Israel’s Security Nexus as Strategic Restraint: The Case of Iran 2009–2013

This article examines the debates in Israel between 2009 and 2013 over Iran’s nuclear programme as a reflection of a particular type of civil–military or civil–security relationship. It analyses how key actors within that relationship – particularly those with an intelligence background – engaged with media outlets in Israel and further afield to influence domestic and international opinion over how best to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions. In so doing, it seeks to address one fundamental question: are governments in Jerusalem any longer the final arbiters over deciding what is in the national security interests of the State of Israel?     

Postoptimality analysis in zero-one programming by implicit enumeration

The procedures for postoptimality analysis that are so much a part of linear programming studies have no simple counterparts in an integer programming context. In the case of Balas' Additive Algorithm, however, it would appear that the capacity of the technique to facilitate certain types of postoptimality analysis has not been fully exploited. This paper proposes an extension of the additive algorithm that utilizes insights generated while solving the original problem to do subsequent analysis upon it. In particular, procedures are developed for doing limited parameter ranging and for seeking new optima in light of parameter changes.     

Building Stability Overseas: Three case studies in British defence diplomacy – Uganda,Rhodesia–Zimbabwe,and Sierra Leone

In 2011, the Department for International Development, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, and the Ministry of Defence launched the Building Stability Overseas Strategy (BSOS). This document sought to integrate cross-government activity as it related to conflict and security so as to ‘take fast, appropriate and effective action to prevent a crisis or stop it escalating and spreading’. At the heart of the strategy was the recognition that addressing instability and conflict overseas was morally right and in the UK's national interests. This confluence of foreign policy realism and ethical outlook most clearly found harmony in the acknowledgement that it was cheaper for the international community to avoid conflict than it was to try to manage it. Through an examination of three historical case studies (Uganda 1964–1972, Rhodesia–Zimbabwe 1979–1981, and Sierra Leone 2000–2007), this article seeks to demonstrate just how difficult this seemingly sensible strategic outlook is. In particular, the article shows there are historical parallels in British postcolonial history that very closely resemble contemporary policy choices; that these can be used to define what is different about past and present practice; and, which in turn, can be used to – at least tentatively – mark out the potential strengths and weaknesses in BSOS.     

Optimal control of a production‐inventory system with both backorders and lost sales

We consider the optimal control of a production inventory‐system with a single product and two customer classes where items are produced one unit at a time. Upon arrival, customer orders can be fulfilled from existing inventory, if there is any, backordered, or rejected. The two classes are differentiated by their backorder and lost sales costs. At each decision epoch, we must determine whether or not to produce an item and if so, whether to use this item to increase inventory or to reduce backlog. At each decision epoch, we must also determine whether or not to satisfy demand from a particular class (should one arise), backorder it, or reject it. In doing so, we must balance inventory holding costs against the costs of backordering and lost sales. We formulate the problem as a Markov decision process and use it to characterize the structure of the optimal policy. We show that the optimal policy can be described by three state‐dependent thresholds: a production base‐stock level and two order‐admission levels, one for each class. The production base‐stock level determines when production takes place and how to allocate items that are produced. This base‐stock level also determines when orders from the class with the lower shortage costs (Class 2) are backordered and not fulfilled from inventory. The order‐admission levels determine when orders should be rejected. We show that the threshold levels are monotonic (either nonincreasing or nondecreasing) in the backorder level of Class 2. We also characterize analytically the sensitivity of these thresholds to the various cost parameters. Using numerical results, we compare the performance of the optimal policy against several heuristics and show that those that do not allow for the possibility of both backordering and rejecting orders can perform poorly.© 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 2010     

现代建筑表皮的视觉效果

建筑表皮可以传承文化,反映特定时期的气候特征、地域文化、生活方式、美学及科学技术等,而建筑表皮设计则直接表达建筑师的设计意图,建筑表皮造型设计创意对建筑设计至关重要。从建筑表皮的形态构成、视觉效果和创意表达等3个方面阐述现代建筑表皮,提示建筑师灵活运用点、线、面、体、材质与色彩这些基本造型元素能设计不同的建筑表皮造型,表达不同的艺术思想,取得不同的视觉效果。     

ECONOMIC GROWTH AND VIOLENT INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT: 1875–1999

This paper extends the joint product model of military alliances to apply to the new strategic doctrine adopted by NATO in the 1990s. In particular, a choice must be made between protecting one's own territory and pooling forces for an alliancewide rapid reaction force. This new model accounts for a host of externalities and their implications for burden sharing, full financing, and allocative efficiency. The Pigouvian taxes that adjust for force thinning and attack deflection are shown to finance optimal border‐protecting forces under a variety of circumstances. Second‐best considerations arise owing to the pure publicness of rapid reaction forces. The ideal toll arrangement does not currently characterize NATO financing, nor is it likely to do so.     

