Dying to prove a point: The methodology of Dying to Win

Dying to Win is one of the most important works on suicide terrorism. It purports to unravel the strategic, social, and individual logic that gives suicide terrorism its coercive value. The methodology that Pape uses to support his various assertions is problematic for three reasons. First, he defines his key terms in such a way as to artificially set suicide terrorism apart from other forms of political violence. Second, in a number of cases Pape selects data from single sources to support particular assertions when other sources of data, used together, could provide more rigorous and useful insights into the phenomenon of suicide bombing. Finally, Pape codes his data on suicide attacks according to a loose set of criteria which, if recoded, calls into question some of his broader conclusions about the strategic utility of suicide terrorism campaigns.     

某型轰炸设备虚拟训练系统设计与实现

虚拟训练系统在场地、费效比、训练效果等方面具有明显的优势。设计了某型机载轰炸设备的虚拟训练系统,阐明了系统实现的关键技术,并实现了该系统。系统在对航空炸弹弹道模型进行解算的基础上,通过对座舱环境、轰炸设备和轰炸视景进行模拟和仿真,能够提供逼真的人机交互界面,从而达到帮助受训人员掌握轰炸程序,提高轰炸设备使用能力的目的。     

The ballot or the bomb belt: the roots of female suicide terrorism before and after 9/11

ABSTRACT

In recent years, an upward trend in terrorist attacks has mirrored an increase in suicide attacks. According to our preliminary analysis, the events of September 11^th marked a sea change in the number of terrorist attacks. While a rich literature has evaluated why terrorists participate in suicide attacks, none have considered the uptick in volume after 9/11, and fewer yet have considered how female fighters may be contributing to this. We evaluate how both structural and female-specific factors affect the likelihood of female fighter suicide attacks. Recent literature discovered a trend in terrorist groups using females as suicide bombers due to cultural norms that permit them to get closer to targets. We test our theory using data from the Chicago Project on Security and Threats Suicide Attack Database (CPOST-SAD) and various datasets from the Quality of Government (QOG) compendium for the 1986–2016 time period. We construct a series of models that consider both female-specific and structural factors that could explain variation in the number of female suicide attacks. Our results indicate that our models encompass relatively stable patterns. Female political empowerment, female educational attainment, and female employment rates are significant and positive in our post-9/11 models, indicating that they may increase female suicide attacks. Democracy is a relevant structural factor and generally yields a positive effect on female suicide attacks across both time periods and multiple models. Ethnic fractionalization is significant in both time periods but yields a negative effect before 9/11 and a positive effect in the later period.     

某型飞机采用DCCIP方式投放炸弹的精度分析

分析了影响DCCIP攻击方式轰炸精度的各种误差源,针对某型飞机平显火控系统的不同组合方式,建立了相应的精度分析数学模型,采用定型试飞数据,仿真计算了各种组合方式下的水平DCCIP轰炸精度.仿真计算结果与定型靶试数据吻合,在某型飞机平显火控系统的靶试的定型中得到了实际应用.     

非标准气象条件弹道自动修正的研究

针对某强击机瞄准具轰炸性能改进装置,介绍非标准气象条件下弹道修正原理工作式的建立、修正电路的设计及其与瞄准具的交联关系     

编队飞机突击单个目标的像素法仿真分析

针对编队飞机对单个目标突击的问题,提出仿真求解其突击能力的思路。求解过程中以蒙特卡洛法为基础,利用计算机像素知识,设计了像素扫描模拟编队飞机对目标投弹问题的算法。算法中建立了目标被弹坐标系,推导了投弹坐标产生公式。通过像素点来模拟弹着点和对搜索区有效像素的统计,得出与实际投弹对应的轰炸结果。由于此方法以真实目标的缩小图为研究对象,并由计算机对像素细致搜索,所以结果精确可信,对我防空部队分析敌方可能采取的突击方案有一定的参考作用。     

航空兵封锁敌机场的模拟

描述了航空兵在想定条件下封锁的过程,分析了机场跑道等目标特点,在此基础上构建了航空兵封锁机场的仿真模型,对突破敌方防空拦截编队、地面防空兵力的模拟和轰炸目标的过程进行了模拟,最后对封锁机场的效果进行了统计。     

Inter- and Intra-Service Rivalries in the Battle of the Atlantic

This article considers disputes the Royal Navy and Coastal Command had with Bomber Command, the Air Staff and supporters of strategic bombing over what was the ‘proper’ use of air power. The disputes centred on the provision of air support for the anti-submarine campaign in the Battle of the Atlantic. This article will argue that the balance was too much in favour of strategic bombing at the expense of the security of the Atlantic convoys, but that when corporate culture and grand strategy are considered, the reasoning behind such an imbalance becomes easier to comprehend.     

