Implementing the Global Strategy where it matters most: the EU’s credibility deficit and the European neighbourhood

The EU Global Strategy (EUGS) is a broad and ambitious document in terms of its geographic scope and thematic priorities. However, the EU cannot devote equal attention to all aspects of the EUGS; so there is still scope for more clarity regarding the EU’s core strategic aims. This article argues that in addition to fostering internal cohesion, the EU’s strategic priority must involve stabilizing its own neighbourhood. This task has challenged the EU for decades because of an inherent credibility deficit regarding the EU’s own capabilities, yet the EUGS does not diagnose and remedy this problem as effectively as it could have. Therefore much more work will need to be done in terms of reforming EU institutions and developing common capabilities if the EU hopes to achieve its central internal and external security goals as outlined in the EUGS and related policy statements.     

Enhancing Political Cohesion in NATO during the 1950s or: How it Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the (Tactical) Bomb

This article argues that the perceived need by NATO to nurture political cohesion within the Alliance during the 1950s resulted in the adoption of strategic concepts that were out-of-step with the military environment in which it was operating. It maintains that the Alliance acquiesced to American leadership on nuclear issues which led to the development of tactical nuclear capabilities at the expense of conventional war-fighting capabilities for the defence of the European Central Front. This resulted in a strategic concept that enhanced political cohesion but was militarily unviable.     

浅谈在营区规划中对营区文化的塑造

当前在军队工程建设中,对营区规划的主导思想已形成基本一致的认识,但多从物质技术层面去理解,就营区规划单位而言,尚没有广泛认识到营区文化也是规划中的重要内容以及在营区现代化建设中起着不可替代的作用。本文针对此情况重点论述了营区文化的主要内容和重要作用,并提倡通过对营区空间形态的创造来塑造有特色的营区文化,最终创造出一个充满凝聚力的,有利于长期发展的营区环境。     

The social structure of armed groups. Reproduction and change during and after conflict

Current research on civil wars and conflict increasingly turns to the inner structure and functioning of state and non-state armed groups and their impact on aspects such as violent practice, internal cohesion and the dissolution of these groups during the conversion to peace. The first aim of this introduction is to set out the theme of this Special Issue on the social structure of armed groups and previous research within the field. The second aim is to introduce the contributions within the Special Issue, alongside possible trajectories of future research on the ‘meso-foundations’ of civil war and conflict.     

State Capacity,Inequality and Inter-Group Violence in Sub-Saharan Africa: 1989–2011

Most studies on internal armed conflict focus on the dyadic interaction between the state and a rebel group, leaving less attention to inter-group fighting. Addressing this gap in the literature, this study argues that the interplay between economic and political inequality and weak state capacity increases the risk of non-state conflict. An empirical analysis of 178 non-state conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa between 1989 and 2011 provides support for the theorized conditional effect, but only for the role of economic inequality. The effect of political exclusion in the context of a weak state is not confirmed, suggesting that such conditions may be more prone to violence of another kind (i.e., mobilization against the state). Overall, these findings highlight the importance of a functioning state for maintaining peaceful inter-group relations, while they also lend support to earlier research that reports divergent effects of economic and political inequalities on civil conflict risk.     

衔接理论在大学英语语篇分析中的应用

本文通过介绍三种语篇衔接方式———结构衔接、逻辑衔接及词汇衔接 ,旨在论述在大学英语的教学中引进语篇衔接的概念是必要的 ,也是可行的     

How do sources of traditional legitimacy constrain popular uprisings? The case of the Kingdom of Swaziland

ABSTRACT

Research concerning authoritarian stability and peace usually investigates co-optation and repression. Recently, several studies argue that traditional legitimacy is also important for stability in monarchies. However, existing research rarely considers how legitimacy constrains rebellions and help the royal family to stay in power. Hence, this article explores the causal links between sources of traditional legitimacy and absence of uprisings. The study investigates the relationship with a case study of the Kingdom of Swaziland. In line with my expectations, I find a causal relationship between sources of traditional legitimacy and absence of popular uprisings. First, the royal family actively uses traditional legitimacy to justify their rule. Second, the Afrobarometer indicates that the Swazi people trust the King more than citizens in other African countries trust their head of state. Third, opposition actors have limited opportunities to mobilize the broader population against the monarchy. Fourth, traditional legitimacy dampens ongoing protests and thereby hinders their escalation into popular uprisings or political violence. Repression is clearly an important explanation for limited rebellion in Swaziland, but this article shows that also traditional legitimacy sources play a role.     

