On Contested Shores

Perhaps no prediction has been as consistently made—and as consistently wrong—as the imminent death of amphibious operations. Whatever the changes in warfare and technology, the necessity of amphibious force projection endures, long outliving those who claim its time has passed. Changes in how amphibious operations are conducted, however, are just as consistent. This essential contributed volume arrives at a vital point of transition. These essays highlight both changes and continuities, examining historical amphibious operations as early as the sixteenth century to the near future, describing both lesser-known cases and offering more nuanced views of famous campaigns, such as Gallipoli and Normandy. With the release of the U.S. Marine Corps’ Force Design 2030, this volume gives historians, theorists, and practitioners an opportunity to ground the coming changes in the historical context as they seek to find out what it takes to win on contested shores

“Corpses in the Grass”: strategic culture and combat effectiveness in the Pacific War; a case study of the U.S. Seventh Infantry Division

Rather than accepting the premise that American industrial capacity and the sheer quantitative advantage that it produced were the only reasons that the U.S. was able to prevail over its qualitatively superior foes during the Second World War, I will demonstrate through the four different Pacific theater campaigns of the 7th Infantry Division the decisive importance of willpower and the less explored influence of strategic culture on the outcome of the war. I will challenge the theory of the supposedly inexorable triumph of American military mass as opposed to its superior combat effectiveness through a case study exploring the performance of the 7th U.S. Infantry Division in the Pacific. This case study contains two principal elements: the first is an analysis of the battles of Attu, Kwajalein, Leyte, and Okinawa and the second is a comparison of the strategic/tactical cultures of Japan and the United States and how they contributed to and influenced the relative combat effectiveness of the opposing forces. My hypothesis is that the 7th Division was comparatively more combat-efficient than its Japanese opponents because of an American “tactical culture” characterized by superior leadership that embodied adaptability and flexibility, informed by continuous learning that resulted in realistic training and highly effective tactical performance. The inspiration for this thesis began with the author’s Master of Arts dissertation, “Hell in the Mist: The Seventh Infantry Division and the Battle of Attu” completed for Southern New Hampshire University in 2015. Significant portions of this thesis borrow from and incorporate elements of that study. By extending the combat effectiveness debate from the European theater to the Pacific theater, I challenge the deterministic assumptions made by other historians about American industrial superiority over Japan by taking a cultural approach to provide new possible explanations of historical events. In this way, the competing hypotheses of how and why one force was more combat effective can be further explored. I will contrast and compare the American and Japanese strategic, operational, tactical, and human dimensions of the Pacific War

THE POLITICS OF SOUTHERN ASIAN BALLISTIC MISSILES: TOWARDS A FRAMEWORK FOR A MUTUAL RESTRAINT REGIME

ABSTRACT Southern Asia is witnessing the rapid proliferation of ballistic missiles in and around the region. This proliferation phenomenon, together with ongoing and enduring conflicts amongst the “competing parties” (China, India and Pakistan) creates a potential surfacing of “nuclear flashpoint” in the region. This research is an endeavour to explore the causes of this nuclear and missile race amongst the Southern Asian powers (China, India, and Pakistan) with the help of the theory of strategic culture. This study proceeds in the following way: it assesses the geo-political forces at work in the region; examines the strategic culture of China, India and Pakistan; traces the motivation of these countries for the strategic weapon programmes and delivery systems; describes their nuclear doctrines and command and control structures; and the current status of their ballistic missile programmes. It then addresses the prospects for Pakistan, India and China to move towards a system of mutual restraint regime, in which international regime theory is discussed as a conceptual framework; cold war models of strategic arms limitation and reduction models are studied and the important role of Confidence and Security Building Measures (CSBMs) is identified. The same procedure is then applied in the context of Southern Asian region; problem areas identified with the help of CSBMs tools; and conclusions reached as to the potential to move beyond CSBMs into full restraint regime. The study finds the very nature of the overlapping threat perceptions and the continuance of the unresolved issues and disputes as the main hurdles in the successful restraint models. Recommendations are therefore made for more comprehensive CSBMs leading to a Southern Asian regional version of cold war prototypes of strategic arms limitation and reduction for a more comprehensive and fruitful restraint model, which might then be applied and adhered to at the global level. The study therefore opens new avenues of research and progress in the discipline

Naval Research Program 2019 Annual Report

NPS NRP Annual ReportThe Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) Naval Research Program (NRP) is funded by the Chief of Naval Operations and supports research projects for the Navy and Marine Corps. The NPS NRP serves as a launch-point for new initiatives which posture naval forces to meet current and future operational warfighter challenges. NRP research projects are led by individual research teams that conduct research and through which NPS expertise is developed and maintained. The primary mechanism for obtaining NPS NRP support is through participation at NPS Naval Research Working Group (NRWG) meetings that bring together fleet topic sponsors, NPS faculty members, and students to discuss potential research topics and initiatives.Chief of Naval Operations (CNO)This research is supported by funding from the Naval Postgraduate School, Naval Research Program (PE 0605853N/2098). https://nps.edu/nrpChief of Naval Operations (CNO)Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited.

