Slow failure: Understanding America’s quagmire in Afghanistan

ABSTRACT

The United States government has no organised way of thinking about war termination other than seeking decisive military victory. This implicit assumption is inducing three major errors. First, the United States tends to select military-centric strategies that have low probabilities of success. Second, the United States is slow to modify losing or ineffective strategies due to cognitive obstacles, internal frictions, and patron-client challenges with the host nation government. Finally, as the U.S. government tires of the war and elects to withdraw, bargaining asymmetries prevent successful transitions (building the host nation to win on its own) or negotiations.     

The 22 September 1979 Vela Incident: The Detected Double-Flash

On 22 September 1979 two optical sensors on U.S. satellite Vela 6911 detected a double-flash of light that appeared characteristic of an atmospheric nuclear explosion conducted over the southern Atlantic or Indian Ocean. It became known as the Vela Incident, Event 747, or Alert 747. An anomaly between the amplitude of the two signals during the second pulse led a U.S. government expert panel established to assess the event to conclude in mid-1980 that a more likely explanation was the impact of a small meteoroid on the satellite, the debris from which reflected sunlight into the sensors' field of view. No model was presented to support the contention, and a similar anomaly—known as background modulation—was a given for the second pulse of all confirmed explosions detected by Vela, though beginning later. Nonetheless, this event has remained the subject of intense debate. This article reviews the evidence and presents an updated analysis of the original Vela signal based on recently declassified literature and on modern knowledge of interplanetary dust and hyper velocity impact. Given the geometry of the satellite, and that the bulk of the surface comprised solar panels, much of the debris from any collision would be carried away from the sensors' field of view. Thus, a meteoroid collision appears much less likely than previously assumed. The double flash is instead consistent with a nuclear explosion, albeit detected by an aged satellite for which background modulation was abnormal and/or commenced earlier, also seen in post-event SYSTEM tests. A companion paper to be published in 2018 presents radionuclide and hydroacoustic evidence supporting the conclusion that the Vela Incident was a nuclear weapon test explosion.     

Bush path to self-destruction: Charles Taylor and the Revolutionary United Front

This article explains the demise of Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebellion. It argues that the main cause of this fate was the group's relationship with its primary sponsor, Charles Taylor. The RUF's dependency on Taylor's patronage, coupled with the rebellion's weak organisational endowments harmed the group's prospects of success. Based on original research, the article shows how Taylor used the RUF as a strategic instrument for his own regional interests, which led to the group's unravelling. More broadly, the article speaks about proxy warfare in Africa and how the relationship between resource flows and rebellion are not always beneficial to rebels as one might expect.     

DESIGNING A VIABLE PREDICTION MARKET TO FORECAST DEFENSE ACQUISITION COST AND SCHEDULE OUTCOMES

This paper is the first to demonstrate a viable prediction market that successfully forecasts defense acquisition cost and schedule outcomes, and to provide insights for defense executive decision‐making. Already used in private industry, prediction markets can also accurately forecast outcomes and their associated risks for government programs. Using virtual money, prediction markets allow traders to ‘bet’ on some future outcome. This market mechanism turns out to be a relatively simple and accurate way to discover, aggregate, and communicate to a defense executive the collective market’s beliefs about the likelihood of an eventual outcome of an acquisition program of interest.     

Landmarks in defense literature

On War. By Carl von Clausewitz, Berlin, 1832.     

Book Reviews

Men, Ideas and Tanks: British Military Thought and Armoured Forces, 1903–1939. By J. P. Harris, Manchester University Press, (1995) ISBN 0 7190 3762 (hardback) £40.00 or ISBN 0 7190 4814 (paperback) £14.99

Fighting for Ireland. By M. L. R. Smith. London and New York: Routledge, (1995) ISBN 0–415–09161–6.

The Fundamentals of British Maritime Doctrine (BR1806) HMSO London (1995) ISBN 0–11–772470‐X £9.50

Regional Conflicts: The Challenges to US‐Russian Co‐Operation Edited by James E. Goodby SIPRI: Oxford University Press 1995 ISBN 019‐S29–171X, £30.00

SIPRI Yearbook 1995 ‐ Armaments, Disarmament and International Security Oxford: Oxford University Press 1995. ISBN 019–829–1930, £60.00.

Drug Trafficking in the Americas Edited by Bruce M. Bagley & William O. Walker III Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, (USA), 1994 ISBN 1–56000–752–4.

Raglan: From the Peninsula to the Crimea By John Sweetman, Arms & Armour 1993. ISBN 1–85409–059–3. £19.00.     

From the Editors

For the first four years of the Algerian War British ministers and officials claimed that while supporting the French position in North Africa they did not support their policies. Successive Conservative governments sought to sustain France in North Africa because of the impact that long term insurgency in Algeria would have on Western defence by draining French human and material resources. They also feared that Western influence in North Africa could decline, opening the way for the spread of Communism, and that further humiliation for France, coming on the heels of Indochina, could lead to a ‘neutralist’ government in Paris, which would politically weeaken the Western alliance. Yet Britain's own foreign interests led it to wish to limit the spread of Arab nationalism and to avoid being tarred with the colonialist brush. The ambiguity of Britain's position led to shifting policies, which made the job of HM Ambassador in Paris, Gladwyn Jebb, particularly difficult.     

Chinese Theater and Strategic Missile Force Modernization and its Implications for the United States

The People's Republic of China (PRC), no longer content with its longstanding ‘minimalist’ nuclear posture and strategy, is enhancing the striking power and survivability of its theater and strategic missile forces and rethinking its nuclear doctrine in ways that may pose serious challenges for the United States. Although the modernization of Chinese nuclear and missile forces may ultimately result in greater strategic deterrence stability, this change will not come about immediately or automatically. Indeed, it is entirely possible that China's growing missile capabilities could decrease crisis stability under certain circumstances, especially in the event of a US–China conflict over Taiwan.