The US NATO and military burden sharing: post-Cold War accomplishments and future prospects

NATO burden sharing has become an especially timely issue in the past several years as a result of a number of factors, including Russian annexation of Crimea and destabilization of eastern Ukraine in 2014. This article argues that alliance unity among the great democracies of Europe and North America is indispensable to peace and stability on the Eurasian continent. A fractured NATO, and especially, a large divide in purposes or commitments as between the United States and its European security partners, invites aggression and the possibility of inadvertent escalation. Past successes and failures in US-involved multinational peace and stability operations, within and outside of Europe, show that mission accomplishment requires give and take, including the occasional acceptance of unequal costs and benefits among the members, in order to achieve peace and security objectives.     

联合作战自同步指挥问题探析

研究联合作战自同步指挥问题。本文从自同步指挥的概念入手,阐述了自同步指挥的特点、实现基础和运行机理,分析自同步指挥的应用与发展前景。     

基于SuperMap的战区油料保障系统设计与实现

通过对SuperMap与战区油料保障的结合,研究了基于SuperMap的战区油料保障系统,充分利用信息时代的成果提高油料保障的效能。分析了建立基于GIS的战区油料保障系统的必要性,全面构建了基于SuperMap的战区油料保障任务的数学模型,提出了未来信息化油料保障的可能途径,系统的设计并实现了基于SuperMap的战区油料保障系统,从而达到优化油料保障环节,缩短油料保障时间,提高油料保障透明度的目标。     

美国网络空间作战能力建设

网络空间越来越被世界各国公认为是继陆地、海洋、空中和太空之后的第五个作战域,为获得和保持像其它作战域那样世界领先的军事优势,美国正在大力进行网络空间作战能力建设。提出了美国网络空间作战能力建设框架,从战略规划、作战力量、作战理论、作战训练、武器装备、战场基础环境、人才培养和作战联盟八个方面全面总结了美国近年来在网络空间作战能力建设方面的主要做法。     

Spatial pricing and product allocation in online retailing

Spatial pricing means a retailer price discriminates its customers based on their geographic locations. In this article, we study how an online retailer should jointly allocate multiple products and facilitate spatial price discrimination to maximize profits. When deciding between a centralized product allocation ((i.e., different products are allocated to the same fulfillment center) and decentralized product allocation (ie, different products are allocated to different fulfillment centers), the retailer faces the tradeoff between shipment pooling (ie, shipping multiple products in one package), and demand localization (ie, stocking products to satisfy local demand) based on its understanding of customers' product valuations. In our basic model, we consider two widely used spatial pricing policies: free on board (FOB) pricing that charges each customer the exact amount of shipping cost, and uniform delivered (UD) pricing that provides free shipping. We propose a stylized model and find that centralized product allocation is preferred when demand localization effect is relatively low or shipment pooling benefit is relatively high under both spatial pricing policies. Moreover, centralized product allocation is more preferred under the FOB pricing which encourages the purchase of virtual bundles of multiple products. Furthermore, we respectively extend the UD and FOB pricing policies to flat rate shipping (ie, the firm charges a constant shipping fee for each purchase), and linear rate shipping (ie, the firm sets the shipping fee as a fixed proportion of firm's actual fulfillment costs). While similar observations from the basic model still hold, we find the firm can improve its profit by sharing the fulfillment cost with its customers via the flat rate or linear rate shipping fee structure.     

Mediation,Peacekeeping And Civil War Peace Agreements

The post-civil war agreement phase is vulnerable to credible commitment problems, a lack of government capacity to implement, and/or mutual vulnerability to retribution from violating the agreement. This study’s main contribution is to demonstrate the combined utility of mediation and UN peacekeeping. Mediation builds trust and confidence and works with the parties to design an efficacious agreement conducive to, among other features, tamping down post-agreement violence. Peacekeeping stems violence and facilitates the implementation of the agreement. Agreements that are mediated and followed by UN peacekeeping are expected to be more robust in terms of staving off violence. We report the effects of the mediation–peacekeeping interaction using a method correcting for a common misinterpretation of interaction terms. We test logit and hazard models using a sample of full and partial civil war peace agreements signed between 1975 and 2011. Controlling for agreement design, democracy, and income per capita, the results indicate mediation and its interaction with peacekeeping reduce the probability of renewed/continuing violence and have a positive impact on agreement duration. We also report brief case study evidence from the 1990s peace process in Guatemala.     

Integrating the Services and Harnessing the Military Area Commands

ABSTRACT

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is halfway through a multi-decade modernization process. It has begun a major restructuring effort as it shifts its focus from a traditional continental defensive posture to a more maritime-oriented emphasis. In order to create more balanced joint force, it has adjusted the structure of its highest command organization, the Central Military Commission; abolished the former four General Departments and seven Military Regions; created five new joint Theater Commands and service-level commands for the Army and Rocket Force; and is reducing the size of its active duty force by 300,000 personnel. While seeking to overcome numerous internal obstacles, the PLA continues to develop and improve its capabilities to conduct integrated joint operations to deter a variety of threats to China’s sovereignty and territory and, if deterrence fails, to win informationized local war.     

‘A Brave New World for Chinese Joint Operations’

A key organizational challenge for all modern militaries is instituting an effective command-and-control (C2) structure for joint operations. China has been a relative latecomer to joint operations, with a persistent weakness in joint C2. Reforms launched in early 2016 sought to overcome this challenge by establishing a permanent two-level joint C2 structure. Although not a ‘tipping point’ that will lead ineluctably to stronger operational effectiveness, this reform is nonetheless an important milestone in an evolutionary process towards better PLA joint operations. The result could be added operational challenges for several of China’s neighbors and the United States.     

自然地理环境对陆军航空兵作战行动的影响

阐述错那方向自然地理环境情况,例举了陆军航空兵在高寒地区常见的几种作战行动,并以此为基点,论述错那方向自然地理环境对陆军航空兵作战行动的影响,给出了减少作战影响的几点对策措施。     

Linking a throughput simulation to a systems dynamics simulation to assess the utility of a US Navy foreign humanitarian aid mission

The success of any humanitarian aid mission is generally measured by the timeliness of critical supplies that are delivered to the affected area. However, a more interesting analysis may be to determine the effect of the aid on the overall satisfaction of the local population. The authors' research focused on the delivery of humanitarian aid to a notional region that was decimated by flooding with ships, landing craft and security personnel provided by the US Navy and Marines. While the research effort addressed naval force structure, the focus of the research was: (1) to assess different delivery methods for the aid; and (2) to determine how the aid delivery impacted the overall satisfaction of the local population. To examine both concerns, two simulation models were developed, with one examining the throughput of aid delivered during the operation, and the other the satisfaction of the population based on the humanitarian aid effort.