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.

ROMANIA'S DEFENCE CAPACITY, BETWEEN THE PROFESSIONAL ARMED FORCES AND THE TERRITORIAL FORCES

Defense planning is a particularly important topic, which implies an analysis of the international situation, a realistic assessment of its own national security system, whichinvolves medium- and long-term decisions. The allocation of resources should follow the defense policy established following a strategic analysis process, after the strategic objectivesand level of ambition have been established. The construction of military capabilities is complex, is carried out over time and requires the allocation of financial resources and apredictable and coherent human resource policy. Discontinuous reforms, or the alteration of decisions with opportunistic, conjuncture solutions, adversely affect future programs andproduce waste of financial and material resources, as well as social convulsions in human resources. The structure of forces on which the state's defense capacity is built must beincreasingly professional to have a timely and effective responsiveness, and the resilience capacity for national defense should be based on the mental and armed resilience of thepopulation in the case of temporary occupation of the national territory. Membership of NATO and the European Union increases resilience through the commitments of the two organizationsto support the restoration of Romania's territorial integrity in the event of military aggression. The increasingly technologically evolved human society requires a rethinking of thenational mobilization system, both in terms of human resources and in terms of the involvement of the resources of the national economy. Maintaining the functioning of critical infrastructure,operationalizing industrial facilities and maintaining the capacity to provide the material and financial resources needed for the war effort are particularly important, and the workforce inthese areas cannot be made available to complement military structures. Law enforcement and civil emergency forces will be engaged in the specific missions of each of them but may formbases of resistance in the case of national occupation. Participation in NATO and EU force structures must be in line with the force structure designed for national needs, renegotiated,realistically, in the medium and long term, with sustainable promises corresponding to common standards. Allocating a 2% defense budget is not the single and sufficient solution to achievinga credible and sustainable defense capability. Difficult, socially and politically impact corrective measures are needed, but any delay will produce increasing imbalances.Keywords: Defense planning, national defense, NATO, Romania, European Union

TRUMAN DOCTRINE (1946); DEFENSE PLANNING GUIDANCE (1991) & THE NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY (2002): THE MACKINDER & SPYKMAN DIALECTICS REVISITED

The aim of this article is to test the hypothesis that Halford Mackinder and Nicholas Spykman’s geopolitical theories, which sustained the grand strategy of the United States with the implementation of 1946 Truman Doctrine, are still relevant today after their termination. The results indicate that the intellectual matrixes were found in documents of the grand strategy of the United States in two moments. First, in 1992, in the George Herbert Walker Bush’s government’s Defense Planning Guidance document, formulated by the Pentagon, in February 1992. Second, they were found replicated 10 years after in the first term of President George Walker Bush, inaugurated in 2001. In the latter, the theoretical formulations repercussions were depicted in the official documents Quadrennial Defense Review (2001) and the National Security Strategy (2002). The article concluded that the authors’ ideas remain valid to explain and interpret the actions of the United States’ grand strategy in the international scenario.

National Defensive and Defense Strategies. Selected Planning Problems

The overall objective of undertaken research is to present national reflection on defense in Poland, in particular an image of the defense planning culture. The article focuses on issues of defense strategy planning as a part of the complete state defensive strategy and indicates the necessary directions for changes in the essence of defense planning in the light of changes in the security and defense environment of Poland in the 21st century. In the study use has been made of an analysis and a critical review of normative documents, strategies and doctrines. The collected data allow the indication of changes of an application nature (projection method) to the theory of strategic planning in the field of national defense. This allowed proving that the future desired position of Poland in regional and even continental Europe depends on the anticipated direction of development of Polish defense potential, defense system, and of course, a clearly expressed strategy. The most important element of the three listed ones is naturally the strategy, the preparation of which requires regular cycles of strategic reviews, which are unfortunately not feasible in Poland. The article also emphasizes the importance of assuring the stability of the planning system, the basic element of which are experts, and whose regular fluctuation as a result of constant political changes causes a considerable destabilization of the planning system. Finally, attention is drawn to the fact that the defense strategy must take into account the complexity and unpredictability of the security environment – which are its basic features today.