THE EFFECTS ON SOUTH ASIA OF DEEP US NUCLEAR REDUCTIONS

Significant nuclear reductions by the United States can affect other states in one of five ways: by directly altering their strategic calculations and postures; by indirectly altering their strategic calculations and postures by affecting the behavior of third-party states; by undermining formal US deterrence commitments; by eroding the United States's perceived ability to provide “informal” deterrence through the maintenance of an active global presence; and by creating normative pressure for states to emulate US nuclear reductions. Only the erosion of “informal” deterrence is likely to affect South Asia; to the extent that significant US nuclear reductions affect South Asia, then, their impact is likely to be destabilizing.     

Aligning national “logics” in a European military helicopter program

This article analyzes the public side of the NH90 network consisting of four participating countries (Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands) and their industrial partners. Comparable to observations in earlier international projects in the defense sector, the development and production of the NH90 defense helicopter did not match original plans and costs estimates. On the basis of four mechanisms that were intended to facilitate the cooperation between the partnering countries (the General Memorandum of Understanding; coalition formation; the role of the central agency; and the process of vertical escalation) the question is posed whether or not there was a true alignment of national interests and “logics.” The lack of standardization, as well as program delays and issues concerning the division of the work-share, lead to the emerging alignment being characterized as “quasi-alignment” at best.     

The next step in Somalia: exploiting victory,post-Mogadishu

From 2006 to 2011, al-Qaeda's East African proxy, al-Shabaab, served as the de facto ruling party of Somalia despite the efforts of the internationally recognised Transitional Federal Government (TFG). During these five years, a violent struggle between al-Shabaab and the peacekeeping force of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) resulted in thousands of dead civilians, hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons and a strategic environment inhospitable to reconciliation, recovery or development. By 2012, AMISOM was able to break the deadlock and force al-Shabaab from Mogadishu and Kismayo. In order to continue the momentum, the African Union and other partner nations must support the TFG in neutralising al-Shabaab throughout Somalia and providing good governance to its constituents. Al-Shabaab's revenue streams must be shut down and its offensive capability must be degraded while the strategic environment is shaped to ensure that conditions conducive to a revival do not exist. Failure to do so will likely see Somalia continuing to produce Islamist extremists and pirates to menace international maritime traffic in the western Indian Ocean, destabilise East Africa and adversely impact millions.     

Damage accumulation and probability of kill for gun and target engagements

Determination of the gunfire probability of kill against a target requires two parameters to be taken into consideration: the likelihood of hitting the target (susceptibility) and the conditional probability of kill given a hit (vulnerability). Two commonly used methods for calculating the latter probability are (1) treating each hit upon the target independently, and (2) setting an exact number of hits to obtain a target kill. Each of these methods contains an implicit assumption about the probability distribution of the number of hits‐to‐kill. Method (1) assumes that the most likely kill scenario occurs with exactly one hit, whereas (2) implies that achieving a precise number of hits always results in a kill. These methods can produce significant differences in the predicted gun effectiveness, even if the mean number of hits‐to‐kill for each distribution is the same. We therefore introduce a new modeling approach with a more general distribution for the number of hits‐to‐kill. The approach is configurable to various classes of damage mechanism and is able to match both methods (1) and (2) with a suitable choice of parameter. We use this new approach to explore the influence of various damage accumulation models on the predicted effectiveness of weapon‐target engagements.     

Changing the paradigm: Simulation,now a method of first resort

Decades ago, simulation was famously characterized as a “method of last resort,” to which analysts should turn only “when all else fails.” In those intervening decades, the technologies supporting simulation—computing hardware, simulation‐modeling paradigms, simulation software, design‐and‐analysis methods—have all advanced dramatically. We offer an updated view that simulation is now a very appealing option for modeling and analysis. When applied properly, simulation can provide fully as much insight, with as much precision as desired, as can exact analytical methods that are based on more restrictive assumptions. The fundamental advantage of simulation is that it can tolerate far less restrictive modeling assumptions, leading to an underlying model that is more reflective of reality and thus more valid, leading to better decisions. Published 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 62: 293–303, 2015     

Book Reviews

Strategic Geography. By Hugh Faringdon. Routledge, London (1989), ISBN 0-415-00980-4, £40.00

Field Artillery and Firepower. By J. B. A. Bailey. The Military Press, Oxford (1989), ISBN 0-85066-810-7, £25.00 (hardback), ISBN 0-85066-811-5, £14.50 (paperback)

U.S.-Soviet Security Cooperation. Edited by Alexander L. George, Philip J. Farley and Alexander Dallin. Oxford University Press, New York (1988), ISBN 0-19-505397-4, £30.00 (hardback), $19.95 (paperback)

Non-production by Industry of Chemical-warfare Agents: Technical Verification under a Chemical Weapons Convention. Edited by S. J. Lundin. SIPRI/Oxford University Press, Oxford (1988), ISBN 0-19-829129-9, £19.50

Ireland's Terrorist Trauma: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Edited by Alan O'Day and Yonah Alexander. Harvester Wheatsheaf, Hemel Hempstead (1989), ISBN 7450-049003, £27.50 ($48.65)

Pilots and Rebels: the Use of Aircraft in Unconventional Warfare 1918-1988. By P. A. Towle. Brassey's (UK), London (1989), ISBN 0-08-036712-7, £29.95 ($53.95)     

Book reviews

Encyclopaedia of Modern Air Force Squadrons. By Chris Ashworth. Patrick Stephens, London (1989), ISBN 1-8526-013-6, £19.95

The Future of Sea Power. By Eric Grove. Routledge, London (1990), ISBN 0-415-00482-9, £35.00

Soviet Strategic Interests in the North. By Kirsten Amundsen. Pinter, London (1990), ISBN 0-86187-018-2, £30.00

Soviet Seapower in Northern Waters. Edited by John Skogan and Arne Brundtland. Pinter, London (1990), ISBN 0-86187-038-7, £35.00

Glasnost, Perestroika, and U.S. Defense Spending. By William W. Kaufmann, Brookings Institution, Washington, DC (1990), ISBN 0-8157-4881-7, $8.95

The Educating of Armies. Edited by Michael D. Stephens. Macmillan, London (1989), ISBN 0-333-43447-1, £35.00     

Minimizing costs of sequential and parallel personnel testing programs

We consider groups of tests for personnel selection purposes in which each test has a known a priori probability of being failed, such failure resulting in outright rejection and termination of testing. Each test has a fixed cost and given duration. We consider the minimization of the total expected cost due to both the fixed costs and the delay costs when the tests may be conducted sequentially or in parallel. In the latter situation, a heuristic algorithm is proposed and illustrated.