Modern military ground vehicles are no longer able to respond effectively to the rapidly changing mission requirements of modern military conflicts. Military vehicle architectures, which utilize passive suspension components and traditional drivetrain/steering systems, do not provide the operational flexibility to meet the demands of the operator. Advances in intelligent actuation technology allow for the development of a new vehicle architecture - the Intelligent Corner Vehicle (ICV). The ICV utilizes intelligent actuator technology to actively control the four degrees of freedom of each wheel of the vehicle - drive, camber, steering, and suspension. The utilization of intelligent actuation requires the characterization of the motions and behavior of the tire and the vehicle chassis in order to effectively apply the tire to the road surface - the development of vehicle performance criteria. A brief review of the state of wheeled military systems is presented. Many modern military vehicles were designed to improve protection at the expense of mobility - a process that has had negative effects on vehicle capability. An overview of the pneumatic tire used for wheeled vehicles is presented, highlighting the nonlinearities of tire behavior. The complexity of tire force generation drives the need for the application of intelligent actuation. Traditional actuation of wheel motion is presented along with a variety of current efforts to apply intelligent actuation to individual degrees of freedom of the tire. These efforts can be shown to improve vehicle performance, but intelligent actuation must be applied to all aspects of tire motion, requiring the use of the ICV architecture and the generation of performance criteria by which the complex motion of the vehicle may be evaluated. The Robotics Research Group has a history of developing and evaluating performance criteria for complex dynamic systems. and review of performance criteria developed for serial chain robotics is presented. These criteria address task independent actuator motion in addition to actuator ranges and limits, and their application to the ICV is discussed. A brief overview of several important concepts of classical vehicle dynamics are presented. The application of criteria derived from these concepts to the ICV architecture is discussed. This report presents the complexities of tire behavior and vehicle motion, the need for alternative architectures (the ICV), and a variety of performance criteria required to evaluate vehicle motion in real time. Criteria that are presented are summarized along with their definition and physical meaning. Future work for the development of the ICV involves the generation of a vehicle model for evaluating the application and range values of the presented criteria. / text

The United States has different methods by which it leverages its influence on allies throughout the world. Military-to-military partnerships constitute one of the most effective methods, particularly when the U.S. seeks to influence developing nations or ones that are in the midst of difficult political transitions. However, recent events demonstrate that these mil-to-mil partnerships are not as effective as they should be. This paper seeks to examine one aspect of the mil-to-mil partnership, namely sales of U.S. military equipment through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program and the complementary Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program, through which the United States provides the funding to finance said purchases. This paper argues that the United States has continually "moved the goalposts" in justifying its FMF outlays and FMS authorizations, to the effect that the United States is dependent on the continuation of the very programs that are designed to be little more than tools that allow the foreign policy establishment to influence its partners. This "strategic drift" in the mil-to-mil relationship as evidenced through the FMS/FMF program is examined in detail in Egypt, with a focus on events that have transpired since longtime President Hosni Mubarak's ouster in February 2011. The paper seeks to demonstrate that when FMS/FMF is tied to external agreements upon which the United States is dependent - whether diplomatic or military - it creates an incentive for planners in both the Departments of Defense and State to resort to self-justifying analyses bearing little resemblance to the original purpose of the FMS/FMF agreements or to the United States' legitimate national interest in a given region. Large scale reforms of the architecture of security assistance, both political and administrative, are unlikely to occur for a variety of reasons that are touched upon in the paper. By looking at the historical, political, and military aspects of security assistance more broadly, the paper argues that if the United States wants to achieve clarity on whether its security assistance programs truly serve the United States' best interests, it will need to do so at lower levels in the relative implementing agencies. / text