土工格栅加筋土挡墙稳定性影响因素敏感性分析

以灰关联分析法为手段,通过有限元强度折减法计算加筋土挡墙的稳定安全系数。结合水富—麻柳湾高速公路的土工格栅加筋土挡墙实际工程,分析了各因素对土工格栅加筋土挡墙稳定影响的敏感性,按大小依次为：内摩擦角、筋土间摩擦系数、粘聚力、筋带长度、筋带轴向拉伸刚度、筋带间距和填土密度。建议设计中,如果条件许可应优先选择摩擦角和粘聚力较高的填料,当填料受限制时,要提高加筋土挡墙的稳定性可以优先考虑选择与填土有较高摩擦系数和轴向拉伸刚度较大的土工格栅进行设计。     

THE PROHIBITION OF BLINDING AS A METHOD OF WARFARE

Abstract

From the 1982 Maitatsine Uprising to the 2009 Kala Kato Riot, Nigeria has been bedevilled by ethno-religious uprisings with devastating human and material losses. In almost all these crises the police and the military have featured prominently as agencies tasked with the responsibility of maintaining law and order and suppressing insurrection. While it was not alleged that they precipitated some of these risings perhaps in their attempts to stem or nip them in the bud, they have been accused of escalating the conflict either by their slow and inadequate responses, their partisanship and their arbitrary responses, or by their slackness in managing the crises and their aftermath. However, but for their efforts the security basis of the Nigerian state would have been considerably compromised by religious fundamentalism given the level of preparedness of the groups involved, their resistance and, more importantly, the recurrent nature of the uprisings. This article reflects on the management of ethno-religious uprisings in Nigeria by the police and the military. It considers the nature of the security agencies' involvement in the crises and examines the factors both within the agencies and in the larger Nigerian society which have aided or hindered their effective management of the conflicts.     

The probability of the existence of a feasible flow in a stochastic transportation network

Stochastic transportation networks arise in various real world applications, for which the probability of the existence of a feasible flow is regarded as an important performance measure. Although the necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a feasible flow represented by an exponential number of inequalities is a well‐known result in the literature, the computation of the probability of all such inequalities being satisfied jointly is a daunting challenge. The state‐of‐the‐art approach of Prékopa and Boros, Operat Res 39 (1991) 119–129 approximates this probability by giving its lower and upper bounds using a two‐part procedure. The first part eliminates all redundant inequalities and the second gives the lower and upper bounds of the probability by solving two well‐defined linear programs with the inputs obtained from the first part. Unfortunately, the first part may still leave many non‐redundant inequalities. In this case, it would be very time consuming to compute the inputs for the second part even for small‐sized networks. In this paper, we first present a model that can be used to eliminate all redundant inequalities and give the corresponding computational results for the same numerical examples used in Prékopa and Boros, Operat Res 39 (1991) 119–129. We also show how to improve the lower and upper bounds of the probability using the multitree and hypermultitree, respectively. Furthermore, we propose an exact solution approach based on the state space decomposition to compute the probability. We derive a feasible state from a state space and then decompose the space into several disjoint subspaces iteratively. The probability is equal to the sum of the probabilities in these subspaces. We use the 8‐node and 15‐node network examples in Prékopa and Boros, Operat Res 39 (1991) 119–129 and the Sioux‐Falls network with 24 nodes to show that the space decomposition algorithm can obtain the exact probability of these classical examples efficiently. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 63: 479–491, 2016     

