VRF

Podcast with Antulio Echevarria on Jomini

Professor Antulio Echevarria (CCW Visiting Research Fellow) has featured on the RUSI podcast, Talking Strategy.

Episode 1: Jomini: Selling Napoleon’s System

Antoine-Henri Jomini was the strategist who anticipated Napoleon’s movements – and the general who betrayed the emperor by defecting to the Russians for a better position. He was among the most widely read strategists of land warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. To kick off Season 3 of Talking Strategy, Beatrice Heuser and Paul O’Neill are joined by Professor Antulio Echevarria to reflect on his work.

The Talking Strategy podcast is run by Paul O'Neill, a former Visiting Fellow of CCW.

Hubert Annen on identifying military core values

Hubert Annen has co-authored an article for Military Psychology.

Nadine Eggimann Zanetti, Willibald Ruch & Hubert Annen, “The utility of the psycholexical approach for identifying military core values: Illustrated in a sample of Swiss career officers and NCOs”

Abstract: Values have always been a top priority in the military domains of leadership, training, ethical commitment, and psychological research. However, only a few studies have assessed value descriptors and their underlying dimensional structure in military organizations using an empirical psycholexical and factor analytical approach. This research project examined the structure of military values and derived core military values. Two studies were conducted in cooperation with the Swiss Armed Forces. In study 1, 25 military-specific value descriptors were identified based on a psycholexical analysis of military guidelines and in line with expert ratings by executive military leaders. In study 2, a questionnaire was filled out by a sample of 550 military professionals to capture their ratings of values as applied to everyday military decisions and actions. Principal component analysis in combination with Goldberg’s top-down approach delivered five military value categories that reflect the military culture in Switzerland, characterized as (I) freedom, (II) social cohesion, (III) good soldiership, (IV) mutual respect, and (V) military conformity. Results are discussed in light of introducing a novel research approach to assessing the value structure and culture in military organizations.

Hubert Annen on Effects of resilience training in military officer cadets

Hubert Annen (CCW Visiting Research Fellow) has co-authored an article in Military Psychology.

Regula Zueger, Madlaina Niederhauser, Chantal Utzinger, Hubert Anne, Ulrike Ehlert, “Effects of resilience training on mental, emotional, and physical stress outcomes in military officer cadets” is available online.

ABSTRACT

Resilience is an important factor in counteracting the harmful effects of stress and is associated with healthy physiological and psychological responses to stress. Previous research has demonstrated the effectiveness of resilience fostering training programs in psychobiological stress response and recovery. Few studies, however, have examined training effects in real-life high-stress situations. In this study, we compare effects of a brief resilience training (RT) and an active control training in diversity management (DMT) on psychobiological stress response to and recovery from an intense military exercise of 81 male officer cadets. Five weeks after training completion, autonomic, endocrine, and subjective state measures of cadets were measured while undergoing stressful military exercise. The RT group perceived the military stressor as more challenging, and showed higher values in motivation and positive affect than the DMT group. Cortisol increased in both groups during stress, but showed a lower cortisol increase in the RT group thereafter. These results suggest that this brief resilience training helped cadets reframe the stressful situation in a more positive light, experiencing more positive emotions, and recovering faster from stress. To strengthen young military leaders in stressful situations, resilience promoting programs should become part of basic or leadership trainings.

Commander Andrew Livsey publishes article in the Wavell Room

Cdr Andrew Livsey, Royal Navy Hudson Fellow at St Anthony’s and Visiting Research Fellow at CCW, has published an article in the Wavell Room.

The article is titled “The Constant Struggle At Sea: Attacking And Protecting Shipping” and looks at how and why navies act to protect or obstruct shipping every day, even during times of peace. The present situation facing Ukraine, which has been entirely cut off from the seas, is assessed first, followed by the potential situation in a war involving China and Taiwan. The article ends with an analysis of why this aspect of conflict is too often ignored.

The article can be read here.

Congratulations to Steve Coulson for publishing his new paper: 'Lanchester Modelling of Intelligence in Combat'

Congratulations to CCW Visiting Research Fellow, Steve Coulson, whose paper on 'Lanchester Modelling of Intelligence in Combat' has just been published online at: https://academic.oup.com/imaman/advance-articles.

The print version of his paper will be released shortly. 

Abstract: While the utility of intelligence as force multiplier during warfare is widely accepted there have been few attempts to quantify its benefits. In this paper Lanchester combat models are developed to understand how superiority in intelligence can compensate for an inferior force ratio and how the time for one side to defeat the other is affected by the use of intelligence. It is found that intelligence does act as a force multiplier; however, its utility to compensate for inferior force ratio is less than commonly appreciated, proportional to the square root of the relative advantage in intelligence. Similarly, the time to defeat is proportional to the inverse of the square root of the relative advantage in intelligence, so that greatly increasing one side’s superiority in intelligence only produces a modest decrease in the time to defeat. The Lanchester combat models are extended to a hyperbolic system of partial differential equation (PDE) to investigate how intelligence influences manoeuvre warfare. These suggest that high tempo attacking operations are less sensitive to the effects of intelligence than slower operations.