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America's Strategy-Resource Mismatch: Addressing the Gaps Between U.S. National Strategy and Military Capacity
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... For instance, Air Force (AF) maintenance operations could benefit from the autonomous systems innovation occurring in the civilian transportation sector. Given the mismatch in national strategy demands and budgetary constraints placed on it (Bonds et al., 2019), the military needs to seek new ways to attain the highest possible aircraft availability and military readiness, without the burden of overly expensive resources and perpetual sustainment costs. Moreover, the military requires advanced automated capabilities to increase its resiliency and guard against unexpected disruptions. ...
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to explore the utility of autonomous transport across two independent airframe maintenance operations at a single location.
Design/methodology/approach
This study leveraged discrete event simulation that encompassed real-world conditions on a United States Air Force flight line. Though the Theory of Constraints (TOC) lens, a high-demand, human-controlled delivery asset is analyzed and the impact of introducing an autonomous rover delivery vehicle is assessed. The authors’ simulations explored varying numbers and networks of rovers as alternative sources of delivery and evaluated these resources’ impact against current flight line operations.
Findings
This research indicates that the addition of five autonomous rovers can significantly reduce daily expediter delivery tasks, which results in additional expertise necessary to manage and execute flight line operations. The authors assert that this relief would translate into enhancements in aircraft mission capable rates, which could increase overall transport capacity and cascade into faster cargo delivery times, systemwide. By extension, the authors suggest overall inventory management could be improved through reduction in transportation shipping time variance, which enhances the Department of Defense’s overall supply chain resilience posture.
Originality/value
When compared against existing practices, this novel research provides insight into actual flight line movement and the potential benefits of an alternative autonomous delivery system. Additionally, the research measures the potential savings in the workforce and vehicle use that exceeds the cost of the rovers and their employment.
Uluslararüstü bir örgüt olarak AB, çoğu zaman birbiri ile çelişen ve çatışan çıkarları olan üye devletlerin iradelerinin toplamından oluşmaktadır. Realist perspektiften, uluslararası bir örgütün üye devletlere yaptırım uygulayacak otorite ve özerkliğe sahip olması da beklenmemektedir. Ancak yine de üye devletlerin zaman zaman, dış politika çıkarlarına uygun olan en yüksek ortak paydada birleşmesi durumunda, AB de güvenlik ve savunma alanında çeşitli yasal ve kurumsal düzenlemeler aracılığıyla küresel bir güvenlik aktörü gibi roller üstlenebilmektedir. Bugüne kadar özellikle büyük ve güçlü üye devletlerin Avrupacı ve Atlantikçi olmak üzere iki farklı görüş etrafında Birliği yönlendirmesiyle ağır aksak ve bürokratik bir dev olarak ilerleyen AB, son yıllarda güncel güvenlik krizlerinin de etkisiyle daha somut adımlar atmayı gerektiren yeni oluşum ve belgelere imza atmıştır. Stratejik özerkliğe sahip ve kapasitesi kendini savunmaya yeten küresel bir aktör olma iddiasını ortaya koyan Birlik, Avrupacı-Atlantikçi ikilemini aşabilmek için “farklılaştırılmış işbirliği modeli” olarak adlandırılan yeni bir bütünleşme çabasına girmiştir. Mart 2022’de kabul edilen Stratejik Pusula Belgesi ve Kalıcı Yapılandırılmış İşbirliği (PESCO) projeleri de AB’nin bu çabasını gösteren önemli girişimler olmuşlardır. PESCO projelerine üçüncü tarafların da katılımının mümkün hale gelmesi, özellikle NATO bağlamında Avrupa ülkeleri ile müttefik olan Türkiye için yeni bir pencerenin açılmasına neden olmuştur. Avrupa savunmasında özellikle Atlantikçi bütünleşme modeli bakımından kritik bir öneme sahip olan ve bugüne kadar AB ile ilişkilerinde çıkarları çatışan Türkiye’nin bu işbirliği sürecinde alacağı roller hem Avrupa’nın hem de ülkemizin güvenlik çıkarları bakımından büyük önem taşıyacaktır. Bu nedenle çalışmada öncelikle AB’nin güvenlik ve savunma alanında bütünleşmesine yönelik Avrupacı ve Atlantikçi yaklaşım farklılıkları ve bu yaklaşım farklılıklarını aşmak için geliştirilen farklılaştırılmış işbirliği modeli açıklanmıştır. 15 Kasım 2022’de AB Konseyi’nin Birleşik Krallık’ı PESCO’nun askeri hareketlilik projesine davet etmesiyle güncelliğini koruyan ve Atlantikçi bütünleşme modeline daha çok yaklaşan PESCO ile vücut bulmuş bu işbirliği modelinde AB-Türkiye ilişkilerinin mevcut durumu incelenmiştir. Sonuç olarak da AB’nin Stratejik Pusula belgesi bağlamında AB-Türkiye ilişkilerinin geleceği hakkında birtakım çıkarımlarda bulunulmuştur.
The debate on the failure of the efforts to avert the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 is dominated by two narratives presented as mutually exclusive. On the one hand, 'hawks' chastise the West for failing to forcefully confront Russian adventurism earlier. On the other hand, 'realists' criticise the West's overreach in efforts to incorporate Ukraine into the Western structures. Both views implicitly contend that there was only one way to prevent the war. This paper argues that those positions are, in fact, not incompatible and failure to prevent war lies in the habitual mismatch between strategic goals and resources, implicitly recognised by both sides of the debate. Ambitious goals and meagre resources constituted a middle-of-the-road compromise, inadvertently increasing the risk of the war by encouraging Russia to take the opportunity to challenge the West's weakly backed ambitions. In an attempt to draw some tentative lessons, the paper concludes by exploring some hypotheses on why such mismatches between goals and resources occur and persist.
The article looks at the evolution of China's space programme and its evolving space weapons. It illustrates how China's counter-space programme is aimed at the United States' conventional strength and is part of PLA's A2/AD strategy.
Over the past two decades, China's People's Liberation Army has transformed itself from a large but antiquated force into a capable, modern military. Its technology and operational proficiency still lag behind those of the United States, but it has rapidly narrowed the gap. Moreover, China enjoys the advantage of proximity in most plausible conflict scenarios, and geographical advantage would likely neutralize many U.S. military strengths. A sound understanding of regional military issues — including forces, geography, and the evolving balance of power — will be essential for establishing appropriate U.S. political and military policies in Asia. This RAND study analyzes the development of respective Chinese and U.S. military capabilities in ten categories of military operations across two scenarios, one centered on Taiwan and one on the Spratly Islands. The analysis is presented in ten scorecards that assess military capabilities as they have evolved over four snapshot years: 1996, 2003, 2010, and 2017. The results show that China is not close to catching up to the United States in terms of aggregate capabilities, but also that it does not need to catch up to challenge the United States on its immediate periphery. Furthermore, although China's ability to project power to more distant locations remains limited, its reach is growing, and in the future U.S. military dominance is likely to be challenged at greater distances from China's coast. To maintain robust defense and deterrence capabilities in an era of fiscal constraints, the United States will need to ensure that its own operational concepts, procurement, and diplomacy anticipate future developments in Chinese military capabilities.