Conceiving systems

The thesis is concerned with the development of innovative, robust design concepts for a class of systems called Information Decision Action (IDA) Systems. IDA systems are typified by Command and Control (C2) and Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence (C3I) systems as used by police, emergency services and the military - the two titles refer respectively to the human activity and the technological systems. The class of systems is much wider, however, and includes, financial, traffic control, business and even governmental systems where information is gathered, used as a basis for human decision-forming, and results in action, all in real, or near-real time. IDA system complexity stems largely from the dominance of robust human activity systems within the overall system, and also from the employment of often-rigid, technology-based, decision support systems which are unable to adapt as swiftly as the humans they serve. The thesis is in two parts. In the first part, the author presents a perspective on "hard" and "soft" systems and the gradual move by so-called "hard" systems engineers towards softer concepts in the search for more satisfactory IDA systems. This progression is presented partly by anecdote, supported by some of the author's papers showing the development of his contribution to understanding of, and partly by an exposition of the essential themes inherent in, IDA systems. Keynote papers in the first part are: MOSAIC: Concepts for the Deployment of Air Power in Europe and The Human Element in C3 I: The first of these presents a highly-survivable alternative to the present force and C2 deployment approaches which have evolved little since World War IT; the second considers the human and his social behaviour as keys to understanding IDA systems. Other papers develop the themes and show their application to systems in which the author has had major involvement The second part is concerned with the process of conceiving and creating IDA systems and it too draws on published papers as direct support for the thesis. Keynote papers here are A General Theory of Command and Control, a unique recent paper which proposes a set of design axioms for an idealized IDA system, the award-winning Managing Systems Creation which presents an engineering framework for Creating Systems, and SEAMS (Systems Engineering, Analysis and Management Support) which signals a major design initiative to develop engineering frameworks into company-wide IT environments. The second part also introduces a complete Conceiving System, called the Seven-Step Continuum (SSC), describes some prototype tools developed by the author to perform some of the tasks of design conception and - in Chapter 9, which is a paper within the thesis - shows results from using the SSC, its methods and tools, in practice. The second part closes with a look forward to the building of flexible future systems which can adapt to their environment

Unmanned Aircraft Systems in the Cyber Domain

Unmanned Aircraft Systems are an integral part of the US national critical infrastructure. The authors have endeavored to bring a breadth and quality of information to the reader that is unparalleled in the unclassified sphere. This textbook will fully immerse and engage the reader / student in the cyber-security considerations of this rapidly emerging technology that we know as unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). The first edition topics covered National Airspace (NAS) policy issues, information security (INFOSEC), UAS vulnerabilities in key systems (Sense and Avoid / SCADA), navigation and collision avoidance systems, stealth design, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms; weapons systems security; electronic warfare considerations; data-links, jamming, operational vulnerabilities and still-emerging political scenarios that affect US military / commercial decisions. This second edition discusses state-of-the-art technology issues facing US UAS designers. It focuses on counter unmanned aircraft systems (C-UAS) – especially research designed to mitigate and terminate threats by SWARMS. Topics include high-altitude platforms (HAPS) for wireless communications; C-UAS and large scale threats; acoustic countermeasures against SWARMS and building an Identify Friend or Foe (IFF) acoustic library; updates to the legal / regulatory landscape; UAS proliferation along the Chinese New Silk Road Sea / Land routes; and ethics in this new age of autonomous systems and artificial intelligence (AI).https://newprairiepress.org/ebooks/1027/thumbnail.jp

Multi-Level Multi-Objective Programming and Optimization for Integrated Air Defense System Disruption

The U.S. military\u27s ability to project military force is being challenged. This research develops and demonstrates the application of three respective sensor location, relocation, and network intrusion models to provide the mathematical basis for the strategic engagement of emerging technologically advanced, highly-mobile, Integrated Air Defense Systems. First, we propose a bilevel mathematical programming model for locating a heterogeneous set of sensors to maximize the minimum exposure of an intruder\u27s penetration path through a defended region. Next, we formulate a multi-objective, bilevel optimization model to relocate surviving sensors to maximize an intruder\u27s minimal expected exposure to traverse a defended border region, minimize the maximum sensor relocation time, and minimize the total number of sensors requiring relocation. Lastly, we present a trilevel, attacker-defender-attacker formulation for the heterogeneous sensor network intrusion problem to optimally incapacitate a subset of the defender\u27s sensors and degrade a subset of the defender\u27s network to ultimately determine the attacker\u27s optimal penetration path through a defended network

Naval Research Program 2021 Annual Report

NPS NRP Annual ReportThe Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) Naval Research Program (NRP) is funded by the Chief of Naval Operations and supports research projects for the Navy and Marine Corps. The NPS NRP serves as a launch-point for new initiatives which posture naval forces to meet current and future operational warfighter challenges. NRP research projects are led by individual research teams that conduct research and through which NPS expertise is developed and maintained. The primary mechanism for obtaining NPS NRP support is through participation at NPS Naval Research Working Group (NRWG) meetings that bring together fleet topic sponsors, NPS faculty members, and students to discuss potential research topics and initiatives.Chief of Naval Operations (CNO)Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited.

Solid-state high power radio frequency directed energy systems in support of USMC force protection operations

Service members are often vulnerable conducting entry control point operations in support of force or critical infrastructure protection. Historical evidence and tests from emerging technology suggest that solid-state high power radio frequency directed energy systems emit enough power to disrupt vehicle electronic systems without costly collateral damage to people or property. This thesis builds on previous research toward adding non-lethal tools, in the form of directed energy systems, for service members to utilize as part of entry control points. A combination of literature review, limited modelling, and field experimentation is used to explore whether directed energy is a viable, non-lethal tool for USMC entry control points. After detailed descriptions of force protection, directed energy, and a thorough system of systems analysis of the contemporary operating environment, this thesis offers an example of an entry control point augmented with a high-power radio frequency array. Further, this research recommends exploration of additional uses for this type of directed energy including counter-piracy and electronic ambush operations that utilize ground, air, and sea-based platforms.http://archive.org/details/solidstatehighpo1094545944Major, United States Marine CorpsApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited