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This paper presents a methodology for automated route determination in roadless terrains, optimizing it via digital elevation model (DEM) generalization, which forms the basis for route generation. Determining routes is a crucial aspect of planning and executing military or crisis management operations. The automated process employs highresolution DEM and vehicle tractive parameters to determine routes in real-time, enabling generation of passability maps in unexplored areas. DEM generalization, based on local slope variations, expedites processing by reducing elevation points. Validated through research, this approach achieves a significant time reduction (approximately three times) while preserving route accuracy. User-adjustable parameters enhance the versatility of the algorithms for military and crisis management planning operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the notion of strategic intelligence, namely with respect to leadership and business-oriented areas. Strategic intelligence is a researched concept that primarily concerns the collection and analysis of intelligence for policy and military planning, mainly at national and international levels, whereas this study of management and organizational decision-making application is an extension of that. This article's subject is the necessity for strategic intelligence, a crucial competence for leaders, managers, and companies striving to remain competitive, to be utilized and best leveraged in today's volatile and dynamic business contexts. This study follows a research design that includes a thorough literature review and bibliometric research, executed via VoSViewer, illustrating the concept of strategic intelligence from a leadership point of view as a driver of competitive advantage, enhanced by knowledge dynamics. Furthermore, this article points out that the limitations are acknowledged because the literature on the matter is limited, as strategic intelligence is relatively new to the business sector; moreover, more research is required to fully understand and use the potential of strategic intelligence in business growth. Overcoming these limitations and continuing to study the strategic intelligence concept could, on the one hand, use multiple platforms, such as scholarly articles or encyclopedias, and, on the other hand, support businesses in gaining a competitive edge and making informed decisions that can fuel their success in an ever-evolving market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the growing tensions between Russia and Ukraine and their impact on regional and global geopolitical dynamics, focusing on the importance of military organizational management in this complex situation. The confrontation between the two countries, fuelled by Moscow's geopolitical aspirations to consolidate its control over Ukraine, has escalated into a military conflict with far-reaching repercussions. Ukraine's rapprochement with the European Union and NATO has exacerbated tensions, generating indirect arms deliveries and threatening regional stability. In this context, military organisational management becomes crucial to manage and mitigate the escalation of the conflict. The capacity for strategic planning and coordination of military actions is essential to maintain stability and prevent wider conflict. Also, the ability to manage human and material resources effectively and strategically can influence the outcome and duration of conflict. In addition, it is important to stress that tensions between Russia and Ukraine not only have bilateral consequences, but also affect relations between Russia and NATO. Military management must therefore be adaptable and address the complex and interlinked challenges of this rapidly changing geopolitical context. The paper further argues that an appropriate approach to military organisational management can be essential for managing the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, as well as for maintaining regional and global stability in the face of the complex challenges of current geopolitical tensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The international debate on the ethics and legality of autonomous weapon systems (AWS), along with the call for a ban, primarily focus on the nebulous concept of fully autonomous AWS. These are AWS capable of target selection and engagement absent human supervision or control. This paper argues that such a conception of autonomy is divorced from both military planning and decision-making operations; it also ignores the design requirements that govern AWS engineering and the subsequent tracking and tracing of moral responsibility. To show how military operations can be coupled with design ethics, this paper marries two different kinds of meaningful human control (MHC) termed levels of abstraction. Under this two-tiered understanding of MHC, the contentious notion of 'full' autonomy becomes unproblematic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Historia i Polityka is the property of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Path searching is challenging problem in many domains such as simulation war games, robotics, military mission planning, computer generated forces (CGF), etc. Effectiveness problems in military route planning are related both with terrain modelling and path planning algorithms. These problems may be considered from the point of view of many criterions. It seems that two criterions are the most important: quality of terrain reflection in the terrain model and computational complexity of the on(off)-line path planning algorithm. The paper deals with two above indicated problems of route planning effectiveness. Comparison of approaches used in route planning is presented. The hybrid, terrain merging-based and partial path planning, approach for route planning in dynamically changed environment during simulation is described. It significantly increase effectiveness of route planning process. The computational complexity of the method is given and some discussion for using the method in the battlefield simulation is conducted. In order to estimate how many times faster we can compute problem for finding shortest path in network with n big squares (b-nodes) with relation to problem for finding shortest path in the network with V small squares (s-nodes) acceleration function is defined and optimized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents abstracts related to operations research in military, published in the September 1962 issue of 'Operations Research.' 'Operations Research in Civil Defense,' by Rogers Cannell; 'A Military Planning Game,' by H.P. Hatry and P.R. Lever; 'The War Game as a Methodological Tool,' by E.W. Girard; 'The Role of Operations Research in Planning for Limited War,' by Milton G. Weiner.

The confusion surrounding Canada's response to the Cuban Missile Crisis is well documented. Canadian political leadership hesitated to close ranks with our closest ally in defence of the continent. However, by misinterpreting what could have been done, or blaming the lack of an approved Department of National Defence War Book as the chief culprit for the extended delay, the literature does not adequately account for the confused response. This paper will show that useable measures existed by which the Chiefs of Staff Committee could have raised service readiness levels without appealing to Cabinet. By accounting for the confusion evident at the highest levels of decision-making, the paper illuminates the degree of laziness in strategic thought that characterized the nation's war planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the evolution of the instruments and means used in reconnaissance and surveillance, with the purpose of delivering the information needed for planning the military operations. Acquirement of the information was and still is the most decisive element of the war. Demonstrating the differences and the similarities between the units (human and UAV) involved in reconnaissance and surveillance, will be done by filtering them through the functional model of Gerbner. In that purpose, we underline the differences between the information acquired due to this model of the communication theory. In this paper a connection will be created between the information provided by both subjects using content and a unique form that is easy to use by leader/commander. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a dynamic stochastic model of military workforce planning that incorporates uncertainties about personnel gains and losses across ranks. We then apply it to determine the probability of not meeting required targets as well as the resulting shortages and overages in the short, medium, and long terms along with the evaluation of policies to mitigate these risks. Our model allows decision makers to adjust recruiting and training practices to minimize the risk of not meeting target personnel levels as well as to value retention and reenlistment policies by calculating the expected marginal value of retaining additional service members. Moreover, it allows us to create a penalty function to optimize recruiting and training levels. The outcome is a tool to evaluate and ensure comprehensive force readiness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The events threatening to engulf Australia as the Japanese imperial forceS continued their push through southeast Asia caused enormous concern for the Department of the Army as civilian and uniformed staff struggled to cope with large increases in manpower and expenditure responsibilities. The department moved, in January 1942, to create an expert panel of accountants to provide advice with a view to overcoming these problems. This paper focuses uniquely on a small group of individuals brought together for their expertise in accounting drawn exclusively from the practitioner ranks of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia. The paper draws attention to the fact that, while several of those invited to serve had "inside" knowledge and experience during World War I(1914-1918), only those holding the designation of chartered accountant were invited to participate, seemingly ignoring the great potential available from the wider profession of the day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scenario analysis, originally proposed by Rockafellar and Wets, is a widely applicable method for introducing uncertainty into practical decision problems. As often leads to very large optimization problems, one needs special techniques for the resulting numerical computation. One such technique, the Progressive Hedging Algorithm, is simple and universally applicable, but it can be slow. In this paper we show how the bundle decomposition method can be applied to linear or convex scenario analysis problems that are loosely coupled. We illustrate its effectiveness by presenting computational results for military force planning problems and for multi-scenario network models of production planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares the safeguarding of monuments and immoveable works of art in Italy in the first years of World War II to the on-site protection undertaken in Ukraine during the Russian invasion and explores whether traditional or more innovative methods are being employed in Ukraine. Both the planning in advance of war and the implementation of protective measures amidst substantial obstacles are considered. The focus is placed on fixed works of art in churches and public statues. Special attention is given to the vulnerability of churches and their ornamentation during war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing threats to U.S. national security satellite constellations have resulted in an increased interest in constellation resilience and satellite redundancy. CubeSats have contributed to commercial, scientific and government applications in remote sensing, communications, navigation and research and have the potential to enhance satellite constellation resilience. However, the inherent size, weight and power limitations of CubeSats enforce constraints on imaging hardware; the small lenses and short focal lengths result in imagery with low spatial resolution. Low resolution limits the utility of CubeSat images for military planning purposes and national intelligence applications. This paper implements a super-resolution deep learning architecture and proposes potential applications to CubeSat imagery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thailand's potential acquisition of three Yuan-class submarines from China has sparked discussions, prompting some to view it as a strategic shift toward China. This article assesses this procurement decision within the context of Thailand's governance challenges in defense procurement and its modest maritime security goals. The article reveals that while the 2014 junta intended this purchase as a strategic message, two factors temper its significance. Firstly, Thailand maintains a unique perspective on its alliance with the US, striving for equidistant positioning among great powers. From this standpoint, obtaining Chinese submarines served as a short-term diversion of pressure, rather than a substantial realignment. Secondly, Thailand assigns relatively low priority to seapower in its military planning, mitigating the submarine purchase's automatic implication of trust in China. However, it is emphasized that Thailand does not fully control the risks stemming from efforts to maintain strategic ambiguity, such as bolstering China's logistical presence in Thailand, leading to unintended outcomes, including the weakening of the Thai-United States military alliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's advancing space capabilities, particularly in the cislunar region, call for increased cislunar space domain awareness on the part of the United States. US military and civilian decisionmakers must take into account the full scope of China's cislunar plans and capabilities as the military builds space strategies and future force designs. The United States must also increase near-term investments that support more robust cislunar space domain awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Systems developers frequently face urgency in delivering their system. If the system is delivered early, it will be very useful, but if delivered late, it may be worthless. More development time may allow performance improvement or reduced risk, but the systems engineer must trade the performance or risk against the loss of value brought about by delay. This paper develops a formal quantitative approach to making system trades between development time and time deployed before obsolescence. We start with obsolescence events that occur at a particular time in the future, then extend the analysis to events where the timing is uncertain. The logic useful in a large variety of planning and decision-making contexts, from planning rapid system development to planning of military actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper proposes tasks and methods which can be used in process of discovering the most expedient variants of the perspective and effective strategy development process of the defence spending in the Republic of Estonia.The author offers a part of strategy model named "Financial Perspective" as one of the improvement tools for the system of planning military expenditures and effective utilization of budgetary funds. The Balanced Scorecard application by using the "utility function" will allow the Estonian Defence Forces to overcome important barriers to strategy implementation by interrelation of military planning and budgeting processes. The Balanced Scorecard might be used as a very strong practical application. It will improve the calculations of long-term perspective plans and the development of the military budgetary policy by taking into account the features of national defence expenses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the mathematical formulations that have underpinned the development of a strategic-level, personnel sustainability planning tool for the Australian Army. The tool considers personnel sustainability in terms of the dynamics of progression through career profiles and the requirements of the force to meet operational capability demands. It assists in analysing the ability of a force structure (current or future) to meet forecast operational deployments, prbviding insights into: likely problem areas with regard to sustainability, the effect of changing personnel policies, resource/cost implications and force expansion issues. Utilised in shorter-term planning, the tool allows for rapid force options testing and, in longer-term planning, for detailed sustainability analysis of proposed future force structures. The paper focuses on the basic construction of the model and its mathematical underpinnings, while giving insights into its utility and to how it has been applied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a hybrid discrete grey wolf optimizer (HDGWO) in this paper to solve the weapon target assignment (WTA) problem, a kind of nonlinear integer programming problems. To make the original grey wolf optimizer (GWO), which was only developed for problems with a continuous solution space, available in the context, we first modify it by adopting a decimal integer encoding method to represent solutions (wolves) and presenting a modular position update method to update solutions in the discrete solution space. By this means, we acquire a discrete grey wolf optimizer (DGWO) and then through combining it with a local search algorithm (LSA), we obtain the HDGWO. Moreover, we also introduce specific domain knowledge into both the encoding method and the local search algorithm to compress the feasible solution space. Finally, we examine the feasibility of the HDGWO and the scalability of the HDGWO, respectively, by adopting it to solve a benchmark case and ten large-scale WTA problems. All of the running results are compared with those of a discrete particle swarm optimization (DPSO), a genetic algorithm with greedy eugenics (GAWGE), and an adaptive immune genetic algorithm (AIGA). The detailed analysis proves the feasibility of the HDGWO in solving the benchmark case and demonstrates its scalability in solving large-scale WTA problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extending portfolio analysis and PIMS studies to include military concepts of strategic force produces a new paradigm of marketing strategies. The author introduces and calibrates the concept