State fragility and violent uprisings in Nigeria

Abstract

The emergence of the Islamic sect, Boko Haram, and its transformation into a terrorist organisation has dominated recent discourse in the fields of political science and security studies, both within and without the socio-politico enclave known as Nigeria. Much of the discussion has centred on the extra-judicial execution of its founder, Mohammed Yusuf, which purportedly intensified the radicalisation of the group, and whether or not the sect receives operational and/or financial support from foreign terrorist associations. The interest of others has been to forecast the possibility of the internationalisation of the group's activities. This paper aligns with those whose interest is to identify and proffer ways of resolving factors that predisposed the Nigerian state to the levels of violence perpetrated by Boko Haram, with a view to averting much greater crises in the future. It adopts some historicism in demonstrating that the responsibility for the deepening insecurity in the country resides in the Nigerian state structure, which has often been seen as willing to sacrifice the well-being of the many for the benefit of a few. On the whole, the paper utilises state fragility as the framework of analysis by identifying the incapacity of the state in effective service delivery, which has as a result created a situation of mass unemployment and extreme poverty that has fanned the Boko Haram uprising. It concludes that a sustainable solution to the crisis lies in addressing the root causes of inequality, unemployment and poverty, with which most Nigerians, particularly in the north, subsist.     

CAN总线在装甲车辆故障诊断与状态检测系统中的应用

针对目前装甲车辆内部设备种类繁多、故障机理复杂且缺乏较为全面的实时在线故障诊断与状态检测手段这一问题,提出了一种基于CAN总线的网络化在线故障诊断与状态检测系统设计方案,进行了CAN总线通信网的短帧应用层协议开发以及系统实现。该系统具有实时数据采集、在线故障诊断和状态检测等功能,且扩展性强。该系统通过了实车试验,测试结果验证了该方案的可行性和系统工作的可靠性。     

Explaining third world security structures

Why did the Palestinian Authority established in 1994 create 12 security forces when Eritrea, which achieved independence in 1994, made do with one conventional army? This article attempts to explain the variation in the structure of national security systems in Third World states as a function of two basic factors: the state's political and social heterogeneity and the state's relative importance to US foreign policy and security concerns. Authoritarian one-party and centralizing states tend to fragment their security forces more than states that cultivate social or political pluralism. Fragmentation is a classic exercise of divide and rule. But a tradeoff exists between fragmentation and assuring internal security on the one hand, and ensuring offensive capabilities to ward off external enemies, on the other. Hence the importance of a strong foreign ally – preferably the United States. According to this model, centralized homogenous states enjoying US protection will tend to fragment or bifurcate their security systems most.     

Supercritical carbon dioxide as a new working medium for pneumatic launch: A theoretical study

Compared with the conventionally gaseous or liquid working media, the specific internal energy of supercritical carbon dioxide (SCD) is higher at the same temperature and pressure, and the critical temperature of carbon dioxide is close to room temperature, making SCD a potential new working medium for pneumatic launch. To analyze the feasibility of this conception, an analytical model of a pneumatic catapult is established on basis of the conservations of mass and energy. The model consists of a high-pressure chamber and a low-pressure chamber connected by multiple valves, and there is a movable piston in the low-pressure chamber that can push an aircraft to accelerate. The effects of the launch readiness state of SCD in the high-pressure chamber, the initial volume of the low-pressure chamber and the valve control on the movement of the aircraft are analyzed. It is found that there is a restrictive relation between the temperature and pressure of the launch readiness state of SCD, i.e., there is a maximum allowable launch readiness pressure when the launch readiness temperature is fixed. If this restrictive relation is not satisfied, the working medium in the low-pressure chamber will drop to its triple point within a few milliseconds, leading to a launch failure. Owing to this restrictive relation, there is an optimal launch readiness state of SCD with the highest working capacity for any allowable launch readiness temperature. The pressure of the low-pressure chamber will decrease significantly as the initial volume increases, leading to a decreased acceleration of the aircraft. The ac-celeration can be controlled below a critical value by a designed sequential blasting technique of multiple valves. The calculated results show that a 500 kg aircraft can be accelerated from 0 to 58 m/s in 0.9 s with 36 kg of carbon dioxide. This research provides a new technique for the controllable cold launch of an aircraft.     

