Glimpse into an army at its peak: notes on the Somali National Army in the 1960–80s

ABSTRACT

Bagayoko, Hutchful, and Luckham correctly argue that the structures, characteristics, and operating methods of official security institutions in Africa have been somewhat neglected, with a lack of much recent research. The Somali National Army (SNA) sits among these lacunae. Its formal structures can be used as a skeletal starting point and springboard to start to draw the network diagrams that chart informal linkages. This is why recent declassification decisions by U.S. intelligence bodies, coupled with period documents released to the UK National Archives, hold significance in helping us understand early hierarchical SNA arrangements. They show the steady build-up in size of the force, to 1987, to about the time the civil war began to fragment the state.     

舰船腐蚀电场建模及补偿最优解验证

基于等效偶极子法,从补偿偶极子长度、角度、大小三方面给出了任意角度的补偿偶极子场解析式,再利用电荷矢量叠加原理,建立了"腐蚀偶极子+补偿偶极子"电场模型。仿真以单轴桨船为例,先验证"腐蚀偶极子+补偿偶极子"电场模型的正确性,再进行补偿偶极子对舰船电场的影响验证,从而得出补偿最优解。模拟实验结果表明,补偿阳极在工程允许条件下距离补偿系统接船端最远处,且补偿系统平行于水平面和船体时补偿效果最优;在补偿最优条件下,理论上是可以抵消原舰船腐蚀电场的。     

一类随机非单调二元算子的随机不动点定理

利用Mann迭代技巧,讨论了不具有紧性条件的随机非单调二元算子方程随机不动点的存在唯一性,并给出了迭代序列收敛于解的误差估计,所得结果是某些已知结果的本质改进和推广。     

基于模型转换的异步空间配准算法

在分布式融合系统中,融合中心在对传感器发送过来的航迹数据进行融合处理前,需要采用空间配准算法来消除航迹数据中可能存在的系统误差.已有的空间配准算法未考虑滤波处理中的状态方程对配准过程的影响.对不同传感器具有不同状态方程条件下的异步空间配准实现进行了研究,采用将模型误差和系统误差合并处理的思路,提出了基于模型转换的异步空间配准(AMCBA)算法.仿真结果表明AMCBA算法能够实现对模型误差和系统误差的准确估计.     

Chemical-weapon use in Syria: atrocities,attribution, and accountability

ABSTRACT

International efforts to hold the government of President Bashar al-Assad accountable for the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Civil War have entered a new phase. For the first time, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the international organization responsible for implementing the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, has been empowered to identify the perpetrators of chemical attacks in Syria. The Investigation and Identification Team (IIT), which was formed to conduct the OPCW’s new attribution mission, has announced its intention to investigate and identify the perpetrators of nine chemical attacks in Syria, including the April 7, 2018, attack in Douma. This article reviews recent efforts to attribute chemical attacks in Syria, describes what we know about the nine incidents to be investigated, summarizes what is known about the Syrian government officials, military commanders, and chemical-warfare scientists suspected of being responsible for these attacks, discusses what to expect during the next phase of the attribution process, and offers insights into how the international community can move beyond attribution to accountability. Accountability is necessary to provide justice for victims and to prevent future incidents by demonstrating that perpetrators of chemical attacks will be identified and punished.     

Cost analysis of warranty policies

This article analyzes two general warranty policies involving an initial free replacement period, followed by a pro rata period. We examine the short-run total costs and longrun average costs under these policies. Formulas for both consumer costs and manufacturer profits under warranty are derived. We also study the expected number of purchases over the product life cycle under both policies. Bounds for the expected total costs and expected number of purchases are obtained for the case where the failure distribution of the item is new better than used.     

Building the Somali National Army: Anatomy of a failure, 2008–2018

ABSTRACT

Over a decade of security force assistance (SFA) initiatives to build an effective Somali National Army (SNA) failed because of the interrelated effects of political, contextual and operational challenges. The key political challenges were interest asymmetry between international actors and Somali elites, insufficient focus on institution-building and a lack of donor coordination. The principal contextual challenges in Somalia were the legacies of two decades of state collapse and the negative effects of clan dynamics. The main operational challenges were building an army while simultaneously fighting a war, the complexities of military integration, and the severe capability gaps afflicting the SNA.     

Moral Aspects of “Moral Injury”: Analyzing Conceptualizations on the Role of Morality in Military Trauma

In clinical circles, the concept of “moral injury” has rapidly gained traction. Yet, from a moral philosophical point of view the concept is less clear than is suggested. That is, in current conceptualizations of moral injury, trauma’s moral dimension seems to be understood in a rather mechanistic and individualized manner. This article makes a start in developing an adequately founded conceptualization of the role of morality in deployment-related distress. It does so by reviewing and synthesizing insights from different disciplines into morality and trauma. This discussion will lead to three positions: (1) values and norms are by definition characterized by conflict, (2) moral conflict may entail important social dimensions, and (3) moral conflict may lead to altered beliefs about previously held values. These insights provide important steps in further developing conceptions of the role of morality in deployment-related suffering.