基于PCB技术的延时线设计方法

为了设计大功率低损耗的延时线,提出了用多股窄印制线并行绕制替代单股印制线绕制、在某些特定位置将并绕的多股印制线交叉换位的多层PCB螺旋电感的设计方法,并用该电感和电容模拟电缆的分布参数电感和电容制作延时线。通过多股并绕交叉换位的方式可以增加电感的有效截面积,减小电感的涡流损耗,有效提高电感的品质因数。测试结果表明:该螺旋电感的品质因数在短波频段内有较大提高。利用该螺旋电感制作的200ns延时线在通1A电流50 W功率时,延时性能好、驻波比小、衰减量小,满足大功率低损耗的要求。     

‘Innovate or die’: Organizational culture and the origins of maneuver warfare in the United States Marine Corps

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, this article contributes to the understanding of the origins of maneuver warfare as the capstone doctrine of the Marine Corps. It does so by identifying a second source that fostered change in the Marine Corps – one in addition to disquiet about the conduct of the war in Vietnam – which stemmed from the challenges posed by the United States' post-Vietnam strategic and military reorientation. And second, this article examines the influence of organizational culture, or identity, on innovation in the Marine Corps. A critical strand in the growing literature on military innovation focuses on organizational culture and how it influences the behavior and responses of particular military organizations. This article contributes to this literature by analyzing the influence of the organizational culture of the Marine Corps in shaping what was deemed an appropriate response to the challenges it confronted in the 1970s.     

The Choice for Proportional Representation: Electoral System Design in Peace Agreements

After a civil war, there is a keen interest in ‘getting the institutions right’. This article summarizes our knowledge of one particular institution, the electoral system, through a review of the literature on power sharing and electoral systems in post-conflict societies. Surprisingly, there is little statistical support for the conviction that proportional representation (PR) contributes to inclusive political institutions and thereby to peace and democracy. More positively, a closer look at electoral system design as integral part of peace agreements reveals that PR is the standard choice, that it works as intended, and has a good record in securing peace, though less so of democracy. Future research should look at electoral system design as part of the peace process to explain these findings and draw lessons.     

Probabilistic a priori routing-location problems

In many routing-location models customers located at nodes of a network generate calls for service with known probabilities. The customers that request service in a particular day are served by a single server that performs a service tour visiting these customers. The order of providing service to customers for each potential list of calls is uniquely defined by some a priori fixed basic sequence of all the customers (a priori tour). The problems addressed in this article are to find an optimal home location or an optimal basic sequence for the server so as to minimize the expectation of a criterion. The following criteria are considered: the total waiting time of all the customers, the total length of the tour, the maximal waiting time of a customer, the average traveled length per customer, and the average waiting time per customer. We present polynomial-time algorithms for the location problems. For the routing problems we present lower bounds that can be calculated efficiently (in polynomial time) and used in a branch-and-bound scheme. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

ISS Recent publications

The popular adage has it that ‘prevention is better than cure’. Given the heavy and enduring costs of armed conflicts, there is no disputing the fact that making efforts to prevent them from breaking out in the first place is better than waiting until it is too late. This entails two things: conflict prevention measures and early warning systems. Anything that could be done to effectively address the root causes of a conflict before it turns violent may fit into the former, while the latter aims to identify threats to these elements so that effective conflict prevention measures can be taken. In other words, ensuring ‘human security’ is the thrust of the former, while the latter serves as a surveillance camera for any deficit in providing the different components of this ‘human security’. It is with these two important issues that this essay deals, with particular reference to West Africa.     

Benders decomposition with alternative multiple cuts for a multi‐product closed‐loop supply chain network design model

In this article, we consider a multi‐product closed‐loop supply chain network design problem where we locate collection centers and remanufacturing facilities while coordinating the forward and reverse flows in the network so as to minimize the processing, transportation, and fixed location costs. The problem of interest is motivated by the practice of an original equipment manufacturer in the automotive industry that provides service parts for vehicle maintenance and repair. We provide an effective problem formulation that is amenable to efficient Benders reformulation and an exact solution approach. More specifically, we develop an efficient dual solution approach to generate strong Benders cuts, and, in addition to the classical single Benders cut approach, we propose three different approaches for adding multiple Benders cuts. These cuts are obtained via dual problem disaggregation based either on the forward and reverse flows, or the products, or both. We present computational results which illustrate the superior performance of the proposed solution methodology with multiple Benders cuts in comparison to the branch‐and‐cut approach as well as the traditional Benders decomposition approach with a single cut. In particular, we observe that the use of multiple Benders cuts generates stronger lower bounds and promotes faster convergence to optimality. We also observe that if the model parameters are such that the different costs are not balanced, but, rather, are biased towards one of the major cost categories (processing, transportation or fixed location costs), the time required to obtain the optimal solution decreases considerably when using the proposed solution methodology as well as the branch‐and‐cut approach. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2007     

Britain and the chevaline project: The hidden nuclear programme, 1967–82

With the words quoted above, the new Secretary of State for Defence in the Thatcher government revealed for the first time the existence of a project that have remained a closely guarded secret, even from amny Cabinet members of four governments, since the late 1960s. Despite the passage of more thatn 20 years since Mr Pym's announcement, the story of the Chevaline project still remains largely unknown outside a small group of select politicians, officials and scientists. This article sets out to use recently declassified documents and what is in the public domain to tell the story of Chevaline from the secret debates about the need to improve Britain's Polaris deterrent force shortly after it was deployed in the late 1960s to the official announcement of the project in 1980 and its eventual operational deployment in 1982. In particular, attention is focused on three main questions: Why was the project kept secret for so long? Why did the improvement programme take so long to come to fruition? Why, given the spiralling costs involved, was it not cancelled? In order to consider these questions relating to what Pym described as ‘the front end’ of the Poaris missile, it is necessary to begin by looking at the background to the project.     

