Offsets as industrial policy: Lessons from aerospace

Since 1975 “offsets” have begun to appear frequently in contracts covering international sales of aircraft and other products incorporating advanced technology. Offsets involve reciprocity beyond that normally found in an exchange of goods for money. They may involve co‐production or co‐design of the principal item to be exchanged, or acceptance by the seller of goods or services unrelated to it as partial payment (indirect offsets or countertrade).

The United States has become the major provider of offsets and anti‐offset sentiment has grown. Economists interpret them as trade diverting. Politicians from regions suffering loss of employment view them as bestowing unfair advantage to foreign competitors.

The authors examine offsets from both theoretical and policy perspectives and conclude that in such noncompetitive markets, second‐best considerations dominate, requiring case‐by‐case evaluation of impacts and rendering across‐the‐board determinations of welfare loss suspect.     

Demobilisation,disarmament and reintegration in the Democratic Republic of Congo: The numbers game

Abstract

The creation of the Africa Command (AFRICOM) has reflected the growth in the strategic importance of Africa in US foreign policy since the end of the 1990s. One of the objectives of this new geographical military command is to forge closer links between foreign, security and development policies. However, this approach met with a number of difficulties associated with the challenge of ‘inter-agency cooperation’ among rather disparate actors from foreign affairs, defence and development. In addition, the establishment of AFRICOM has met with fierce criticism in the US and elsewhere – especially in Africa – culminating in the charge that the US foreign and development policies in Africa are being militarised. Although AFRICOM has a number of interesting features, this paper shows that it has reacted to these criticisms by realigning itself more closely with the traditional model of a military command, at the expense of the innovative interagency elements.     

Is the Horn of Africa’s ‘Cold War’ over? Abiy Ahmed’s early reforms and the rapprochement between Ethiopia and Eritrea

ABSTRACT

On 9 July 2018, Ethiopia and Eritrea signed a historical agreement pledging to end their mutual animosity and work for peace. The unprecedented rapprochement was facilitated by the new leadership in Ethiopia, merging interests between the two states and external mediation. This commentary looks into Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali’s early reform initiatives and the dynamics of the rapprochement between Ethiopia and Eritrea.     

Japan's plutonium policy: Consequences for nonproliferation

ABSTRACT

What do we mean by nuclear proliferation? What does it mean to proliferate? This article investigates both the literal and figurative meaning of the term “proliferation.” It argues that many of the definitions and conceptualizations of nuclear proliferation often used by scholars are either limited in their utility or logically inconsistent. It then reconceptualizes and redefines the term, incorporating an understanding of both its etymological origins and the geopolitical context in which the phenomenon occurs. It concludes by exploring the potential impact that the politicization of the phenomenon may have on the identification of occurrences of proliferation, from both an academic and a policy-making perspective.     

Limiting behavior of the stochastic sequential assignment problem

The stochastic sequential assignment problem (SSAP) considers how to allocate available distinct workers to sequentially arriving tasks with stochastic parameters such that the expected total reward obtained from the sequential assignments is maximized. Implementing the optimal assignment policy for the SSAP involves calculating a new set of breakpoints upon the arrival of each task (i.e., for every time period), which is impractical for large‐scale problems. This article studies two problems that are concerned with obtaining stationary policies, which achieve the optimal expected reward per task as the number of tasks approaches infinity. The first problem considers independent and identically distributed (IID) tasks with a known distribution function, whereas in the second problem tasks are derived from r different unobservable distributions governed by an ergodic Markov chain. The convergence rate of the expected reward per task to the optimal value is also obtained for both problems. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2013     

特定m维修策略更新过程系统可用度模型

将武器装备系统的组成部分分为3类,通过分析得出适合装备系统的特定m维修策略,能够在保证装备较高使用可用度的同时,最大程度地缩减维修保障成本.利用更新过程某些特性,建立特定m维修策略下的使用可用度模型,简化了使用可用度的计算.     

某小型武器稳定系统的建模及仿真

针对某小型武器稳定系统稳定精度差的问题,构建了其控制系统的数学模型,通过仿真施加试验台架扰动信号,对现系统采用的传统PID控制器进行仿真计算,得到其动态稳定精度,并把得到的和定型试验稳定精度数据对应的外扰模拟信号作为改造后系统的标准扰动输入,对线性自抗扰控制器进行了比对仿真研究.仿真结果表明,系统采用线性自抗扰控制器具有响应速度快、稳定精度高、抗扰能力强的优点.这一方法得到的仿真结果和实车具有较高一致性,可以有效解决实车参数调试困难的问题.     

US warfare in Somalia and the trade-off between casualty-aversion and civilian protection

This article examines the ways in which the two normative concerns of casualty-aversion and civilian protection influenced US military strategy in the particular context of the asymmetric conflict in Somalia in the early 1990s. The article critically evaluates US military operations through the prism of international humanitarian law and examines whether American forces started prioritizing casualty-aversion over the safeguarding of Somali civilians. Finally, by drawing on emerging moral guidelines (such as Michael Walzer's idea of ‘due care’), the article examines whether lower numbers of Somali civilian deaths could have been achieved if marginal increases to the risks faced by US soldiers had been accepted.     

The Long and Winding Road: The US Army Managerial Approach to Command and the Adoption of Mission Command (Auftragstaktik)

The purpose of the current paper is to examine the adoption and adaptation process of mission command (Auftragstaktik) in the US Army. This concept, developed by the Prussians, denotes a decentralized command approach wherein superiors dictate their intent and allow subordinates to formulate their operational plans independently and change it according to the emerging situation. The paper examines the US command approach prior to the adoption of mission command. It argues that it was heavily influenced by corporate management practices which inherently contradict mission command approach. It continues and investigates how the US Army endeavored to emulate the approach in its doctrine and in major operations.

While it has officially incorporated mission command into its doctrine, it has been less successful in utilizing it in operational situations. This state of affairs has to do with the cultural legacy of the managerial approach to command that still persist. Despite the partial success, the US Army has recently reaffirmed its commitment to this approach.     

Local defence forces and counterinsurgency in Afghanistan: learning from the CIA's Village Defense Program in South Vietnam

Some scholars would have us believe that the distinctions between military and policing roles, methods and objectives have become increasingly blurred by the security demands of a post-Cold War and post-11 September global and domestic order. This article explores the current state of the police–military divide through a conceptual and case study analysis. It concludes that, in this case, there is some conflation occurring at a macro-level as international and domestic affairs have become increasingly indistinct, but the article also demonstrates that the actual ethos and practice of these agencies still differs strongly. Most importantly, the article argues that this distinction is in fact a very useful one in planning for future peace support operations