RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT: TRENDS IN COST AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR UK AEROSPACE

This paper, intended to stimulate debate, suggests that we are at a turning point in the history of the UK military aerospace industry. It argues that there is urgent need for a fresh vision as to how the UK military aerospace industry can both prosper and make its maximum contribution to the defence of Britain. Further, the resulting plans and policies must emphasise the robustness of defence capabilities in a future in which the only thing we can be certain is that it will be very different from the present – especially whenever defence most matters.     

Models of scientific and technological review for the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention

ABSTRACT

Science and technology (S&T) review is key to anticipating developments in the life sciences that may benefit or run contrary to the aims of the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. It serves as a mechanism for both preparing against novel biological threats and identifying the best opportunities for developing and sharing the life sciences to the fullest extent. In the age of rapidly advancing biotechnology, S&T review needs to be wide ranging, involve a diverse set of inputs, and be transparent about its methods and data. This viewpoint considers four models of S&T review and their capacity to respond to the challenge of the life sciences: standing advisory boards; ad hoc working groups; peer review; and wikis. It then identifies a hybrid model that is suitably broad, diverse, and transparent.     

Icons Off the Mark

In two landmark articles, longtime scholars Kenneth N. Waltz and Thomas C. Schelling have re-emphasized the utility of nuclear deterrence over nuclear nonproliferation (Waltz) and nuclear disarmament (Schelling). While the thrust of the articles is seemingly different, both are rooted in the same intellectual ground: an epistemology that assumes problem-free inferences, drawn from past experiences, are applicable in future scenarios; a foundational rooting in strategic rationality that entangles them in unsolvable contradictions concerning comparable risks of different nuclear constellations, namely deterrence versus proliferation and disarmament; and a bias in framing the empirical record that makes nuclear deterrence more conducive to security than nuclear disarmament. The common normative-practical denominator, then, is to let a nuclear weapon-free world appear both less desirable and less feasible than it might actually be.     

Concept costing for defence projects: the problem and its solution

It is intrinsic to the nature of military competition that the unit acquisition costs of defence systems rise generation by generation. Traditional “bottom‐up” methods of cost‐estimating cannot meet the increasing demands for extensive studies of many options before commencing design and, while “top‐down” estimating techniques are an improvement, in particular by reducing the time required for preparing estimates, they also are inadequate to meet current requirements. A new method has been devised, therefore, further developing “top‐down” methods using Bayesian techniques to make best use of the available information, whether certain or uncertain, and its accuracy established by example.     

“Government contracting options: A model and application“∗

This paper models and simulates a government‐contractor principal‐agent weapon system repair model. Insights are derived as to how government repair contracts should be constructed so as to induce optimal contractor behavior. The paper's general conclusion is that the best contracting approach combines a lump‐sum payment that does not vary with the number of units repaired, expensive item cost‐sharing, and a contractor‐provided availability guarantee. Provided there is intercontractor competition, this type of contract performs well even if the government is poorly informed about weapon system break patterns or repair costs.     

ARMING THE REVOLUTIONARY UNITED FRONT

On 7 July 1999, the government of Sierra Leone and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) signed the Lomé Peace Agreement to end the civil war. A central component of this agreement called for the RUF to disarm. A year later, the RUF leader, Foday Sankoh, was in custody and the future of the peace accord in grave doubt. Far from disarming, all parties have been rearming at an alarming rate, in contravention of a 1997 UN arms embargo and despite a regional moratorium on the production, procurement and sale of small arms and light weapons. The political and security situation remains extremely fragile. This article explores the ease with which small arms and light weapons can be obtained, and questions the efficacy of existing armament and disarmament policies. Given the availability of arms, the weakness of the current government, the relative strength of the RUF, and the fluidity of alliances among the country's armed groups, the likelihood of continued conflict in Sierra Leone is great.