Accuracy assessment of detection performance for sidescan sonars

Sidescan sonars are used in detecting hostile targets on the seabed. An accurate representation of the sensor performance is required to carefully plan and execute searches. We studied several confidence interval methods for assessing the accuracy of detection performance as a function of range from hostile targets. Using simulation, we determined that the best approach for modeling sensor data was piecewise logistic regression with cubic B‐splines at carefully selected knots. This method was demonstrated on real data collected from the CITADEL sea trial. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2012     

Military expenditure and employment in South Africa*

Previous research into the impact of military expenditure on employment finds considerable variation across countries. This paper adds to the debate by examining the long run relationship between military burden and manufacturing employment in South Africa. Such an analysis provides an opportunity to test for crowding‐out effects and the impact of the marked decline in military spending on the South African economy. The paper finds evidence supporting the view that military expenditure will have a detrimental impact on long term manufacturing employment, adversely affecting industrial structure and efficiency.     

Inter- and Intra-Service Rivalries in the Battle of the Atlantic

This article considers disputes the Royal Navy and Coastal Command had with Bomber Command, the Air Staff and supporters of strategic bombing over what was the ‘proper’ use of air power. The disputes centred on the provision of air support for the anti-submarine campaign in the Battle of the Atlantic. This article will argue that the balance was too much in favour of strategic bombing at the expense of the security of the Atlantic convoys, but that when corporate culture and grand strategy are considered, the reasoning behind such an imbalance becomes easier to comprehend.     

Right Intention and the Ends of War

The jus ad bellum criterion of right intention (CRI) is a central guiding principle of just war theory. It asserts that a country’s resort to war is just only if that country resorts to war for the right reasons. However, there is significant confusion, and little consensus, about how to specify the CRI. We seek to clear up this confusion by evaluating several distinct ways of understanding the criterion. On one understanding, a state’s resort to war is just only if it plans to adhere to the principles of just war while achieving its just cause. We argue that the first understanding makes the CRI superfluous, because it can be subsumed under the probability of success criterion. On a second understanding, a resort to war is just only if a state’s motives, which explain its resort to war, are of the right kind. We argue that this second understanding of the CRI makes it a significant further obstacle to justifying war. However, this second understanding faces a possible infinite regress problem, which, left unresolved, leaves us without a plausible interpretation of the CRI. This constitutes a significant and novel reason for leaving the CRI out of the international law of armed conflict (LOAC).