2,187 research outputs found

    Minimization of Collateral Damage in Airdrops and Airstrikes

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    Collateral damage presents a significant risk during air drops and airstrikes, risking citizens\u27 lives and property, straining the relationship between the United States Air Force and host nations. This dissertation presents a methodology to determine the optimal location for making supply airdrops in order to minimize collateral damage while maintaining a high likelihood of successful recovery. A series of non-linear optimization algorithms is presented along with their relative success in finding the optimal location in the airdrop problem. Additionally, we present a quick algorithm for accurately creating the Pareto frontier in the multi-objective airstrike problem. We demonstrate the effect of differing guidelines, damage functions, and weapon employment selection which significantly alter the location of the optimal aimpoint in this targeting problem. Finally, we have provided a framework for making policy decisions in fast-moving troops-in-contact situations where observers are unsure of the nature of possible enemy forces in both finite horizon and infinite horizon problems. Through the recursive technique of solving this Markov decision process we have demonstrated the effect of improved intelligence and differing weights for waiting and incorrect decisions in the face of uncertain situations

    Invisible injuries: concussive effects and international humanitarian law

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    The concussive effects of weapons used on the modern battlefield can cause Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Indeed, TBI has been termed the "signature wound" of the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. To date, the injury has not been taken into account by armed forces in their application of international humanitarian law norms regarding attacks that affect civilians. Of particular note in this regard are the rule of proportionality and the requirement to take precautions in attack. This article opens the discussion about this recently discovered consequence of warfare for the civilian population. It examines the state of the science regarding TBI and queries whether the understanding of such injuries has reached the point at which commanders in the field are obligated to begin considering, as a matter of humanitarian law, the risk of causing TBI to civilians when they attack enemy forces. It concludes with a practical assessment of how they might do so

    Explosive Weapon Effects

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    Motivated by its strategic goal to improve human security and equipped with subject expertise in explosive hazards, the GICHD launched a research project to characterise explosive weapons. The GICHD perceives the debate on explosive weapons in populated areas (EWIPA) as an important humanitarian issue. The aim of this research into explosive weapons characteristics and their immediate, destructive effects on humans and structures, is to help inform the ongoing discussions on EWIPA, intended to reduce harm to civilians. The intention of the research is not to discuss the moral, political or legal implications of using explosive weapon systems in populated areas, but to examine their characteristics, effects and use from a technical perspective

    A Process for Vectoring Offensive Information Warfare as a Primary Weapon Option within the United States Air Force

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    Consistently and comprehensively using Information Operations (IO) capabilities as primary weapon option within the Air Force is the next step to operationalizing IO within the Air Force. Doctrine and official guidance has set the variables of mission and concepts of operations, organizational structure, and IW players in place. The missing variable to operationalizing IO and probably the most difficult is the \u27how\u27 or process of the equation. This research will introduce a useable process that can be incorporated within the Air Force for integrating offensive IW activities into the current and given environment. The process is the basis for further decomposition and identification of target aim points. In addition, its use of effect points should aid in focusing long-range, deliberate, and crisis action planning on the possible desired effects on an adversary. The research sets the stage by briefly defining the first three variables; organization, mission, and players in which AF IW is practiced and the inherent deliverables required. It will then introduce a view and decomposition of the information battlespace as the basis for offensive IW activities where affecting the information factors in order to induce a desired decision to achieve desired effects is the overall goal

    UAV swarm attack: protection system alternatives for Destroyers

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    Systems Engineering Project ReportThe Navy needs to protect Destroyers (DDGs) from Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) attacks. The team, focusing on improving the DDG’s defenses against small radar cross section UAVs making suicide attacks, established a DRM, identified current capability gaps, established a functional flow, created requirements, modeled the DDG’s current sensing and engagement capabilities in Microsoft Excel, and used Monte Carlo analysis of 500 simulation runs to determine that four out of eight incoming IED UAVs are likely to hit the ship. Sensitivity analysis showed that improving weapon systems is more effec-tive than improving sensor systems, inspiring the generation of alternatives for improving UAV defense. For the eight feasible alternatives the team estimated cost, assessed risk in accordance with the requirements, simulated performance against the eight incoming UAVs, and performed cost benefit analysis. Adding CIWS mounts is the most cost effec-tive alternative, reducing the average number of UAV hits from a baseline of 3.82 to 2.50, costing 816Mtoequipthe62−DDGfleetfora12−yearlifecycle.CombiningthatwithupgradedEWcapabilitiestojamremote−controlledUAVsreducesthehitsto1.56for816M to equip the 62-DDG fleet for a 12-year life cycle. Combining that with upgraded EW capabilities to jam remote-controlled UAVs reduces the hits to 1.56 for 1844M, and combining those with decoy launchers to defeat the radar-seeking Har-py UAVs reduces the hits to 1.12 for $2862M.http://archive.org/details/uavswarmttackpro1094528669Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

