Air and Space Power, Lead Turning, the Future

To optimize security investment for the future, the Department of Defense (DoD) should adopt an approach that rewards the services for developing innovative methods to attain national security objectives with the least risk in both blood and treasure. To accomplish this, the DoD may have to re-visit its former practice of providing each service with relatively equal slices of the military budget. Under such an approach, the services are motivated to make incremental changes to the concepts and weapons of the previous war and have little reason to take risks to increase productivity of man and machine alike. What is needed—particularly in these times of increasingly complex national security challenges, rising costs, and shrinking budgets—is a plan for going forward that is centered on a shared vision of the variety of threat conditions we are likely to face, an honest evaluation of their significance, and a mature appraisal of what will be required to deal with them. We should dedicate ourselves to crafting an overall defense strategy that will allow us to shape the environment and act flexibly across the entire range of operations, and that will also provide a framework upon which to base our jointly focused resource and investment decisions.¹     

Mediation Practice in the South African Construction Industry: The Influence of Culture, the Legislative Environment, and the Professional Institutions

We studied mediation practice in the South African construction industry by surveying sixty-three mediators. We found that mediators are more intent on resolving disputes for the parties than on assisting the parties to find their own settlements. In addition, we found that greater emphasis by parties to the dispute is placed on technical expertise, authority, and a clear understanding of the matter in dispute than on moving the parties toward an in-depth understanding of each other's perspectives. We conclude that mediation practice in the South African construction industry is not consistent with generally accepted principles of mediation. We also argue that the fragmented and potentially adversarial traditional procurement system predominantly used in South Africa, together with the inadequate institutional response in promoting mediation as a preferred dispute resolution method, is encouraging mediation to develop in this way. This is cause for concern, not only because this practice represents a departure from the underlying philosophy of mediation — dialogue aimed at amicable and long-lasting solutions that are in everyone's best interests — but because it is incompatible with the Southern African worldview concept of ubuntu .     

Roosevelt, Truman and the Development of Postwar Grand Strategy

After its victory in World War II, it was clear that United States should move beyond the disastrous policies of the 1930s, but it was less clear how. Ultimately, a lasting postwar strategy was forged under President Truman. Appreciating how Truman moved well beyond Roosevelt's guiding assumptions is essential to understanding the evolution of American grand strategy. One sees that wartime planning and grand strategy formulation can prove quite inadequate for dealing with postwar challenges. An administration cannot be locked into assumptions, but must constantly test them. Thus, the Truman administration eventually developed and adopted containment and moved far beyond FDR's approach. More substantively, the fundamental geopolitical lesson of World War II and the early Cold War was that the United States must assume the essential balancing role relative to other major powers.     

The Global Era of National Policy and the Pan-Oceanic National Fleet

This article develops a framework for considering the future requirements for U.S. maritime power. It does so by proposing that these requirements must be considered within the context of an integrated National Fleet—the combined capabilities of the three “Sea Services”—the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and U.S. Coast Guard. It also would include their reserve components, as well as the Military Sealift Command (MSC) and the Maritime Administration's Ready Reserve Force (RRF)—the two organizations responsible for maintaining the nation's strategic sealift fleet.     

Petro-Piracy: Oil and Troubled Waters

West Africa piracy is the most profitable in the world. Well-organized gangs steal refined oil in contrast to Somali pirates who hold crews and ships for ransom. Like piracy elsewhere, the origins and potential solutions to West African piracy are found ashore—largely in Nigeria. This article argues that oil states in the developing world are shielded from the domestic and international pressures that can bring down their non-oil neighbors. The current international system which makes international recognition, not internal legitimacy or functionality, the key to state authority works to their benefit. It encourages those parts which are valuable to industrialized powers—and to the domestic elites who facilitate and benefit from international legitimization—to function well enough for resource extraction to continue. The security of the state generally matters less than the security of key enclaves— including ships and offshore platforms—which support elite interests.