AN INFORMAL FRAMEWORK TO AID THE ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF MILITARY POSTURE

The design of military posture is an exercise in confronting potential enemies' capabilities within the context of geographic, technological , temporal, political and economic constraints. No formal model is cap able of encapsulating the essentials of so complex an environment for closed or simulated analysis, but it is useful to have an informal fra mework within which to reason interactively within these dimensions. T his paper presents such a scaffolding, patterned on the notion of a mi litary posture as the output of an economic process whose structure re flects important determinants of the characteristics and extents of we aponry and expenditures that are appropriate to the environment within the feasibility set determined by the constraints. The analysis remai ns at an abstract level, but it does highlight the important shifts to ward preparation for littoral warfare, greater reliance on reserve rat her than active forces, and necessary changes in missions among milita ry departments.