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The United States Navy possesses a preeminent peacetime role in U.S. national security: “naval forward presence,” or the maintenance of combat-credible naval forces worldwide to deter adversaries, reassure allies, respond to crises, and perform constabulary functions for the global commons. To many, naval forward presence is nearly-synonymous with American grand strategy.But since the post-Cold War defense drawdown, forward presence has constrained the Navy’s efforts to prepare for great power war. To support forward presence, the Navy has organized its force structure around fixed-wing-capable platforms and their supporting multi-mission combatant warships. The politics and spiraling costs of building such ships have stymied efforts to expand the fleet. Presence also requires that the surface navy remain continually visible and busy. Too few ships thus face too many demands. The resultant operational tempo overwhelms maintenance and training cycles, and grinds away at the economic viability of American shipyards. In this way, naval forward presence consumes the Navy’s structural readiness, or its capacity to engage in severe and sustained combat with a peer competitor, such as the People’s Republic of China. And in so doing, presence consumes its own promises – deterrence and reassurance. Why, given its internal tensions, does naval forward presence remain a governing strategic concept for the U.S. Navy, even in the shadow of a major international threat? What lies behind the rhetorical consensus on the value of naval forward presence for U.S. national security? This dissertation takes a popular strategic concept to task, illuminating the ideas, politics, and organizational processes that sustain it, even as its costs and risks accumulate, and even as international conditions change. The inquiry comprises three parts: a history of presence and its implementation; a theoretical analysis of presence through the lens of political science literature; and a case study of the reform agenda following the U.S. Navy’s surface ship accidents of 2017. I find that naval forward presence, as an idea, ran away from the Navy. Initially elevated to prominence for bureaucratic reasons, presence was sustained both by organizational processes outside the Navy’s control, and by policymakers’ belief in the very benefits the Navy had claimed presence could deliver. Naval forward presence is rooted in deep-seated American foreign policy beliefs that cross ideological divides. The idea that the nation, and the world, cannot survive without a navy whose peacetime roles include deterring adversaries, preserving national credibility through crisis response, and policing the international system, is a uniquely American conceit. Ultimately, it also abuts against a physical reality: a navy tasked to do all these things, cannot do them all well. These findings have two implications. First, attempts to solve the trade-off between presence and structural readiness by building more ships are unlikely to succeed, as presence demands, sustained by the power of the idea and organizational processes resistant to change, will continue apace and even rise as the fleet grows. Second, the rise of populist nationalism may challenge consensus support for presence by calling alliance commitments into question. However, hyper-partisanship associated with this movement could doom efforts to restore Navy structural readiness regardless. Therefore, whether presence remains popular or not, presence must be substantially reduced to preserve the United States’ ability to deter, or if necessary, defeat China.

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Introduction. Despite increased metabolic demands, infantry soldiers are known to not eat enough during military manoeuvres. We undertook this study to examine food provided and consumed by male soldiers in the Canadian Forces in operational environments to examine and potentially improve their nutrition. / Methods. Subjects recorded their food intakes using dietary questionnaires during two exercises. The adequacy of dietary intake and the nutrient value of foods offered were assessed against Dietary Reference Intakes (DRI). / Results. Soldiers did not consume enough energy, carbohydrate, fibre, folate, vitamin C, potassium and calcium compared to operational requirements. The combat rations provided less than the recommended DRI for some nutrients. Food sources of nutrients were examined. / Discussion. We recommend increasing the quantity of easy-to-eat nutrient-dense foods while decreasing sodium content. To optimize nutrition and combat readiness, new products rich in carbohydrate, potassium, folate and calcium need to be added.

This thesis examines how and why two amateur videos, broadcast across Canada in 1995, contributed to the disbandment of the Canadian Airborne Regiment. A brief history of the Airborne highlights discipline problems that were known to exist before the videos were broadcast. Common assumptions about images, particularly amateur video images, are explored. The concept of the "media event" is used to show how mediation magnified the videos' impact. A detailed examination of the videos and their constructions as news stories demonstrates how narrative frames and the newsmaking process in general shaped what the public saw. A general content analysis of the media coverage surrounding the videos shows how a moral panic developed when Canadian values were threatened. It is argued that the videos and reaction to them shed more light on attitudes Canadians wanted to keep hidden than they did on any secrets the military harboured.

The essay charts forty years of Zionist history to illuminate the remarkable evolution of Israel's unified, apolitical army and Israel's "democratic civil-military tradition," forged in the fires of opposing military styles, ideological rivalry, competing underground forces, war and civil war.

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Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / A changed security environment after the end of the Cold War forced Switzerland, Austria, and Sweden to reassess their security policy. New threats and challenges such as international terrorism, WMD, organized crime, the greater disparity of wealth and increased migration have replaced traditional military threats. Larger non-military concerns like peacekeeping operations, hu-manitarian support, and support to civil authorities have replaced territorial defense. All of which require international cooperation. Following a comprehensive security strategy, Switzerland, Austria, and Sweden aim to defend their territory, protect their population, and fostering international peace and security. Austria and Sweden focus on the integration and solidarity with the Euro-pean Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Switzerland retains its perpetual neutrality, but has shown increased international cooperation. Austria and Sweden model their Armed Forces after the EU Petersberg Tasks and have small peacetime organizations with a professional cadre and annual conscripts. The Swiss Armed Forces XXI focus on territorial defense and are organized in accordance with universal conscription and wartime organization policies. Traditional political, social, and economic aspects hinder Switzerland from following a straightforward strategy toward solidarity and fundamental change in its Armed Forces. Switzerland's new security policy and its Armed Forces XXI do not fully meet the requirements to fight new threats and challenges together with the international community. / Lieutenant Colonel, Swiss Air Force

This thesis explores institutionalized discrimination in the United States Military by examining the rationales given for policies that exclude, or limit the military service of racial minorities, women and homosexuals, and the rationales given for altering such policies. outgroups such as racial minorities, women and homosexuals are presumed to be a threat to the white male heterosexual majority within the military services. The presence of these outgroups in the military has been officially characterized as threatening to small-unit cohesion, and therefore threatening to military readiness. This thesis was first based upon the assumption that the rationales favoring discriminatory policies, and rationales favoring reform, would be expressed in the language of small-group theories of cohesion, that is, cohesion based upon the self-categorization of group members, or the interdependence of group members. However, in the data analysis process, two other rationales emerged: the ideological and the bureaucratic rationales. Data illustrating these four rationales were drawn from a content analysis of articles and other commentary published in the New York Times. Statements were crosstabulated by the stance (exclusionist or reformist) they supported and the rationale (self-categorical, interdependent, ideological or bureaucratic) they employed to justify the stance. This analysis was first done separately for each of the three groups, racial minorities, women and homosexuals, and then the data for each of the three outgroups were compared and contrasted. Findings indicate that despite the military's official characterization of outgroups as a threat to small-unit cohesion, relatively little of the debate was expressed in terms of small-group theories of cohesion-the self-categorization of, or interdependence of group members. The most frequently employed rationales were, in fact, ideological in character. Between the three groups, however, some differences in patterns of rationales and stances emerged. The findings are placed in their historical and political contexts to help explain the results of the analysis, and to illuminate the experience of racial minorities, women and homosexuals in the United States military.