On the inspection game

The Inspection Game is a multistage game between a customs inspector and a smuggler, first studied by Melvin Dresher and Michael Maschler in the 1960s. An extension allowing the smuggler to act more than once, treated by Sakaguchi in a special case, is solved. Also, a more natural version of Sakaguchi's problem is solved in the special case where the smuggler may act at each stage. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 45: 327–334, 1998     

Weak order stability under risk

The assessment of a Bernoulli utility function is often accomplished by an approximation process which makes use of ever more information on the preference as it is elicited from a decision maker. Simultaneous approximations of the utility function and the underlying distributions are generally not sufficient for the expectations to converge to the expected value of the respective limits. We give various sufficient stability conditions for the expected utility. All these conditions contain some “uniformness”. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Cyber War Will Not Take Place

A large collection of captured documents from the very highest levels of the Iraqi government offers a chance to gain insight into why Saddam Hussein was unwilling and unable to alter his strategy on the eve of the 2003 war that toppled his regime. This paper explores some of the perceptions and misperceptions that Saddam Hussein took away from the 1991 Gulf War and shows how they affected his decisionmaking on the eve of the war in 2003. It concludes with some thoughts on the policy implications of these findings.     

The Meaning of the Nuclear Evolution: China's Strategic Modernization and US-China Security Relations

Abstract

Will China's development of a new generation of nuclear weapons impact US-China security relations in important ways? One's answer depends on how one views the following: whether or not Chinese leaders believe that they are only now acquiring a secure second strike capability; the scope of coercive power that secure second strike capability provides to conventionally inferior actors; the meaning of China's ‘No First Use’ Doctrine; and the prospects for escalation control in future crises. Applying Cold War theories and tapping Chinese doctrinal writings this article concludes that China's nuclear modernization program might prove more consequential than is commonly believed.     

More Attacks,Less Violence

A response to John Stone, Dale Peterson, and Gary McGraw on cyber war.     

Analyzing Taliban taranas (chants): an effective Afghan propaganda artifact

This article describes and analyzes a little understood Afghan Taliban propaganda tool: chants or taranas . These melodic refrains effectively use historical narratives, symbology, and iconic portraits. The chants are engendered in emotions of sorrow, pride, desperation, hope, and complaints to mobilize and convince the Afghan population of the Taliban's worldview. The chants represent culturally relevant and simple messages that are communicated in a narrative and poetic form that is familiar to and resonates with the local people. They are virtually impossible for the United States and NATO to counter because of Western sensitivities concerning religious themes that dominate the Taliban narrative space, not to mention the lack of Western linguistic capabilities, including the understanding and mastering the poetic nature of local dialects.