of strategic marketing ambition, relates this concept to the marketing mix, and then derives a theoretical function linking strategic ambitions and investments with market share. An operational measure of differential marketing advantage is introduced, and the. methods of analysis are applied in an illustration of competitive investments, marketing strategy and differential advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the strategic military planning implored by France in 1914. It explores the inconsistencies between French foreign policy and military planning and how the country make bad choices. It mentions the research paper presented by the Royal Military College (RMC), which offers details on the French military strategy in 1914 and the cognitive processes that made French leaders comfortable with their strategy. The author affirms that it is important for French soldiers to clearly and carefully think about the possible nature of future war.

Within the defense community, a debate is emerging over the wisdom of "balancing" the military by shifting focus toward irregular warfare. This paper argues that balance would only be prudent if the military is likely to continue primarily facing irregular conflicts, if current counter insurgency doctrine can lead to success in future contingencies, and if increased focus on counter insurgency will improve national security. Although the military will likely face future insurgencies, such contingencies threaten national security less than conventional wars, and there is little evidence that the military's counter insurgency doctrine will lead to future success. Moreover, balancing the military would degrade its conventional deterrence capabilities, thereby increasing the likelihood of conventional warfare. Therefore, while Iraq and Afghanistan should be the military's immediate priority, reconstituting degraded conventional capabilities should be its next concern. The paper concludes by suggesting several measures that would improve the military's irregular warfare capabilities without sacrificing conventional deterrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a theoretical framework for the phenomenon of the price war in the context of general equilibrium, with special attention to the production system. The natural question that arises is whether Nash-optimal production plans being the reactions to the changing prices can finally approximate a Nash-optimal production plan at the end of this war. To provide an answer, the production system is described as a parametric-multicriteria game. Referring to some results on the lower semicontinuty of the parametric weak-multicriteria Nash equilibria, we provide a positive answer for the stated problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses Finland's defense policy. Three circles of national security interest; Basing of Finnish defense policy and development plans on Defense White Paper of 2001; Transformation of Finnish national defense based on the Defense White Paper of 2004.

Copyright of Salus Journal is the property of Salus Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Does the type of map we use affect how we engage with a place in situ? This paper describes a creative activity that aimed to explore how the use of different topographic maps affects our engagement with an urban environment. Three groups of participants explored the neighbourhood surrounding the Gelman Library at George Washington University, each using an extract from a different map (all with street-level detail of the area) as a guide: (1) a contemporary selection from OpenStreetMap; (2) a United States Geological Survey (USGS) map from 1965; and (3) a Soviet military plan from 1975. The 32 participants recorded their experiences by taking photographs and uploading them to a shared online bulletin board (Padlet). After gaining feedback via group discussion, the resulting 108 images were classified, interpreted and mapped. The findings indicate that the groups' engagement with their environment varied with the specific map used, and was possibly influenced by their interpretation of its function, although differences in individual perceptions and responses were more pronounced than between-map differences. The activity provides a starting point for understanding the role topographic maps play in the relationship between emotions and environment and offers some avenues for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recruitment of enlisted men and officers under the All-Volunteer Force concept costs approximately $620 million per year; of this amount approximately $100 million are in advertising expenditures. However, recently Congress and the General Accounting Office have expressed considerable concern over the lack of justification for such expenditures. The issue is further complicated by the recent recruiting shortfalls by all the services and the debate surrounding registration and a possible return to the draft. Finally, results of most profit-oriented sales research are difficult to apply to improving military recruiting efficiency due to the difference in the levels of rapport and credibility necessary to convince a potential recruit to invest several years of his life. This paper reports on modeling and implementation experience geared towards determining the proper allocation of resources between advertising and recruiters. This mix is especially crucial since Congress does not permit funds appropriated for advertising to be used for manpower or vice versa. The study consists of two parts: generation of response functions to estimate the number and mix of enlistments over time and geographically as a function of the various demographics, advertising expenditures and the number of recruiters; a nonlinear programming resource allocation model to improve the budget generation and budget execution capabilities in meeting and assessing the