Stochastic duels with multiple hits and limited ammunition supply

Ancker's stochastic duels with limited ammunition supply are extended to cases where a kill is obtained through repetitive multiple hits with two firing modes, single-shot firing and pattern firing. Examples with negative exponential firing time and geometric ammunition supply are given.     

The Hydrogen Bomb,Lewis L. Strauss and the Writing of Nuclear History

In January 1950 President Harry S. Truman announced that the United States would proceed with further work to determine the feasibility of a ‘Super’, or hydrogen, bomb. The events leading up to that decision – counter-pressures and advocacy from a number of quarters, including the divided Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the nuclear scientists, Congress and the Pentagon – is well known. Less attention has been given to how the story of the Super came to be told in official and popular publications. Admiral Lewis L. Strauss, rogue member of the AEC, later presidential adviser on atomic affairs and AEC chairman, was one of the most vigorous advocates of developing thermonuclear weapons. He was also a highly skilled player of bureaucratic politics. This article draws upon the Strauss archives to examine how he used his position and his contacts to shape the history of the H-bomb to his own political advantage.     

TIME-VARYING CHARACTERISTICS OF SOUTH KOREA-UNITED STATES AND JAPAN-UNITED STATES MILITARY ALLIANCES UNDER CHINESE THREAT: A PUBLIC GOOD APPROACH

This paper investigates the nature of two military alliances under Chinese threat. The findings are as follows: First, South Korea does not consider China a significant threat while Japan and the United States have recognized China as a serious threat since the 1990s and the 2000s, respectively. Second, the relationship between South Korea and the United States is a true military alliance for all time periods, but the nature of the alliance has changed since the 1970s. Third, although Japan began to form an alliance relationship with the United States in the 1990s, Japan is considered a more significant ally by the United States. This paper implies that, should China provoke a military confrontation, it might be difficult to deduce a common solution among the three countries because of the different response to military threats from China.     

Sojourn times in G/M/1 fork‐join networks

We consider a processing network in which jobs arrive at a fork‐node according to a renewal process. Each job requires the completion of m tasks, which are instantaneously assigned by the fork‐node to m task‐processing nodes that operate like G/M/1 queueing stations. The job is completed when all of its m tasks are finished. The sojourn time (or response time) of a job in this G/M/1 fork‐join network is the total time it takes to complete the m tasks. Our main result is a closed‐form approximation of the sojourn‐time distribution of a job that arrives in equilibrium. This is obtained by the use of bounds, properties of D/M/1 and M/M/1 fork‐join networks, and exploratory simulations. Statistical tests show that our approximation distributions are good fits for the sojourn‐time distributions obtained from simulations. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2008     

The Evolution of US Extended Deterrence and South Korea’s Nuclear Ambitions

ABSTRACT

Extended deterrence has been a main pillar of the security alliance between the United States and South Korea (Republic of Korea [ROK]) since the end of the Korean War. The changing dynamics of US extended deterrence in Korea, however, affected Seoul’s strategic choices within its bilateral alliance relationship with Washington. Examining the evolution of US extended deterrence in the Korean Peninsula until the Nixon administration, this article explains why South Korea began its nuclear weapons programme in a historical context of the US–ROK alliance relationship. This article argues that President Park Chung-hee’s increasing uncertainty about the US security commitment to South Korea in the 1960s led to his decision to develop nuclear weapons in the early 1970s despite the fact that US tactical nuclear weapons were still stationed in South Korea.     

After the Split: Partition,Successor States,and the Dynamics of War in the Horn of Africa

Why do partitioned successor states engage one another in armed conflict? We explore the drivers of war between successor states by comparing two border crises that followed the partitions of Ethiopia (1993) and Sudan (2011). We argue that the politico-military struggles that give way to partition create important historical memories that shape what successor states think about the utility of military force. While the partition of Ethiopia yielded successor states led by regimes that were victors of the preceding war of partition, the war of partition in Sudan produced successor states that emerged out of military stalemate. This distinction explains why Ethiopia and Eritrea waged a costly border war that Sudan and South Sudan were able to avoid.