通信时延对无人作战飞机NWL轰炸精度影响研究

无人作战飞机具有飞行器与指挥平台"空地分离"的技术特征,源自飞行员的战术决策指令须通过战术数据链传输给飞机,该特性在空地轰炸模式下将对系统作战效能产生一定的影响。建立了面向无人作战飞机的空地一体化机翼非水平(NWL,Non-Wing-Level)轰炸仿真模型,通过Monte-Carlo仿真表明脱靶量与数据链时延之间存在线性关系,采用Kalman滤波可以克服时延对脱靶量的影响,并提高命中精度。     

减速伞拉直过程理论分析与模拟计算

减速伞拉直时间是描述低空低阻伞弹道特重要要参量.掌握拉直时间的变化规律对编制高精度的投弹表,提高投弹精度有重要指导意义.通过建立减速伞拉直过程的数学模型,利用计算机编程模拟计算,分析了拉直时间随投弹高度和飞机航速的变化规律。     

The objectified female body and the Boko Haram insurgency in northeast Nigeria: Insights from IDP camps in Abuja

ABSTRACT

Scholars have written extensively on the multiple roles and functions of female bodies. Their depictions in areas such as reproduction, sex, oppression and empowerment, peace and protest, weakness and strength, among others, have been examined through the ages. In addition, the objectification of female bodies in terms of rape, mutilation, forced pregnancy, physical assaults and forced labour within the domestic sphere and the society at large have been articulated. One notable gap in the literature in this regard has to do with a focus on the emerging trends in which armed groups are exploitatively engaging female bodies in their activities. This study, therefore, relies on interviews with Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) in Durumi and Lugbe camps, Abuja, two officials of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) working with displaced persons in the selected camps, development partners, documents, and published sources to examine the diverse ways in which the Boko Haram group has objectified the female body (as objects of sexual gratification, procreation, propaganda and profile enhancement, care-giving and gatekeeping as well as weapons of suicide bombing) and the socio-cultural factors fuelling their actions toward females in the northeastern part of Nigeria.     

Warning of Terror: Explaining the Failure of Intelligence Against Terrorism

Many scholars and analysts have studied intelligence failure and surprise and developed theories to explain disasters such as the attack on Pearl Harbor. Others, especially since the 9/11 attacks, have examined the rising threat of terrorism and see it as posing a particularly difficult challenge for the intelligence community. But little work has been done to integrate the earlier literature on intelligence failure with the newer threat of terrorist attack. This article attempts such an integration, by examining the bombing of the US Marine Barracks in Beirut in 1983; it concludes that most studies of the Beirut bombing are mistaken in their assessment of the role played by intelligence in that disaster, and suggests that our understanding of intelligence failure against surprise attacks needs to be revised in the age of terrorism.     

减速伞拉出时间测试误差的修正

减速伞拉出时间是描述低空低阻伞弹弹道特性的重要参数之一,在研究某低空低阻伞弹投弹表编拟方法时发现,拉出时间的测试数据有较大误差,制约着其它弹道参数的正确确定和投弹表的编制精度。笔者利用实测坐标数的差分特性对实测拉出时间进行了修正,该方法有利于提高投弹表编制精度和改进拉出时间的测试手段。     

综合火控系统对地轰炸精度分析仿真

针对航空轰炸武器火控系统精度分析问题,分别建立了数值微分算法和蒙特卡洛算法模型,并开发了仿真分析软件.给出了两种模型的推导过程,以及微分步长的优化方法.利用本算法软件对某型火控系统进行精度分析仿真,并对多组典型投弹条件的仿真结果进行分析.结果表明,两种算法优势互补,能有效地对火控系统进行精度分析,对改进系统设计、提高系...     

