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.     

Reopen a joint school of military government and administration?

Today there are many calls for other elements of the government to do more to ‘do their part’, assist the military to restore order and stability and ‘win the peace’ in Iraq and Afghanistan, and prepare for similar roles in future conflicts. The authors here instead briefly review the history of US armed forces’ involvement in military governance operations from the Mexican War through World War II, and recommend the re-establishment of a School of Military Government similar to that created during the latter conflict.     

When the Going Gets Tough… Monitoring Missions and a Changing Conflict Environment in Sri Lanka, 2002–2008

This article analyzes how the conflict environment in which a civilian monitoring mission is deployed influences the monitors' assessment of the operation. It draws on unique empirical material from the experience of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), deployed to oversee a ceasefire agreement in Sri Lanka 2002–2008. With material from a survey and in-depth interviews, experiences of the monitors are analyzed and changes over time are traced in relation to the monitors' assessment of the mandate and organizational set-up of the mission. The study points to the difficulty of monitoring missions to address escalation during an ongoing peace process. Its function is dependent on the goodwill of the parties. In essence, monitoring missions have the potential to strengthen peace when there is momentum in favor of progress, but when relations between the parties turn sour and the conflict escalates a civilian monitoring mission basically loses its potential. During the final stages of the war, which saw a very large number of civilian casualties, the war-torn areas were closed to international observers. Moreover, international pressure for a short-term ceasefire to alleviate the humanitarian situation was dismissed by the Sri Lankan government, which also saw the backing of several important actors, not the least China.     

时分双工MIMO放大转发中继系统中下行链路的联合鲁棒设计

考虑了时分双工MIMO放大转发中继系统中下行链路基站预编码器、中继预编码器与用户均衡器的联合设计问题。在实际应用中信道估计误差以及信道互易延迟会显著恶化基于理想信道状态信息(CSI)的联合设计性能。从估计误差的分布和互易延迟的时间相关特性出发,建立了综合考虑两方面因素的联合"估计误差-互易延迟"信道模型。基于该模型,针对第一跳传输设计了信道奇异值分解的基站预编码方案,避免了第二跳CSI的反馈开销,然后将给定中继总发送功率约束下最小化用户和均方误差(SMSE)的中继预编码器和用户均衡器进行联合优化,并利用KKT(Karush-Kuhn-Tucker)条件给出了该优化问题的闭合解。数值结果验证了所提方案的鲁棒性和有效性。     

赛博空间面临的威胁与挑战

对赛博空间和赛博战概念进行解析,研究了赛博安全、赛博空间、赛博力量、赛博作战等领域所面临的威胁与挑战,认为赛博优势和赛博能力决定了一个国家在下一轮军事和综合国力较量中的地位。从国家赛博安全战略、信息基础设施建设和赛博力量建设等方面,给出了应对赛博空间威胁与挑战的思考与策略。     

Burden Sharing in CSDP Military Operations

Abstract

Military burden sharing has been a subject of repeated debates in NATO and the UN. Despite more modest goals, the European Union’s (EU) Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) has experienced no fewer difficulties in garnering men, money, and materiel. While this may not come as a surprise, the fact that some EU member states have carried disproportionate shares of the burden of CSDP operations is a puzzle that remains unaccounted for. We address this gap by analyzing determinants of contribution levels to CSDP operations. In employing an innovative multi-method design that combines insights from collection action theory with those from integrated theories of military burden sharing, our results indicate that EU countries tend to contribute in positive disproportion with their capabilities when they have a strong peacekeeping tradition and elections are distant. In contrast, they undercontribute when small trade volumes with the area of operations combine with a weak peacekeeping tradition.     

Operations sequencing for a multi‐stage production inventory system

This article studies operations sequencing for a multi‐stage production inventory system with lead times under predictable (deterministic) yield losses and random demand. We consider various cases with either full or partial release of work‐in‐process inventories, for either pre‐operation or post‐operation cost structures, and under either the total discounted or average cost criteria. We derive necessary and sufficient criteria for the optimal sequence of operations in all cases. While the criteria differ in their specific forms, they all lead to the same principal: those operations with (1) lower yields, (2) lower processing costs, (3) longer lead times, and (4) lower inventory holding costs should be placed higher upstream in the system.Copyright © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 61: 144–154, 2014     

Lessons learnt? Cultural transfer and revolutionary wars, 1775–1831

Did participants in small wars in the period 1775–1831 learn from previous or contemporary examples? While this is difficult to prove for participants who left no written records, there is considerable evidence in existing publications by practitioners that they did indeed draw out lessons from recent insurgencies, either from their own experience or from events elsewhere which they studied from afar, especially the Spanish Guerrilla, which had already become legendary. Most authors showed an interest in how to stage insurgencies rather than in how to quell them. Even then, transfer did not come in a package of tactics-cum-values, but in each case in different configurations.     

相依目标群系统火力分配问题分析与解法

本文中讨论由若干个相依目标群组成的平面点目标系统的火力分配问题。对于武器型号相同的情形,得到了“边际毁伤递减原理”和“循序最优方案即全局最优方案”等结论,并在此基础上提出了问题的解算方法。对于武器型号不同的情形,提出了“循序最优枚举法”,并得出有关结论。     

新军事革命与C4I系统

介绍了联合作战的概念,着重分析了Ｃ４Ｉ在联合作战中的地位和作用、新军事革命对Ｃ４Ｉ的影响,并提出了几点看法。