impact of the various multi-faceted quantity and quality goals. The basic model, with updating of the response function parameters, is being used by the Navy to aid in the generation and defense of its annual budget appropriations. Numerical results are given which are compared to the past allocations of the Navy and to results observed in industrial product marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses issues related to capabilities-based defense planning in Australia. The post Cold War era witnessed an absence of identifiable and quantifiable threats which resulted in planning of new approaches for developing and justifying force structures by the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Though Australia did not design its force structure on the basis of such threats yet the Australian Department of Defence developed principles for guiding force development reflecting government strategy to defend that country.

Military analysts have focused on the problems of war initiation and conduct while largely ignoring the problem of how to terminate war on acceptable terms. This paper attempts to define the necessary conditions for war termination and proposes a framework for assessing alternative strategies. Deterrence and limited war theories suggest three war termination strategies: (1) attrition of warfighting capabilities; (2) protracted stalemate; and (3) coercive threats of unacceptable damage. A review of recent armed conflicts indicates the limitations on effective pursuit of these strategies and reveals an alternative formulation of the conditions necessary for effective war termination strategies. Based on these notions, current U.S. force posture and force employment doctrines are evaluated in terms of their consistency with war termination requirements. Finally, an agenda of issues related to the development of war termination strategies is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we consider some problems that arise when a nation attempts to implement a strategy of stable deterrence over time. The problems arise when a nation's planners make strategic inferences based on an adversary's ambiguous signals of intent and action. A necessary condition for inferring an opponent's strategic objectives is good technical intelligence. We explore some alternative intelligence models and their effect on national response. It appears that even small improvements in the content and timing of intelligence information received by a nation pursuing stable deterrence would help constrain a noncooperative adversary and open new channels of communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with resource allocation problems of a somewhat general nature. For presentation convenience, the material is stated in terms of military planning, where this planning refers to the production and use of types of weapons that have already been developed. The situation can be conveniently phrased in terms of resource allocation with respect to some specified types of weapons that are to be used to attack some given targets. Consider all combinations of target and type of weapon. The problem is to distribute the total available resources (for production and use of weapons) among these combinations in such a manner that the value of the targets surviving the attack is minimized. A deterministic model of an exceedingly flexible nature is developed for representing situations of this nature. Despite the generality allowed, an elementary iterative method is obtained for solving the allocation of resources problem. These results are computer oriented and should be feasible for application even when the model is of an exceedingly complicated nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies which relate to decisions affecting the course of possible military operations in the distant future face the familiar pitfalls of operations research in a particularly aggravated form, due principally to the broad context in which such decisions typically appear. This paper discusses means for avoiding undesirable suboptimization, for including the effects of feedback and competition, and for introducing the effect of significant constraints when choosing criteria on which to base long-range planning decisions. Several new measures of merit are presented which emphasize the feature of ‘R and D’ leverage over potential enemy countermeasure developments. For decisions affecting possible near-term military operations, it is suggested that operations-research studies can profitably emphasize the optimization of (a) deployment of existing forces, (b) military decision-making processes. These near-term problems, like their long-term counterparts, must also be studied with reference to future goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to illustrate the application of scientific methods for military policy planning by discussing the special case of an active defense against ballistic missiles. By an active defense the article means the attempts to intercept an attacking missile before the warhead is detonated. Although this paper will be more concerned with problems closer to engineering than to national policy, it will have little to say about hardware as such, that is, about the details of the missiles, radars, and so forth that would make up a defensive weapon system. Rather it discusses such questions, as how should defensive weapons be deployed before an attack to minimize the damage that could be done to the defended targets, how should defensive missiles be committed during an attack, what is the effect on both offense and defense of the fact that the actual performance of weapons in combat is highly uncertain and how should the characteristics of weapons be translated into terms that would help a non-technical executive relate the system to the objectives of national policy and decide whether to produce and deploy it in quantity.