Subcontracting versus capacity expansion and the impact on pricing of services

The strategic trade-offs between acquiring new capacity and subcontracting (or leasing) capacity are explored for service environments characterized by rapid technological improvement or highly seasonal demand. Reflecting the focus on service-sector organizations, it is assumed that demand cannot be met from inventory. Furthermore, the critical impact that subcontracting has on a firm's competitive pricing policy is examined. The analysis presented is of particular relevance for firms in price-competitive industries such as telecommunications, information services, or health care, because subcontracting capacity represents an alternative to acquiring costly new capacity which may soon become obsolete or unnecessary. It is shown that the optimal price charged is based on the higher of the two operating costs incurred (internal unit cost or unit cost of subcontracting). It is also shown that as a consequence of subcontracting to maximize profit, the optimal price charged is never reduced and may increase. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

A robust sensor covering and communication problem

We consider the problem of placing sensors across some area of interest. The sensors must be placed so that they cover a fixed set of targets in the region, and should be deployed in a manner that allows sensors to communicate with one another. In particular, there exists a measure of communication effectiveness for each sensor pair, which is determined by a concave function of distance between the sensors. Complicating the sensor location problem are uncertainties related to sensor placement, for example, as caused by drifting due to air or water currents to which the sensors may be subjected. Our problem thus seeks to maximize a metric regarding intrasensor communication effectiveness, subject to the condition that all targets must be covered by some sensor, where sensor drift occurs according to a robust (worst‐case) mechanism. We formulate an approximation approach and develop a cutting‐plane algorithm to solve this problem, comparing the effectiveness of two different classes of inequalities. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 62: 582–594, 2015     

An extreme-point approach for obtaining weighted ratings in qualitative multicriteria decision making

Many attempts have been made in the past to obtain estimates for the weights and ratings values of a multicriteria linear utility function. In particular, the problem arises when both criteria importance and alternatives' ratings are expressed in a qualitative ordinal manner. This article proposes an extreme-point approach for obtaining the overall ratings in the presence of ordinal preferences both for the criteria importance and the alternatives' rankings. In particular it is shown that Borda's method of scores is obtained as a special case. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Nobody wins the victory taboo in just war theory

ABSTRACT

This article examines how scholars of the just war tradition think about the ethical dilemmas that arise in the endgame phase of modern warfare. In particular, it focuses upon their reticence to engage the idiom of ‘victory’. Why, it asks, have scholars been so reluctant to talk about what it means to ‘win’ a just war? It contends that, while just war scholars may have good reason to be sceptical about ‘victory’, engaging it would grant them a more direct view of the critical potentialities, but also the limitations, of just war reasoning.     

Country survey military expenditure in Cyprus

Cyprus, a small island state, gained independence from British colonial rule in 1960. For more that half its history as an independent state Cyprus has been under occupation following the 1974 Turkish invasion. Despite the fact that it has faced war, invasion and occupation, Cyprus has allocated a comparatively small proportion of its national income to defence. The average defence burden—military expenditure as a share of GDP—during 1964–98 was around 2.5%. However, as a result of a substantial shift in defence policy during the past decade or so, the defence burden during the 1990s has increased, averaging about 4% of GDP as Cyprus decided to implement an extensive military modernization program aiming to present a more credible military deterrence vis‐a‐vis Turkey. Empirical estimations of a demand function for Cypriot military expenditure suggest that it is positively affected by alliance spillins and external military threat.     

An informal framework to aid the analysis and design of military posture

The design of military posture is an exercise in confronting potential enemies’ capabilities within the context of geographic, technological, temporal, political and economic constraints. No formal model is capable of encapsulating the essentials of so complex an environment for closed or simulated analysis, but it is useful to have an informal framework within which to reason interactively within these dimensions.

This paper presents such a scaffolding, patterned on the notion of a military posture as the output of an economic process whose structure reflects important determinants of the characteristics and extents of weaponry and expenditures that are appropriate to the environment within the feasibility set determined by the constraints. The analysis remains at an abstract level, but it does highlight the important shifts toward preparation for littoral warfare, greater reliance on reserve rather than active forces, and necessary changes in missions among military departments.     

光谱功率仪的研制

本文介绍了一种光谱功率仪的原理、硬件结构、软件设计以及主要元器件的性能,给出并分析了实测曲线。实验结果表明:光谱功率仪精度高、光谱范围宽,在医学研究、光谱分析等领域具有较高的实用价值。