‘A fly in outer space’: Soviet ballistic missile defence during the Khrushchev period

Although the Soviet missile defence effort was begun to protect the USSR from attack by nuclear missiles, Khrushchev was quick to see its political value, and used the prospect of an anti‐ballistic missile system to emphasize Soviet technological superiority. Within the Soviet armed forces there was widespread consensus about the importance of ABM's damage‐limiting role. The debates about strategy for future war in Soviet military publications demonstrate that support in the armed forces for an ABM capability transcended service loyalties and remained remarkably strong even after 1962, when technical problems and an effort to improve relations with the US following the Cuban Missile Crisis meant that the missile defence project no longer enjoyed the public backing of senior Party and military figures.     

Inspection games with local and global allocation bounds

This article discusses a two‐player noncooperative nonzero‐sum inspection game. There are multiple sites that are subject to potential inspection by the first player (an inspector). The second player (potentially a violator) has to choose a vector of violation probabilities over the sites, so that the sum of these probabilities do not exceed one. An efficient method is introduced to compute all Nash equilibria parametrically in the amount of resource that is available to the inspector. Sensitivity analysis reveals nonmonotonicity of the equilibrium utility of the inspector, considered as a function of the amount of resource that is available to it; a phenomenon which is a variant of the well‐known Braess paradox. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2013     

Security in the Americas: Neither Evolution nor Devolution – Impasse

This article begins with a discussion of sovereignty and goes on to discuss the idea of national security threats with reference to two different levels of analysis. First, the traditional-legal versus a more realistic contemporary level of analysis. Second, the operational, strategic, and political levels of analysis. The traditional concept tends to focus attention on the tactical-operational levels of activity, and the more contemporary notion broadens analysis to more strategic-political concerns. The article concludes with the argument that a broadened concept of threat to national security and sovereignty is meaningful and important. This is particularly important for those governments in the Western Hemisphere – and elsewhere – that do not discern any serious security issues, or proverbial clouds, on their peaceful horizons. Ample evidence indicates that non-traditional security problems can lead nation-states to failing or failed state status. That is to say, as examples, dysfunctional states, criminal states, narco-states, rogue states, and new ‘people's democracies'.     

Book reviews

Norman Cigar, Genocide in Bosnia: The Policy of “Ethnic Cleansing”. College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 1995. Pp.xiv + 247; app., map, notes, cartoon.

Maria Jose Moyano, Argentina's Lost Patrol: Armed Struggle, 1969–1979. New Haven: Connecticut Yale University Press, 1995. Pp.xiii + 226, biblio., abbreviations, 10 figures, 1 map, tables, index; $25/£16.95. ISBN 0–300–01622–6.

Donald E. Schulz and Deborah Sundloff Schulz, The United States, Honduras, and the Crisis in Central America, Westview Thematic Studies in Latin America, Boulder, Co: Westview, 1994. Pp.368, map, figure, select biblio., abbreviations, index. $52.50/£37.50; (cloth) $17.95/£11.95 (paper). ISBN 0–8133–1324–4 and 1323–6.

Joseph H. Alexander and Merrill L. Bartlett, Sea Soldiers in the Cold War: Amphibious Warfare 1945–1991. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1995. Pp.iii + 178, 1 map, 29 illus, biblio, index. $32.95. ISBN

Gary P. Cox, The Halt in the Mud: French Strategic Planning from Waterloo to Sedan. Westview Press, 1994. Pp.258, maps, notes, biblio, index. £33.50. ISBN 0–133–1536–0.     

Ho Chi Minh and the origins of the Vietnamese doctrine of guerrilla tactics

In a very important sense, the Vietnamese military history of the communist era began in 1941, when Ho Chi Minh prepared ‘Guerrilla Tactics’ (Cach Danh Du Kich).1 ?1. Ministry of Defense Center for the Military Encyclopedia Ministry of Defense Center for the Military Encyclopedia. 1996. Tu Dien Bach Hoa Quan Su Vietnam, Hanoi: People's Army Publishing Company.  [Google Scholar], Tu Dien Bach Hoa Quan Su Vietnam, 69. The publication of this essay, which was a manual on the tactics, techniques, and procedures of guerrilla warfare, preceded the founding of the first armed propaganda unit (Tuyen Truyen Doi Vo Trang) on 22 December 1944, which later became the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN, Quan Doi Nhan Dan); as well as the revolutionary writings of Truong Chinh (1946–1947) and Vo Nguyen Giap (1959). The fact that ‘Tactics’ was published by the Viet Minh reinforces the claim made by the PAVN that it was the first authoritative Vietnamese writing on this important subject.     

Inventory models with nonlinear shortage costs and stochastic lead times; applications of shape properties of randomly stopped counting processes

In this article, we study generalizations of some of the inventory models with nonlinear costs considered by Rosling in (Oper. Res. 50 (2002) 797–809). In particular, we extend the study of both the periodic review and the compound renewal demand processes from a constant lead time to a random lead time. We find that the quasiconvexity properties of the cost function (and therefore the existence of optimal (s, S) policies), holds true when the lead time has suitable log‐concavity properties. The results are derived by structural properties of renewal delayed processes stopped at an independent random time and by the study of log‐concavity properties of compound distributions. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 62: 345–356, 2015     

Civil Wars and Contemporary State Building: Rebellion,Conflict Duration,and Lootable Resources

Regardless of the outcome, civil wars are destructive events. They not only devastate the physical and human capital of a society, but also have a direct effect on state capacity. The capacity of the state is critical as it attempts to rebuild society and minimize the risk of a new civil conflict; yet, it is still not clear how civil war precisely affects state capacity. In general, we argue that incumbent victors are more likely to end with a stronger state when the conflict is short and the victory is decisive. In contrast, rebel victors require more time to build their internal capacity and thus have stronger states after a longer conflict, especially when they had access to lootable resources.     

Progress payments and cost overruns in defence contracts

In recent years military procurement agencies have used “progress payments” in contracting. Although, overall, the adoption of such a policy may well have contributed to a decrease in total costs of procurement, we identify a class of inefficiencies that are likely to have been generated by it.     

An alliance between Cyprus and Greece: assessing its partners’ relative security contribution

The issue that this paper tackles is the assessment of the relative security benefits that Cyprus and Greece derive in the context of their cooperation on defence matters. This form of cooperation, known as the ‘Integrated Defence Space Doctrine’, aims at defending their interests in the Aegean Sea and the broader East Mediterranean theatre. The paper relies heavily on earlier research on this topic, which deals with the Greek–Cypriot alliance facing an arms race against Turkey, and uses a coefficient especially designed to assess the optimal levels of security and the associated defence expenditure of the two allies. A comparison of the relative security coefficient values for the two allies suggests that the security benefit that Greece derives thanks to its alliance with Cyprus exceeds the corresponding Cypriot benefit by far. Given the importance assigned to human resources by this index, in conjunction with the demographic problems of Greece, this conclusion justifies the recent Greek defence policy revision, emphasizing quality, capital equipment and flexibility of forces. This revision aims at satisfying the security requirements of the alliance and the increasing demands of an arms race against Turkey.