SUICIDE TERRORISM AND THE BACKLASH EFFECT

This paper presents a game‐theoretic model of suicide terrorism containing three agents: the terrorist leader; a targeted government; and potential terrorist supporters. Supporters join the terrorist group if they gain more from their participation than from their economic opportunities. Preemptive measures by the government can result in a backlash that encourages recruitment through new grievances. Suicide attacks can also lead to recruitment. Increases in preemption costs and/or economic opportunities can reduce the overall level of terrorism, while increasing the proportion of suicide to normal attacks. An increase in the effect of preemption on recruitment, or the propaganda effect of suicide bombings has the opposite effect of increasing normal and suicide attacks, but decreasing the proportion of suicide to normal attacks in the terrorist organization’s strategy profile.     

低空水平轰炸中安全退曳距离及安全高度的估算

根据终点弹道学理论、毁伤理论和爆炸理论,在分析炸弹的爆炸规律、破片的飞行规律及破片对战斗机毁伤作用的基础上,提出了低空水平轰炸过程中安全退曳距离及安全高度的估算方法.给出了仿真实例,并对相应的仿真结果进行分析,其结果可为飞机武器系统安全投弹提供参考依据.最后,为确保战斗机的低空投弹安全提出了一些建议.     

自主式UCAV火控算法与系统设计

介绍了一种改进的CCRP轰炸瞄准原理,给出了其数学模型和瞄准原理公式,分析、说明了其瞄准原理和特点.根据自主式无人战斗机的特点、任务、要求,运用此原理,进行了系统设计,确定了火飞耦合控制律.研究和仿真结果表明:该原理正确,所述的火控算法和设计的控制律合理,为进一步开展自主式UCAV的研究和设计打下了基础.     

Operational Combat Analysis of the Al Qaeda Network

Contemporary network organizational structures have gradually developed over the last decades of the twentieth century. These new structures are challenging the traditional hierarchical structure form in a number of venues. In conflict and war, they made their potentials unequivocally known on 11 September 2001 via Al Qaeda's strategic suicide bombings against the United States. To better understand the military potentials of networks, an operational combat analysis of the Al Qaeda network was conducted. This analysis, a modification of weapons systems analysis, focused on network speed, along with offensive, defensive and combat multiplier attributes. Such analysis allows for a better understanding of the military capabilities and vulnerabilities of non-state OPFORs (opposing forces) and our own emergent counter-insurgency networks.     

A sequential partial information bomber-defender shooting problem

A bomber carrying homogenous weapons sequentially engages ground targets capable of retaliation. Upon reaching a target, the bomber may fire a weapon at it. If the target survives the direct fire, it can either return fire or choose to hold fire (play dead). If the former occurs, the bomber is immediately made aware that the target is alive. If no return fire is seen, the true status of the target is unknown to the bomber. After the current engagement, the bomber, if still alive, can either re-engage the same target or move on to the next target in the sequence. The bomber seeks to maximize the expected cumulative damage it can inflict on the targets. We solve the perfect and partial information problems, where a target always fires back and sometimes fires back respectively using stochastic dynamic programming. The perfect information scenario yields an appealing threshold based bombing policy. Indeed, the marginal future reward is the threshold at which the control policy switches and furthermore, the threshold is monotonic decreasing with the number of weapons left with the bomber and monotonic nondecreasing with the number of targets left in the mission. For the partial information scenario, we show via a counterexample that the marginal future reward is not the threshold at which the control switches. In light of the negative result, we provide an appealing threshold based heuristic instead. Finally, we address the partial information game, where the target can choose to fire back and establish the Nash equilibrium strategies for a representative two target scenario.     

Learning to Fight and Fighting to Learn: Practitioners and the Role of Unit Publications in VIII Fighter Command 1943–1944

A military cannot hope to improve in wartime if it cannot learn. Ideally, in wartime, formal learning ceases and the application of knowledge begins. But this is optimistic. In 1942, USAAF Eighth Air Force assumed it had the means necessary for victory. In reality, its technique and technology were only potentially – rather than actually – effective. What remained was to create the practice of daylight bombing – to learn. This article (1) recovers a wartime learning process that created new knowledge, (2) tests existing tacit hypotheses in military adaptation research, and (3) offers additional theoretical foundation to explain how knowledge is created in wartime