Rhetoric versus reality: Canadian defence planning in a time of austerity

As Canada's military mission in Afghanistan winds down and the country faces several years of fiscal austerity, all of Canada's major political parties are agreed that Canadian defence budgets must stay level or be cut. This comes at a time when the defence department is slated to replace the Canadian Forces’ (CF) major equipment fleets. Canada's defence establishment thus faces some critical decisions. One option is to try to maintain its expeditionary capabilities across all three services: army, navy and air force. Absent substantial new infusions of funds, however, this approach is likely to lead to an overall and largely chaotic reduction of capabilities. Another option is to make some difficult choices as to which expeditionary capabilities to maintain as part of a strategic review of Canada's future military needs. Such an option would ensure that Canada has at least some military capacities which can reliably be devoted to the most demanding international operations, while maintaining those capabilities required for domestic duties and North American defence. Pursuing this option would accord with the new North Atlantic Treaty Organization Strategic Concept and the call for “Smart Defense” within the Alliance. This article assesses the arguments for and against the option of specialising Canada's future defence capabilities and explores scenarios as to what a future CF may look like.     

Humanitarian response to hurricane disasters: Coordinating flood‐risk mitigation with fundraising and relief operations

To alleviate flooding, caused by hurricanes, governments build structural barriers called levees. In addition, relief providers such as the nongovernmental organizations and charities raise funds, and procure and deliver supplies (food, water, and medicines) for humanitarian relief. The strategy for managing disasters must, therefore, weigh the costs and benefits of building levees as well as procuring and delivering supplies. We use a three‐stage decision making framework to study how the investment in levee capacity can be integrated with supply procurements, fundraising, and rapid response. One of our major findings is that a large fundraising cost discourages postdisaster funding, implying relatively large investments in levee and prepositioned supplies. That notwithstanding, a large social value (of saving life) can tilt the balance in favor of postdisaster funding. If the levee capacity increases, funding for predisaster procurement is reduced without affecting postdisaster funding. For a sufficiently large increase in capacity, however, postdisaster response becomes superfluous. We also find that hurricane uncertainty motivates levees with large capacity. In contrast, levee‐failures motivate levees with small capacity.     

防空兵群指挥所配置方案优化分析

防空兵群指挥所配置是兵力部署的重要内容,它从根本上决定了指挥所的指挥效能和野战生存能力。多年来,指挥所的配置多是根据防空兵战斗的相关战术原则,由作战参谋提出数个配置方案,然后由指挥员做出决策。这种仅凭主观决策的做法与现代防空作战的要求不相适应。结合模糊多指标评判方法与优化理论,从发挥指挥效能与提高生存能力两个方面出发,对防空群指挥所的配置进行了分析,并建立了配置方案优化的模型,从根本上改变了指挥所配置完全依赖主观判断的做法。最后应用模型分析了一个实例。     

城市防空中需掩护目标的重要性层次分析

城市防空中 ,需要掩护的重要目标多 ,分布范围广 ,必须将众多需要保卫的目标按其重要程度进行分类和排序 ,以便科学部署防空力量 ,提高城市防空综合效益。以目标价值作为衡量各种目标重要性的基本尺度 ,给出了目标价值的层次结构模型和数值计算方法     

装备器材保障资源调度决策模型及算法

装备器材保障资源调度问题是一个非常复杂的问题,根据其优化目标要求,从保障时间最短、保障耗费最低、安全性最高3个方面建立了该问题的多目标优化模型,并通过目标优先度决策将其转化为单目标模型;接着,采用两阶段法进行求解,将其分为最优路径决策、器材分配决策两个阶段进行决策优化,在明确资源点到需求点之间的最优路径后再进行器材资源的分配;并分别采用基于小生境的自适应遗传算法和基于生成树的遗传算法进行求解。通过实例分析,求解结果能够满足装备器材保障的要求,表明所构建的决策模型和算法是有效的。     

弹炮一体化防空系统的服务概率模型

弹炮一体化防空系统是未来高技术局部战争中应急机动部队的主要防空武器。首先给出了弹炮一体化防空系统服务概率的定义 ,然后通过研究这种防空武器对目标服务过程的特点 ,建立了服务概率计算模型 ,为评价这种防空武器的射击能力和系统效能 ,提供了必要的分析手段     

Military Debt: Perspectives from the Experience of Arab Countries

The sectoral production function model of Feder (1983) has been widely used to examine the link between defence spending and economic growth. In this paper, the model, for which too much has been claimed in some past work, is examined, and the case is made for using growth in real non‐defence output rather than growth in real aggregate output (inclusive of military spending) as the dependent variable. Attention is restricted to a small group of OECD countries for which reliable labour force and capital stock (as well as defence) data are obtainable. With non‐defence output as the dependent variable and using only high quality data, no evidence in favour of the underconsumptionist (as opposed to the defence as a burden) position is found.     

