DEFENSE STRATEGY
Year:2011 | Volume:9 | Issue:34|Papers Count:7

The change of attitude in the human resources management system from operational to strategic levels has opened up a new area of study in the field. The present article carries out a scholarly investigation of the most important vulnerabilities of human resources maintenance system in a sample defence organization. In doing so, with the substantiation of the existing hypotheses, the relationship between the strategic approach variables (independent variable), organizational commitment (dependent variable), and the sense of organizational justice as well as the fulfilment of the staff’s superior needs (intermediate variable) was corroborated within the framework of a pattern accordingly. The findings of the research show that apart from the personnel’s operational- and material-level affairs, paying attention to deep and attitudinal layers of their demands, namely the sense of organizational justice and fulfilment of their superior needs is necessary. The degree of vulnerability vis-à-vis the key factors of staff maintenance system may be listed in order of priority as follows: The sense of organizational justice, strategic approach, organizational commitment, and fulfilment of superior needs. The results obtained by analyzing the procedure demonstrate that adoption of a strategic approach, mediated by the variables of “the sense of organizational justice” and “fulfillment of superior needs”, has a total impact of 0.261 upon organizational commitment.

This research investigates the global trends and their potential effects upon military service through conducting exploratory studies and examining a great number of relevant documents and reports.Afterwards, it considers the conditions and trends of military service in five sample countries. Summarizing and analyzing the study findings at the international level and considering the experiences of other countries, the article’s authors then offer the results of field research for judgement by around 60 experts in strategic-security, military, and geopolitical affairs. As the key findings of the research show, though military professionalism is the dominant trend in the world, due to the current circumstances and needs of the Islamic Republic, military service will continue to exist in the country at least up to 15 years from now. It should be noted, however, that its form and content as well as the trainings offered in it have to be transformed.

Defence diplomacy is an institution focused upon the application of interdisciplinary thinking to help armed forces protect national security through measures and policies which were formerly seen as peculiar to diplomatic organizations. In this respect, playing a diplomatic role in the country’s defence sector will be plausible as long as it informs the interaction and relations between the armed forces of states. Attitudes towards this relatively modern innovation in defence policy-making depend upon different patterns, and subject to requirements of national security thinking, concern the states foreign and defence policies. Comparative study of these attitudes can provide policy-makers with an objective command of the issue as well as a profound understanding of its practical aspects, and thus help statesmen to organize the national management of defence diplomacy in keeping with the security roadmap and requirements of the state. This article seeks to conduct a comparative analysis of defence diplomacy in a number of countries, and finally illustrate the components and methods of its management in the Islamic Republic of Iran along with the differentiation of responsibilities and activities involved in the process.

Ethnic Crises in various geographical regions of a country do not stem from identical factors as a range of different elements may play a part in the outbreak of crisis in proportion to or depending upon geographical, psychological, social, and demographic characteristics of a given region. Employing field research, this article seeks to find out the causes of ethnic crisis in two ethnically characteristic regions of Kordestan and Baluchestan after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and measure the influence degree of each element following their assessment. The findings of the study demonstrate that in these regions, factors and elements causing the crisis have not acted in the same manner. In other words, in Baluchestan sociocultural elements exert a more powerful influence whereas in Kordestan political-security factors play a more outstanding role that other causes. The research concludes that policy-makers focusing on ethnic issues need to precisely identify the potential causes of ethnic crisis in a specific region in order to fathom out and formulate optimum ethnic policies are in tune with its various characteristics.

Passive defence is the least costly method of defence, which enhances a country’s hardware capability in confrontation with its enemies, but this is possible only when the enemy selects an environment equipped by passive defence for attack. The changing form of hostile invasion and exploitation of soft war (techniques) require a type of defence that is adequate enough to meet the requirements of the combat scene and reduce the costs involved.Localized soft power is the most suitable option available which can guarantee success in this subjective/mental atmosphere. How the elements and principles of passive defence will impact upon a given country’s soft war is a question this article tries to answer. The author assumes that certain principles of passive defence such as versatilization of environments, fortifying infrastructures, suitable location of sites, and resilience exert a direct effect upon soft power. Therefore, the article seeks to examine this hypothesis by employing a descriptive-analytic method of research and drawing upon the notions of experts and authorities on the subject-as the commanders of soft war who play an important part in boosting the country’s soft power.

With the transformation of international system, the deterrence theory should face new realities such as regionalization and expansion or development of strategic missile systems. Given this, the present research revolves around the question, what link is there between deterrence and missile systems in a regionalist world order? Along these lines, the article puts forward the hypothesis that regionalization of the world order will take deterrence out of its previous simple context and cause it to be defined in terms of regional, broad, asymmetrical, network-based, and soft or smart types of deterrence. In addition, the expansion or development of missile systems will challenge the rationale or logical principles of traditional deterrence in the first place, but will also lead to a change in the strategic stability point that defines deterrence. This article strives to formulate a dynamic pattern of deterrence theory and thus link the theoretical developments with those taking place in the international system.