Nation Assistance: Does an Exercise in Guatemala by Reserve Components Support United States National Security Strategy?
Abstract : This strategic research paper critically examines the ends-ways-means formulas of United States national security strategy as it relates to performing a nation assistance exercise in Guatemala. It surveys the relevant documents revealing the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff place less value on nation assistance than the President does. Guatemala is an emerging democracy that received nation assistance exercises called Fuertes Caminos in 1993, 1994, and 1995. The author was the aviation commander of Fuertes Caminos 95-North. This paper follows a sequence describing the background of Guatemala and Fuertes Caminos exercises, defining nation assistance policy, then flowing through the United States Army War College (USAWC) strategy formulation guidelines, recommending adjustments and identifying lessons learned.
An Examination of Nation Assistance: Should the U.S. Support Third World Efforts to Combat Internal Lawlessness, Subversion, and Insurgency?
Abstract : This paper examines the relevancy of the current National Military Strategy's (NMS) strategic concept of Peacetime Engagement and its component of Nation Assistance in a post Cold War, Third World environment. This strategy promotes the need to assist friendly nations in upholding democratic ideas by supporting their efforts to combat internal lawlessness, subversion, and insurgency. The strategy also endorses conducting civil military operations, engaging in bilateral and multilateral exercises, sharing intelligence and communications, and providing logistics support. This latter use of Nation Assistance appears to be both legitimate and helpful to Third World democracies. However, the first component of this strategy has historically led the United States into costly Third World conflicts that this research shows has had few positive effects, and often has been harmful. This paper also examines this strategy in terms of vital interest. Regional assessments of Africa, Asia, and Latin America revealed no vital interest for the United States to conduct insurgency or counterinsurgency missions under the guise of Nation Assistance in any of these regions. As a result, this paper recommends this component of Nation Assistance be eliminated from the NMS and replaced with economic related assistance that will better serve our goal of promoting democracy.
Investigations of dielectric gratings using electrodynamic models based on volume integral equations
Eigenmodes of planar and cylindrical dielectric gratings (DGs) and electromagnetic wave scattering from multiplayer DGs are investigated. The DG characteristics are calculated using numerical-analytical solution of integral equations (IEs).