Integrated capacity,demand, and production planning with subcontracting and overtime options

Models for integrated production and demand planning decisions can serve to improve a producer's ability to effectively match demand requirements with production capabilities. In contexts with price‐sensitive demands, economies of scale in production, and multiple capacity options, such integrated planning problems can quickly become complex. To address these complexities, this paper provides profit‐maximizing production planning models for determining optimal demand and internal production capacity levels under price‐sensitive deterministic demands, with subcontracting and overtime options. The models determine a producer's optimal price, production, inventory, subcontracting, overtime, and internal capacity levels, while accounting for production economies of scale and capacity costs through concave cost functions. We use polyhedral properties and dynamic programming techniques to provide polynomial‐time solution approaches for obtaining an optimal solution for this class of problems when the internal capacity level is time‐invariant. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2007     

Guns and butter? Military expenditure and health spending on the eve of the Arab Spring

We examine the validity of the guns-versus-butter hypothesis in the pre-Arab Spring era. Using panel data from 1995 to 2011 – the eve of the Arab uprisings – we find no evidence that increased security needs as measured by the number of domestic terrorist attacks are complemented by increased military spending or more importantly ‘crowd out’ government expenditure on key public goods such as health care. This suggests that both expenditure decisions were determined by other considerations at the government level.     

基于状态观测器的混沌系统鲁棒同步设计

研究了在有界干扰情况下一类非线性反馈混沌系统的鲁棒同步状态观测器设计问题。基于Sylvester矩阵方程的参数化解,将非线性反馈混沌系统的鲁棒同步状态观测器设计问题转化为带有约束条件的优化问题,通过解决该优化问题得到鲁棒同步状态观测器的增益矩阵,从而达到了干扰信号解耦目的。数值算例及其仿真结果表明:该非线性反馈混沌系统的鲁棒同步状态观测器的设计方法是简单有效的。     

The Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1996–2001): ‘War-Making and State-Making’ as an Insurgency Strategy

This paper examines the institutional and functional aspects of the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA). The Taliban’s coercive approach and its entire reliance on “war-making” to “state-making” shows the difficulty of the transformation of an insurgent group into a state structure. The Taliban was primarily capable of establishing a two-track system of governance. However, the assessment of the IEA’s institutional and functional capabilities shows that the military–political organization formed by the Taliban lacked statehood in all three areas of legitimacy, authority and capacity.     

Guerrillas and bandits in the Serranía de Ronda, 1810–1812

The Spanish Guerrilla (1808–1812) which has given its name to ideologically motivated insurgencies is usually portrayed as a patriotic uprising against the French occupation forces of Napoleon. It was that, in part, but also many other things besides. This case study illustrates its overlap and convergence with banditry but also with social unrest turned into uprisings directed by poor Spaniards against their creditors, as in the storming of Ronda by insurgents in 1810. From the propaganda of the day to the subsequent Spanish patriotic historiography, there has been a tendency to exaggerate the amplitude of events and also the damage that was done to the French forces and the casualty figures inflicted on them.     

NATO and the broader Middle East, 1949–2007: The history and lessons of controversial encounters

The engagement of the Atlantic Alliance in the Middle East dates back to the founding of the Alliance. With one eye on this history and one eye on current controversies, this article investigates the preconditions for and nature of the allies' engagement in the region in order to assess whether the Middle East today is causing a rupture within the Alliance. The article finds that the Alliance was never likely to engage as one in the region. The Alliance instead guarded its cohesion by either letting the Alliance leader, the United States, take a lead role or by acting as a coalition enabling framework. This latter option has prevailed since the early 1980s. Today, NATO can preserve its cohesion and simultaneously engage in the region if it continues this legacy of coalition-making from within the allied framework. Conversely, an effort to engage collectively in the region will likely set of internal tensions to the extent that the Alliance itself will be at risk.