基于激励机制的装备采办风险总量控制

针对装备采办中的风险总量控制,提出一种激励方式来提高承包商的积极性。在单目标风险控制模型的基础上,建立了多目标风险控制模型,推导出了激励机制下风险控制的最优合同公式。对激励机制中存在的两类错误进行了理论分析和实例验证,得出了两类错误对收益的影响,并在成本控制中得到了应用,有效地提高了装备采办的质量和效率,为军方决策者在装备采办中提供了合理的参考依据。     

复杂系统的结构演变

考虑复杂性的一个侧面,从最简单的非线性方程出发,探讨战斗格局的结构演变和国防经费的良性循环,并通过这两个实例,揭示控制参数临界点的研究和度的把握,具有很大的理论意义和广泛的应用前景。     

Perspectives for the development of key industrial capabilities for Canada’s defence sector

With the Canada First Defence Strategy, Canada has put forth a major opportunity to reconcile national security imperatives and industrial policy. The Jenkins Report (2013) set out to examine ways to use that procurement effort to foster key industrial capabilities (KICs) that would put the Canadian defence industry at an advantage both nationally and internationally. The Canadian defence industry should then develop highly focused capabilities with a view to moving up global value chains. As such, KICs that hold the best potential should be selected. They should be sustained through a range of strategies that are however contingent on the elimination of policy gaps. This leads to a balancing act between the need to control intellectual property assets versus accessing them in a world where national boundaries are eroded. Canada’s industry should target opportunities outside North America while continuing to focus on better integration with the North American industry.     

基于模糊AHP评判的舰艇编队防空队形优化研究

针对队形变化给编队防空能力带来的五个方面的影响,建立了编队防空队形综合评判的指标体系,并应用模糊层次分析法建立了编队防空队形优选模型。以驱逐舰艇为例,求出了在一定条件下的最佳防空队形——菱形队形。该模型简单易行,容易在计算机上实现,初步解决了编队防空队形优选问题。     

基于物元模型-AHP的联合电子防空作战效能评估

针对现代防空作战训练中联合电子防空作战效能评估的问题,引入物元模型,并结合层次分析法(AHP)提出了基于物元模型-AHP的联合电子防空作战效能评估方法.以某次复杂电磁环境下联合电子防空演习任务为背景,建立了作战效能评估指标体系和评估模型,给出了评估模型的仿真算例,结果表明,该方法在联合电子防空作战的效能评估中是可行和有...     

SOCIAL PREFERENCES FOR NATIONAL DEFENCE AND POLICE ENFORCEMENT IN WESTERN EUROPE

We study the determinants of social preferences for national defence and for police and law enforcement. For this task, we estimate a bivariate ordered probit model for a set of European countries (France, Finland, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden) in 2006. Determinants of spending decisions for defence and police are found to be linked but are of significantly different magnitudes. Besides, measures against terrorist threats are positively linked to police and defence spending increases, while the subjective perception of fiscal pressure has no influence. Finally, no significant differences are found between Northern and Southern Europe.     

Panel Causality Analysis Between Defence Expenditure and Economic Growth in Developed Countries

There is much controversy in the literature over whether military expenditures have a positive, negative or no relation impact on economic growth. The aim of this paper is to determine the relationship between GDP and defence expenditure. The study analyses GDP and defence expenditures of the developed countries with cross-sectional ADF and SURADF unit root tests using annual data for the years 1980–2007. We conclude that in the long term, according to the Pedroni cointegration test, there exists a relationship between defence expenditure and economic growth. Furthermore, by utilizing the Granger causality test, we find that defence expenditure is a factor in economic growth. In other words, our study validates the hypothesis that defence spending by economically developed countries positively contributes to their economics.     

Turkey’s strategic choice: buy or make weapons?

