نشریه مدیریت و پژوهش های دفاعی
پیاپی 91 (بهار 1400)

Having an accurate knowledge of the enemy, its methods of hostility and procedures contain the most important tasks of analysts and defense-security policymakers of the country. Hence, in order to identify the methods of assessing the enemies, this study tries to investigate the pure evaluation as a model for defense-security assessment. This study is also intended to fill the important literature gap in this field by presenting the main concepts of pure assessment and give a history of studying this method for analysts and policymakers. Pure assessment is a method of strategic evaluation and analysis in the United States, Britain and the occupying regime of Israel, having been founded in the United States about half a century ago. This developmental research follows descriptive-explanatory case study method. For collecting research data, the method of library and documentary studies has been employed. The results revealed that using pure assessment brings about a systematic and holistic view for defense and security and level assessments as well as a long-term and forward-looking approach to issues concentrating on assessments on the basis of quantitative-qualitative consideration, rather than focusing solely on quantitative issues. This method of assessment provides an appropriate and methodical framework for analysts and policymakers by analyzing complex and comprehensive political, economic, social, and military relationships.

Implementation of development and sustainable security in strategic planning requires recognition of the bottlenecks and development opportunities in the framework of land use planning. In this way, by organizing activities, facilities and infrastructures, different economic, social, and political-security goals can be pursued. If the strategy planners fail to consider sustainable development and what follows it, namely sustainable security, in these areas, we will soon face threats against national interests. This study is aimed at investigating the status of land use planning from development and sustainable security perspective in Kermanshah province as a border region. Due to the nature of the subject and objectives of the research, an applied approach is selected for this research which follows descriptive-analytical method. Library method is used for data collection. The results indicated that although there is a constant relation between controlling border regions and the creation of sustainable development and security, the relation regarding the current economic, social, political-security conditions of Kermanshah province is quite weak and has not been considered as a matter of priority in the strategic planning by those in charge.

After nearly six years of the start of the Ukraine crisis and the overthrow of the pro-Moscow government in Kiev, various views on Russia's behavior in the Ukraine crisis is still being presented. This research is intended to investigate why and how the Ukraine crisis continued from 2013 to 2018. Accordingly, Russia's strategy in Ukraine and the reasons behind it, make the main concern of this study which is addressed through ASCOPE model using hybrid warfare. Hence, the main question of the study involves how the Russian Federation used information warfare to influence the civilian population of Ukraine. In response to this question, the authors hypothesize that Russia's main goal concerns gaining the position of a superpower again and change the balance in its favor in competition with the West. As achieving the goal is no longer possible through symmetrical and traditional methods of warfare, Moscow has resorted to the new generation of warfare, i.e., hybrid warfare, using its wide-ranging tools such as cyber-attacks and communicating false news. Employing the ASCOPE model, the researchers have investigated the region, structures, capacities, organizations, individuals and the events of the 2014 crisis in Ukraine. The methods through which the Russia gained control of some regions by attracting parts of the civilian population, are also considered. This descriptive-analytical research is based on collecting data extracted from reliable scientific sources including books, scientific-research articles and Internet sites.

This study is mainly intended to investigate the role of the Islamic Revolution the axis of resistance thought toward Syria, Syrian sovereignty and countering the threat on the basis of Stephen Walt's theory of balance of threat. The supportive policy and protection of the Islamic Revolution of Syria in the crisis, and its struggle for the survival of the Syrian government, have been investigated on the basis of approach of unity and coalition. Thus, the participation of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah of Lebanon, Ansarullah of Yemen, and Hashd al-Sh’abi of Iraq, on the one hand, and the Zionist regime and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, led by the United States and the West, on the other, has turned into an area of competition Pro-resistance countries (Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq) and countries against resistance (Zionist regime and Saudi Arabia). Therefore, the main research question involves the thinking of the Islamic Revolution and the protectionist policy focusing on the resistance in favor of the government of Bashar al-Assad and the formation of alliances and coalitions between the present countries and the way it has been implemented and operated. Inspired by Walt's balance of threat theory, the researchers main hypothesize that the main reason for the Islamic Revolution's supporting policy on resistance and Syrian government, in addition to revolutionary thinking, regards understanding of common regional threats from the side the Zionist regime and Saudi Arabia. Research findings illustrate according to Walt's theory of balance that, the perception of a common threat by the Axis of Resistance has resulted in Iran's support for Syria and the formation of alliances between them. The process and the method of establishing such alliances and unity are investigated too.

After the Islamic Revolution, a new model of defense called people-based defense was created, which left a profound effect on the contemporary history of the world and changed all the rules and principles of territorial defense. A specific feature of this model is a type of responding to the threats by making use of the presence and participation of a wide range of people to defend the material and spiritual values, national identity and social identity of a nation to increase internal strength, readiness and comprehensive efforts for achieving strategic goals, and a mosaic type defense. This applied research follows a descriptive-survey method along with causal process. Purposive sampling method is employed to explore the components and identify the factors. This research is primarily intended to design a people-based defense model to be used in comprehensive defense against the aggressor enemy or terrorist groups in future wars. With relation to this purpose, in-depth interviews were conducted with senior commanders of the Basij, local and foreign experts in the field of popular resistance, and the thematic analysis approach was employed to analyze the data. The results revealed that the people-based defense model is one of the best, most effective and efficient defense models in the contemporary history of the world, and the essential principles of the people-based defense model on the basis of environmental monitoring, observation, and scanning can increase comprehensive power.

Case-based training method involves a powerful learner-centered strategy which affects critical thinking, learning, and interacting with others. This research is an attempt to design a model for training managers and commanders, formulated on the basis of case study as one of the dimensions of the management laboratory at Imam Hussein Comprehensive University. The main reasons for employing this method contain participatory learning, observing theory in practice, enjoining learners with real-world complexities, having a decision-making position, evaluating the impact of individuals' decisions, dialogue-oriented learning, and educational flexibility. Grounded theory is used to design the promising model. Five experts were identified as the primary subjects of the research through the snowball sampling method, and finally, a total of 13 interviewees were addressed for in-depth unstructured interviews. In the end, after three types of open, axial and selective coding, the final local model of case-based education was achieved. As a result, the components including “defining the educational goals", "appointing and justifying the instructor", "case decisions", "training scenario development", "student preparation and environment", "student selection", "evaluation of training process and results", "development of final action plans", and "feedback report" were identified and organized in the form of "causal conditions", "context", "axial category", "intervening conditions", "strategies" and "consequences". This local model is significantly advantageous and innovative in terms of its comprehensive features and in its consideration of independence in action, factors involved in the model, including multi stages, and attention to other key components of case-based training compared to previous common models mentioned in this paper.