Book review

Russian strategic nuclear forces, edited by Pavel Podvig (MIT Press, 2001)     

Orde Wingate, ‘Guerrilla’ Warfare and Long-range Penetration, 1940–44

Major General Orde Wingate was a highly controversial figure in his time and remains so among historians. However, his eccentric and colourful personality has drawn attention away from the nature of his military ideas, the most important of which was his concept of long-range penetration, which originated from his observations of his operations in Italian-occupied Ethiopia in 1941, and evolved into the model he put into practice in the Chindit operations in Burma in 1943–44. A review of Wingate's own official writings on this subject reveals that long-range penetration combined local guerrilla irregulars, purpose-trained regular troops and airpower into large-scale offensive operations deep in the enemy rear, with the intention of disrupting his planning process and creating situations regular forces could exploit. This evolved organically from Major General Colin Gubbins' doctrine for guerrilla resistance in enemy occupied areas, and bears some resemblance to the operational model applied by US and Allied forces, post September 2001.     

Many‐player rendezvous search: Stick together or split and meet?

Rendezvous search finds the strategies that players should use in order to find one another when they are separated in a region. Previous papers have concentrated on the case where there are two players searching for one another. This paper looks at the problem when there are more than two players and concentrates on what they should do if some but not all of them meet together. It looks at two strategies—the stick together one and the split up and meet again one. This paper shows that the former is optimal among the class of strategies which require no memory and are stationary, and it gives a method of calculating the expected rendezvous time under it. However, simulation results comparing both strategies suggest that in most situations the split up and meet again strategy which requires some memory leads to faster expected rendezvous times. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 48:710–721, 2001     

Iraq, 2003–2011: succeeding to fail

ABSTRACT

This study examines the US experience during the Iraq war, from the planning phase that began in 2001 to the withdrawal of US forces in 2011. It reveals a dearth of planning and intelligence leading up to the invasion; reluctance by conventional coalition military forces to conduct reconstruction, political and security capacity-building; and, later, full spectrum counterinsurgency operations. These forces took on some missions traditionally reserved for special operations forces, and they increasingly assumed diplomatic roles as they interfaced with the Iraqi leadership and local kingpins. Although these efforts yielded some impressive organizational learning and limited operational successes, they were hampered by lack of adequate preparation, a poor understanding of the human terrain, shortsighted strategies, and ultimately a dearth of political will to stay the course. The outcome was far from the model Middle East democracy envisioned by the invasion’s architects, and the American experience in Iraq instead became a cautionary tale for military intervention.     

A sequential attribute sampling inspection game for item facilities

The routine inspection of facilities storing large numbers of identical items is modeled as a two‐person, sequential game. Timely detection of illegal activity is parameterized in terms of a critical time to detection, and equilibria are derived which provide inspection strategies. Necessary conditions for deterrence of illegal behavior are discussed. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 48: 496–505, 2001     

Analysis of a new vehicle scheduling and location problem

We consider a container terminal discharging containers from a ship and locating them in the terminal yard. Each container has a number of potential locations in the yard where it can be stored. Containers are moved from the ship to the yard using a fleet of vehicles, each of which can carry one container at a time. The problem is to assign each container to a yard location and dispatch vehicles to the containers so as to minimize the time it takes to download all the containers from the ship. We show that the problem is NP‐hard and develop a heuristic algorithm based on formulating the problem as an assignment problem. The effectiveness of the heuristic is analyzed from both worst‐case and computational points of view. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 48: 363–385, 2001     

Special Section: Nuclear Stability In South Asia

The question of nuclear stability in South Asia is a subject of both academic and policy significance. It is the only region in the world that has three, contiguous nuclear-armed states: India, the People's Republic of China, and Pakistan. It is also freighted with unresolved border disputes. To compound matters, all three states are now modernizing their nuclear forces and have expressed scant interest in any form of regional arms control. These issues and developments constitute the basis of this special section, which explores the problems and prospects of nuclear crisis stability in the region.     

