the land forces area of responsibility from the perspective of two directions of research. The first direction of research is the threat and the aggression of a hypothetical air enemy, and the second direction of research is the conduct of the air defence response at different altitudes. In order to obtain results, in this article, we have developed several directions of analysis and conceptualization on the possibilities of integrating the VSHORAD, SHORAD, SAM air defence missile systems. Through this scientific approach, we consider to have opened new series of possibilities of planning the air combat and of probabilistic configuration on the notion of event of the air defence response, in a manner which is appropriate to the new challenges arising in the current airspace. Keywords: aerial threat and aggression; air defence response; air defence event; air defence probability; operational art.

The U.S. Marine Corps’ Tank Doctrine, 1920–50

Major Joseph DiDomenico’s study of U.S. Army influence on U.S. Marine Corps tank doctrine appeared in the Summer 2018 issue of this journal, titled “The U.S. Army’s Influence on Marine Corps Tank Doctrine.” Mobilizing an impressive array of primary and secondary sources, DiDomenico laid considerable credit for the Corps’ improvements to its nascent World War II tank and amphibious tractor doctrine on the Army’s Armor School at Fort Knox as well as the improved Army doctrinal publications that had emerged by 1944. Major DiDomenico excoriated the Marine Corps’ neglect of “critical vulnerabilities for armor supporting amphibious operations.” The benchmark for Marine Corps tank doctrine’s failures to “synthesize” Army tank doctrine for Marine Corps missions is unsurprisingly the Battle of Tarawa. According to DiDomenico, the failures registered at Tarawa “indicated an institutional ignorance in the operational art of combined arms.” This article presents some common misconceptions of Marine Corps tank policy and doctrine and aims to correct those misconceptions.

Scientific support of border activity

The object of this research is the border activity, while the subject is the science of border activity – borderology. The article consists of five sections. The first section views border activity as a system of preventive (border prevention and deterrence), security and control (border patrol, border search), and defense-militant measures (special activity, combat activity, operational actions). The second and third sections give detail description to these measures, as well as the typical stages of the cycles of activity. The fourth section is dedicated to description of the structure of borderology – the system of knowledge on ensuring border security, state c of border organizations, preparation and conduct of border activity, and its all-round provision. The fifth section provides a systemic formulation of principles of border activity. Within the framework of development of the concept of “border management system”, the author considers the border activity as a system of measures aimed at ensuring national security in the borders. The science of border activity includes the following disciplines: border art (border policy, border operational art, border tactics), border history, border statistics, mathematical theory of managing border security, legal framework of border security and border activity, philosophy of border security, psychology and sociology of border activity, theory of border training and education, theories of all-round support of border activity, theory of development, application of technical and special means of border activity.