Research for Research Memoranda

The purpose of the Upper-Mental-Group (UMG) requirement in Navy recruiting is discussed. A FORTRAN model that simulates the recruiting process and calculates the optimum UGM requirement is described. Findings for FY86 are presented. Follow-up to type 27 850002.00

Two inventory models are compared in this paper. The first model solves for the optimal purchase of all inventory items simultaneously. The second model solves for the optimal purchase of each inventory item considered one at a time, using a penalty parameter that is chosen to satisfy an availability goal. It is shown that the solutions of the two models are not equivalent. Moreover, the second model is too sensitive to changes in the relative demand rate but not sensitive enough to changes in relative holding costs. Supersedes 05 850765.10

The role of the Pacific theater in a NATO-Warsaw Pact War is considered. The paper argues that the Pacific theater has been neglected in such a conflict because most war scenarios envision a struggle lasting no more than 30 to 60 days. As a result, the conflict is over too quickly in most scenarios for the interrelationships between the NATO and Pacific theaters to develop conceptually. However, in a long-war scenario, the Pacific theater's importance in the course and outcome of such a conflict becomes apparent. The military, industrial, and technological potential of the Pacific nations, especially China and Japan, combined with the U.S., constitute a reserve of strength capable of containing or reversing any Soviet success in a conventional conflict in Europe. This paper concludes that (a) current strategy or doctrine based on the refusal to repudiate the 'first use' of nuclear weapons has lost much of its credibility as a deterrent, and (b) the tacit or explicit adoption of a long-war strategy to counter Soviet capabilities in a short war should be considered.

The 'bible' of Soviet strategic thinking in the 1960s was the work edited by Marshal V.D. Sokolovskiy. Although the question of the work's obsolescence was raised in the 1970s, it was with the appearance of a recent book by Deputy Chief of the General Staff Gareev that the issue could be definitively settled. According to Gareev, Sokolovskiy is now out of date with respect to the specific features of modern war, and it is necessary to restore all the old strategic principles and categories that had been rejected or revised by Sokolovskiy.