    Summer 2018 Full Issue

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    Collateral Damage and the Enemy

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    This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Oxford University Press via the DOI in this record.The purpose of this paper is to determine whether a party to an armed conflict is bound to ensure that any incidental harm it may cause to enemy military personnel not or no longer liable to attack remains below a certain threshold. While the law of armed conflict provides that incidental harm to civilians must not be excessive in relation to the military advantage anticipated from an attack, the relevant treaty rules are silent on the position of protected enemy personnel. This could indicate that protected enemy personnel may be exposed to incidental harm without any limitations. However, this position is difficult to reconcile with the humanitarian considerations that motivate the law of armed conflict. Alternatively, this silence may hint at a gap in the treaties, though not necessarily in the customary rules governing the conduct of hostilities. If so, commanders would be left guessing what degree of collateral damage is permissible, which in the absence of clarifying the applicable rules may lead them to break the law inadvertently. Based on a detailed assessment of the law, State practice and the competing arguments put forward in the literature, we conclude that the principle of military necessity, more specifically the prohibition of causing unnecessary destruction, as complemented by the duty to ‘respect and protect’ certain classes of enemy personnel, imposes an obligation on belligerents to reduce the level of incidental harm inflicted on protected enemy personnel to what is unavoidable and to justify that harm with reference to the military benefit anticipated from an attack. We term this the ‘non-civilian proportionality rule’. Based on our analysis, we believe that the non-civilian proportionality rule is a necessary part of any targeting process that attempts to reconcile humanitarian imperatives with operational requirements during times of armed conflict. The rule achieves this by safeguarding protected enemy personnel from disproportionate, and thus unnecessary, incidental harm without, however, unduly impairing an attacking party’s freedom of manoeuvre against the enemy. By developing these arguments in some depth, our aim is to provide a more compelling conceptual foundation for applying proportionality considerations to protected enemy personnel and thereby bring clarity to those planning, authorizing, executing and advising on targeting in current and future operations

    Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms

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    The Joint Publication 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms sets forth standard US military and associated terminology to encompass the joint activity of the Armed Forces of the United States. These military and associated terms, together with their definitions, constitute approved Department of Defense (DOD) terminology for general use by all DOD components

    Strategic Theory, Methodology, Air Power, and Coercion in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War

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    This thesis analyzes the air power, coercion, strategic theory, and strategic methodology in the 2006 Israel/Hezbollah War. In state versus non-state actor conflicts, air power\u27s utility is different from state versus state conflicts. The dynamics of coercion also differ greatly from state versus state conflict. Additionally the strategic theories, and the methodologies used to develop these theories differ as well, both in their goals and their utility. By examining the 2006 Israel/Hezbollah war, which is an excellent example of a high-intensity conflict between a very capable state military, and a well-equipped non-state actor, Hezbollah, I analyze the ways in which air power is most useful in state versus non-state actor conflicts, the efficacy of coercion in such conflicts, and the role of strategic theory and methodology in such conflicts. I conclude that air power is best used against material high value targets, and against outside state sponsors of non-state actors, as non-state actors often blend amongst non-combatants, disperse their men and material widely, and are difficult to target with accuracy. I also conclude that the basic logic of coercion used in state versus state conflict is sound, but that the logic is complicated by the non-state actor\u27s reliance on outside powers for war material, meaning that attempts to coerce without applying pressure to the outside power will be unlikely to succeed. Finally I conclude that strategic theory and methodology are of the greatest importance to success, and that the most important factor in both is adaptability. He who adapts fastest often wins in asymmetric warfare
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