洛杉矶警察局反恐策略及对我国公安反恐工作的启示

洛杉矶警察局在9.11事件之后,不断积累预防和打击恐怖主义的经验,提高自身反恐能力,并在实际的预防打击恐怖主义斗争中做出了重要贡献。恐怖主义是全世界的敌人。针对中国的恐怖主义威胁现状,我国公安机关作为预防和打击恐怖主义的重要力量,要研究和借鉴他们好的经验,坚决打击国内恐怖主义的发展势头,以维护中国的安全稳定。     

South Africa's threat environment: a guide for the National Planning Commission

Abstract

The mandate of South Africa's recently appointed National Planning Commission includes addressing ‘defence and security matters’. This article seeks to outline the central elements of the threat environment facing South Africa in the foreseeable future. It is argued that South Africa faces no meaningful existential threat from conventional military forces but that its security forces will need to be prepared to address possible raids and attacks by conventional military forces both on home soil and on vital interests beyond the nation's borders. Other threats highlighted include the threats posed by potential insurgencies, by terrorism, and by crime, social unrest and banditry. Also addressed is the danger of so-called hybrid threats, in which two or more of the single threat types outlined here are combined. Finally, the article challenges the National Planning Commission to rethink South Africa's policy on peace operations in the light of the need to ensure the safety and security of the nation's citizenry.     

The multivariate Polya distribution in combat modeling

This paper investigates the multivariate Polya distribution (MPD) for application in combat models for which enemy targets must be randomly assigned to fighting units. Six sets of actual combat data motivate the allocation model. Scenarios include air‐to‐air combat, tank, and submarine warfare. Goodness of fit tests are derived which verify the validity of the MPD, and reinforce the notion that multinomial allocation is too simplistic for such combat models. Simulations to determine optimal allocations for minimal combat cost are applied in order to illustrate the role of the MPD in combat modeling. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons,Inc. Naval Research Logistics 48: 1–17, 2001     

Reserve forces and the transformation of British military organisation: soldiers,citizens and society

In recent years, there has been a sharp growth in political and sociological interest in the British military. Set against the backdrop of the armed forces’ increasing presence in everyday life, alongside the organizations’ ongoing restructuring, the current paper focuses on the MoD’s problematic attempts to recruit 30,000 reservists by 2020; what has become known as the Future Reserves 2020 programme (FR2020). We argue that these changes are driven in part by the need to cut costs in defence. However, we also suggest that they are a reflection of the changing nature of modern military organisation, and the manner in which armed forces engage with the societies of which they are a part, and with the citizens that make up that society. We locate FR2020 programme in the context of a wider narrative about the changing nature of military organisation in contemporary western democracies, identifying structural, circumstantial and normative reasons for change. We also examine the specific challenges of implementing FR2020 in practice, including issues of recruitment and retention, integration and support, and relations with families and employers, drawing on the experience of comparator countries to do so. We conclude by considering the implications of these changes, both for the future of UK armed forces, and for the evolving nature of military-society relations in Britain.     

纯引力轨道验证质量辐射计效应与气体阻尼耦合模型的数值分析

辐射计效应和气体阻尼是纯引力轨道验证质量的重要干扰力,是影响纯引力轨道构造水平的重要因素.在纯引力轨道飞行器中,这两种力分别描述了由腔体中温度梯度和验证质量相对运动引起的气体分子作用,两者从不同角度描述了气体分子作用力,均是气体分子作用力的一部分,而两者的耦合模型则可以反映验证质量受到的气体分子作用力总和.针对耦合模型形式复杂的特点,本文以内编队系统为例,利用数值方法分析了耦合模型中的影响因素,这些因素包括内卫星相对运动速度、内卫星半径、外卫星腔体半径、腔体平均温度、腔体温差和腔体平均压力等.对大量计算结果进行了数据拟合,给出了内卫星气体分子作用力与各物理参数关系的拟合公式,和原始计算结果相比,拟合误差在20％以内.     

On‐line algorithms for minimizing makespan on batch processing machines

We consider problem of scheduling jobs on‐line on batch processing machines with dynamic job arrivals to minimize makespan. A batch machine can handle up to B jobs simultaneously. The jobs that are processed together from a batch, and all jobs in a batch start and complete at the same time. The processing time of a batch is given by the longest processing time of any job in the batch. Each job becomes available at its arrival time, which is unknown in advance, and its processing time becomes known upon its arrival. In the first part of this paper, we address the single batch processing machine scheduling problem. First we deal with two variants: the unbounded model where B is sufficiently large and the bounded model where jobs have two distinct arrival times. For both variants, we provide on‐line algorithms with worst‐case ratio (the inverse of the Golden ratio) and prove that these results are the best possible. Furthermore, we generalize our algorithms to the general case and show a worst‐case ratio of 2. We then consider the unbounded case for parallel batch processing machine scheduling. Lower bound are given, and two on‐line algorithms are presented. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 48: 241–258, 2001     