This paper deals with an aggregated, two-sided war game, one of several designed to study the use of abstract models for strategic planning. A payoff function for the war game is defined making use of an assumption of increasing concern as a critical level of damage is approached. A very simple, one-weapon version of the central nuclear war game has an analytic solution, indicating the existence of a stable (equilibrium) point in pure strategies if each side has a nonnegligible counterforce capability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports international developments related to military planning and administration. Congressional hearings in the U.S. on the country's military and scientific situation produced no definite report. Although the conclusion generally accepted was that the U.S. was superior to the Soviet Union in overall nuclear striking power despite lags in missile and space technology. In Britain, the Defense White Paper for 1959, showed that Britain is relying upon the nuclear deterrent as represented by both strategic bombers and long-range missiles of her own making, and upon an expanded regular army.

Modeling how military commanders carry out operations is considered complicated, requiring the capability of not only planning for multiple subordinates but also responding to unexpected events during execution. This paper presents an Hierarchical Task Network (HTN) embedded planning and execution control architecture for small unit commander agents. To be adaptive to dynamic world state changes, the architecture employs a partial planning mechanism and generates actions only applicable to current situations. It is also able to coordinate subordinates' actions and handle execution failures at runtime. We demonstrate the architecture's use with an infantry company scenario, where the commander orders three platoons assaulting a defined hill. Our approach shows the effectiveness to control multiple entities in dynamic environments, making the architecture well-suited to represent small unit commanders' behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capability-based planning as an approach to defense planning is an almost infinitely complex engineered system with countless nodes and layers of interdependency, influenced by state and non-state diplomatic activities, information, military and economic actions creating secondary and third order effects. The main output of capability-based planning is the set of capability requirements needed to achieve the expected end-state. One revitalized qualitative technique that allows us to gain insights into unstructured and fuzzy problems in the military is wargaming—in its simplest form this involves manual wargaming. At the same time, there has been a push to bring computer assistance to such wargaming, especially to support umpire adjudication and move more generally towards full automation of human elements in wargames. However, computer assistance in wargaming should not be pushed, regardless of cost, towards quantitative techniques. The objective complexity of a problem often does not allow us to replicate the operational environment with the required fidelity to get credible experimental results. This paper discusses a discovery experiment aiming to verify the concept of applying a qualitative expert system within computer assisted wargaming for developing capability requirements in order to reduce umpire bias and risk associated with their decisions. The innovation here lies in applying system dynamics modelling and simulation paradigms when designing the theoretical model of capability development, which forms the core of the expert system. This new approach enables qualitative comparisons between different sets of proposed capability requirements. Moreover, the expert system allows us to reveal the effects of budget cuts on proposed capability requirement solutions, which the umpire was previously unable to articulate when comparing individual solutions by relying solely on his own knowledge. Players in the wargame validated the proposed concept and suggested how the study might be developed going forward: namely, by enabling users to define their own capabilities and not being limited by a predefined set of capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Russian-Ukrainian military conflict is the most unexpected event having a major societal impact, not only on the conflicting parties, but also on the entire international community. The irreparable damage to critical infrastructures, the loss of human life and the constantly increasing considerable material damage are just three indicators that signal possible future crisis situations. The question that is justifiably raised is "Could this military conflict have been prevented?" Implicitly, another series of questions arises, such as "Can future crisis situations generated by this military conflict be prevented?" When expressing the answers to such questions, the military and societal security specialists turn to specific tools such as threat predictions and scenarios. In this context, we can talk about planning military actions in a much more realistic way, observing the battles taking place in the Ukrainian space, which is a new reality in Eastern Europe. The lessons learned following recent military conflicts refer to the complexity of the combat actions generated by