The Pentagon Channel, a media outlet funded and controlled by the U.S. Department of Defense, has continuously disseminated Pentagon approved programming to American audiences since 2004. Although the content created for The Pentagon Channel encompasses a variety of genres, the core justification for the channels existence is its ability to provide members of the armed forces with credible military news and information not otherwise available. At the same time, the channel is expected to function as an advocate of the Pentagon. This thesis is focused on Recon and Soldiers Journal, two of the news and information programs on The Pentagon Channel. By analyzing the way these programs frame sensitive issues including injury, violence, and death, this project argues that The Pentagon Channel privileges its role as Pentagon advocate above its mandate to provide credible information to servicemembers. / text

The protracted wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have led to a number of moral abuses committed by members of the U.S. military. Media reports have focused particular attention on the human cost incurred by these abuses, the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib and the massacre of civilians at Haditha being but a few, tragic examples. However, the human cost of these abuses is measured not just in the lives of noncombatants, but also by the number of military suicides that are a byproduct of traumatic combat experiences and the subsequent violation of moral norms. In light of this, any society that is sincere in its concern for the moral well-being of its soldiers, and the noncombatants with whom they interact, should seek to reduce the occurrence of such abuses. In this dissertation, I argue that the development of moral character, particularly the conception of moral character that Aristotle promotes in his ethical theory, is fundamental to preventing the moral abuses that soldiers commit, both in combat and during peacetime. This project is composed of five chapters. The first chapter is devoted to describing the moral challenges that confront soldiers, particularly on the battlefield. Chapter Two articulates the broad outlines of Aristotelian virtue ethics with a specific emphasis on four key features of Aristotle’s virtue theory and how they can be harnessed to promote ethical conduct within the military institution. Arguably, the most important component of moral character is practical reason, the ability to assess a moral problem, weighing all the various considerations that affect it, and arrive at an ethical solution. Considering this, Chapter Three examines how practical reason can guide the soldier’s understanding of obedience, loyalty and respect, traits that are widely considered military virtues, but which are also at the root of a great deal of unethical behavior. Chapter Four examines the military’s code of professional ethics and how the possession of practical reason is necessary if soldiers are to make ethical decisions in situations the code does not explicitly address. The final chapter, Chapter Five, argues for more emphasis on the development of practical reason in military ethics education. / text

<p> Recent changes in written Army leader doctrine have reaffirmed the informal practice of mentorship as a component of subordinate leader development. At the same time, the use of Professional Forums in the Army has the potential to alter commonly accepted norms, policies, and practices of mentoring. This dissertation conducted a phenomenological study of how lived experience in the Forums complemented or detracted from the practice of Army mentoring. The study found that the lived experience closely corresponded to Kram&rsquo;s mentoring functions, with additional documented experiences in the areas of peer and computer-mediated communications mentoring. The participants&rsquo; practices of mentoring within the chain of command and cross-gender mentoring were significantly impacted by unique aspects of Army culture. The researcher found that the Professional Forums were supportive of mentoring practice, but were not mentoring spaces themselves. Participants credited the Forums with helping them identify viable mentoring partners and refining their own mentoring practices. Forum participants believed that their engagement in those spaces gave them a positive outlook on Army mentoring. The study&rsquo;s findings suggest best practices for informal Army mentoring while illuminating new directions for quantitative research in cross-gender and CMC-based mentoring. </p>

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The relationship between architecture and defense during the mid-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries in the portion of Hispanic Sonora that later became southern Arizona is examined. Included are a description and analysis of presidio fortifications, and a comparison of these defense works with other kinds of fortified and garrisoned places found in the region. Separate sections offer appraisals of how raw materials, labor, and tools, were used to plan and build frontier strongholds in northern New Spain and early Mexico. Also provided is a description of the weapons and tactics used in the defense of fortified places. An evaluation is made of the role of fortifications in grand strategy. Based on this evidence, it is argued that defense involved a wider variety of institutions than has traditionally been recognized. The survey of defensive sites also indicates that the presidios do not share certain important features. These differences reflect gradual changes in design concepts over time. It is argued that the causes of these modifications are principally the results of shifts in strategy.