Turkey has been investing in its national defence industrial base since the 1980s. As with other developing countries, Turkey’s motivations for investing in national defence industries can be boiled down to the pursuit of defence autarky, economic benefits and international prestige. However, after 40 years of investment, Turkey is unable to reach the primary goals of defence industrialisation. We argue that three factors are important to understanding Turkey’s persistence in these primary goals. First, Turkey believes that there is an overall improvement in its defence industrial capabilities and the goal of autarky is still reachable. Second, increased defence exports support the belief that Turkish defence industries have become sustainable and the trend will continue in the future. The third reason, perhaps most important of all, has to do with the domestic political gains of defence industrialisation: the AKP uses defence industry and indigenous weapon systems for prestige and, therefore, garners broader support.     

THE LONG‐RUN RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DEFENCE EXPENDITURES AND GDP IN TAIWAN

Using the Solow–Swan growth model and the time‐trend included in the aggregate production function, this study applies the multivariate cointegration approach to re‐investigate the long‐run and causal relationships between defence expenditures and GDP while controlling for capital and labour input in Taiwan during the 1955–2002 period. It examines the long‐run causal relationship using the weak exogeneity test and utilizes general impulse response functions to determine whether a shock to defence expenditures affects economic growth or vice versa. Our findings provide substantive evidence in favour of the existence of a long‐run equilibrium cointegrated relationship between defence expenditures, GDP, labour and capital stock. The results of the weak exogeneity test indicate that a bi‐directional causal relationship exists in the long‐run between defence expenditures and GDP. Thus, the main policy implication that emerges from the long‐run results is that increasing defence expenditures in Taiwan is an effective means to boost overall economic performance and, with this improved economy, it should then be able to increase its defence expenditures further. Lastly, from our dynamic vector error correction model estimations, it is found that defence expenditures are a major means of adjusting for disequilibria that occur within the system.     

利用Unity3D引擎实现某飞行器攻防对抗仿真

为了实现某飞行器攻防对抗的可视化仿真，利用可视化模型数据库构建技术，构建了全尺寸、高沉浸感、多视角的可视化仿真环境。利用Unity3D引擎的脚本技术，实现了导弹尾焰、大气云层、爆炸冲击波、视点跟随等特效与功能。该平台使用C＃和Unity3D引擎进行开发，实现了攻防双方参数设置、计算数据和图表输出、仿真画面输出等功能，并能在多次仿真后，对不同的参数进行统计分析。该平台具有较好的扩展性，能够逼真再现飞行器的攻防对抗过程。结果表明，对于需要不断修正数学模型以逼近真实的攻防对抗过程，每次修正都能立即通过可视化平台查看、验证模型修改对攻防对抗过程带来的影响，对飞行器的设计、作战使用具有一定的参考价值。     

部队心理教育工作面临的问题

通过分析当前部队心理教育工作面临的突出问题 ,提出了改进和加强心理教育工作的基本思路。     

ANALYSING DEFENCE DEPENDENCY: THE IMPACT OF THE ROYAL NAVY ON A SUB‐REGIONAL ECONOMY

This paper provides a methodology for estimating the economic impact of defence spending at a sub‐regional level. It does so by calculating the income and employment generated by Britain’s Royal Navy and associated defence activities in the City of Portsmouth and its surrounding area, during the financial year 2003–2004. In an era of military consolidation, the paper offers an insight into the multifaceted impact of defence‐related expenditure. Hence, it presents a generic framework that could prove useful to other researchers when seeking to measure the sub‐regional impact of naval, airforce and army facilities in other national contexts.     

Small countries and the consolidation of the European defence industry: Portugal as a case study

In this paper, we analyse the dilemma confronted by a small country in relation to the consolidation taking place in the European defence industry. Assuming that Portugal must maintain its armed forces, and must retain a minor defence industry, this industry must be competitive in small niches. Competitiveness must be based on, amongst other elements, technical efficiency and technological change. We investigate this issue, first characterizing the threats faced by the Portuguese defence industry, then investigating its present efficiency and finally, we discuss its role in the consolidation of the European Industry. We conclude that the Portuguese defence industry has no alternative but to opt for innovation and European partnership, which are complementary policies, but which require the active involvement of the stakeholder (i.e. the Government) in effecting these fundamental shifts in direction and emphasis. If this strategy does not succeed, the defence policy should be based on offsets.