the digitalization of the confrontation space and the interaction of the societal domains in a difficult-to-decipher manner. The experimental vignette methodology - EVM - applied in the development of the threat scenarios by using podcasts, supports the planning of the military actions as a solution to prevent crisis situations. The optimization of the process of teaching and training the military specialist through experimental vignettes opens new horizons on planning the military actions as interactions of the military component with the other components of the societal domains that ensure the transition from a macro- to a micromilitary confrontational environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China-U.S. inadvertent escalation has been a focus of recent international relations literature. The current debate, however, has not paid sufficient attention to two important factors: the survivability of China's nuclear forces under unintentional conventional attacks; and China's nuclear command, control, and communication (NC3) system. Based on detailed analysis of these two variables, three potential mechanisms of China-U.S. inadvertent escalation are examined: use-it-or-lose-it, unauthorized/accidental, and damage-limitation. Although the possibility of a major China-U.S. conventional war inadvertently escalating to a nuclear level cannot be excluded, the risk is extremely low. China's nuclear forces would survive U.S. inadvertent conventional attacks and, thus, are unlikely to be significantly undermined. Even though China's NC3 system might be degraded during a conventional war with the United States, Chinese leadership would likely maintain minimum emergency communications with its nuclear forces. Moreover, China's NC3 system is highly centralized, and it prioritizes "negative control," which can help to prevent escalation. China's nuclear retaliatory capability, although limited, could impede U.S. damage-limitation strikes to some extent. To keep the risk of inadvertent escalation low, both sides must take appropriate precautions and exercise self-restraint in their planning and operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High spatial resolution (HSR) remote sensing images have a wide range of application prospects in the fields of urban planning, agricultural planning and military training. Therefore, the research on the semantic segmentation of remote sensing images becomes extremely important. However, large data volume and the complex background of HSR remote sensing images put great pressure on the algorithm efficiency. Although the pressure on the GPU can be relieved by down-sampling the image or cropping it into small patches for separate processing, the loss of local details or global contextual information can lead to limited segmentation accuracy. In this study, we propose a multi-field context fusion network (MCFNet), which can preserve both global and local information efficiently. The method consists of three modules: a backbone network, a patch selection module (PSM), and a multi-field context fusion module (FM). Specifically, we propose a confidence-based local selection criterion in the PSM, which adaptively selects local locations in the image that are poorly segmented. Subsequently, the FM dynamically aggregates the semantic information of multiple visual fields centered on that local location to enhance the segmentation of these local locations. Since MCFNet only performs segmentation enhancement on local locations in an image, it can improve segmentation accuracy without consuming excessive GPU memory. We implement our method on two high spatial resolution remote sensing image datasets, DeepGlobe and Potsdam, and compare the proposed method with state-of-the-art methods. The results show that the MCFNet method achieves the best balance in terms of segmentation accuracy, memory efficiency, and inference speed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Norwegian Armed Forces will soon make the largest investment in its history. It plans to spend $8 billion to replace the Royal Norwegian Air Force's existing fleet of F-16 aircraft with 52 new F-35 aircraft. The Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI) has undertaken multiple analyses to support the Norwegian Defence Logistics Organisation (NDLO) with the transition planning. During the transition period, Norway must maintain adequate fighter capability. The rate at which it can train new pilots and convert F-16 pilots to fly the F-35 will influence the cost and length of the transition period and the Air Force's operational-readiness status. Although finding the optimal training rate for pilots is a difficult planning problem, we achieved substantial success by using an integer linear program to generate optimal plans. By using this model, we were able to investigate multiple scenarios for pilot training. We determined the earliest year that the Air Force could reach a fully operational F-35 fighter capability, the optimal ratio of new to converted pilots, and the number of pilots that FFI should train each year during the transition phase. Our results enabled FFI to generate a training plan that resulted in large savings and operational advantages compared to the previous solution, which did not employ operations research techniques for planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]