Rendezvous search when marks are left at the starting points

Leaving marks at the starting points in a rendezvous search problem may provide the players with important information. Many of the standard rendezvous search problems are investigated under this new framework which we call markstart rendezvous search. Somewhat surprisingly, the relative difficulties of analysing problems in the two scenarios differ from problem to problem. Symmetric rendezvous on the line seems to be more tractable in the new setting whereas asymmetric rendezvous on the line when the initial distance is chosen by means of a convex distribution appears easier to analyse in the original setting. Results are also obtained for markstart rendezvous on complete graphs and on the line when the players' initial distance is given by an unknown probability distribution. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 48: 722–731, 2001     

Variables inspection for SPC‐quarantined production

When a control chart signals an out‐of‐control condition for a production process, it may be desirable to “quarantine” all units produced since the last in‐control SPC sample. This paper presents an efficient procedure for variables inspection of such “SPC quarantined” product. A Bayesian sequential inspection procedure is developed which determines whether the out of control production is of acceptable quality. By inspecting the units in reverse of the order in which they were produced, the procedure is also capable of detecting the point at which the process went out of control, thus eliminating the need to inspect units produced prior to the onset of the out of control condition. Numerical examples are presented, and the performance characteristics of the procedure are demonstrated using Monte Carlo simulation. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 48: 159–171, 2001     

Patterns in spatial point locations: Local indicators of spatial association in a minefield with clutter

The problem of detecting a minefield in the presence of clutter can be abstracted to that of detecting a spatial pattern within a set of point locations. The point locations are superpositions of several patterns, one of which corresponds to mines. In contrast to previous articles that take a formal, model‐based approach, this article proposes a statistical methodology that is distinctly exploratory. Each point location is considered separately, and its contributions to a global measure of spatial distances between locations are featured. Different patterns and unusual points can be more easily identified on the new scale. Both minefield data and simulated point patterns demonstrate the power of the method. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Naval Research Logistics 48:333–347, 2001     

Institutional Analysis and Irregular Warfare: A Case Study of the French Army in Algeria 1954–1960

This article proposes a case study to illustrate the usefulness of sociological institutional analysis as a method to uncover ‘blue force’ challenges to deal with irregular warfare. The French Army's adaptation to revolutionary warfare in Algeria, starting in 1954, is used to illustrate both the application of the methodology and how institutional forces can hinder as well as overwhelm transformation for irregular warfare. The analysis emphasizes three key dimensions of the French Army's institutional adaptation: the regulative, normative and cognitive. These empirical elements are used to show how they interacted and influenced the institutional implementation of the French COIN structures.     

Minimizing makespan on a single batch processing machine with nonidentical job sizes

We deal with the problem of minimizing makespan on a single batch processing machine. In this problem, each job has both processing time and size (capacity requirement). The batch processing machine can process a number of jobs simultaneously as long as the total size of these jobs being processed does not exceed the machine capacity. The processing time of a batch is just the processing time of the longest job in the batch. An approximation algorithm with worst‐case ratio 3/2 is given for the version where the processing times of large jobs (with sizes greater than 1/2) are not less than those of small jobs (with sizes not greater than 1/2). This result is the best possible unless P = NP. For the general case, we propose an approximation algorithm with worst‐case ratio 7/4. A number of heuristics by Uzosy are also analyzed and compared. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 48: 226–240, 2001     

Defence industry in Iran – between needs and real capabilities

ABSTRACT

The paper’s goal is to analyses the potential of the Iranian defence industry, including both research-and-development and production capabilities. It is argued that, despite official statements about the great power and sophistication of the Iranian defence industry, in reality its capabilities are very limited and cannot meet the operational needs of the Iranian armed forces. At the same time, it is argued that many official releases, which are abundantly available in the Iranian press and often unthinkingly repeated by the Western media, do not present the real and value of military products, but are rather a tool for deception and propaganda.     

武装警察理论研究

中国人民武装警察部队是我国重要的武装力量和社会治安维护力量 ,是我国警察体系中的第二大警种。但是 ,在我国目前的各种警察理论研究中对武警部队研究的很少。这种状况不适应武警部队建设和发展的需要 ,迫切需要建立武装警察理论。武装警察理论是警察学理论体系的分支 ,是由武装警察职能职责研究、管理体制研究、比较研究、警种设置理论等几部分组成的有机整体。武装警察理论的建立必将对我国的武装警察建设产生极大的促进作用。