Chemical-weapon use in Syria: atrocities,attribution, and accountability

ABSTRACT

International efforts to hold the government of President Bashar al-Assad accountable for the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Civil War have entered a new phase. For the first time, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the international organization responsible for implementing the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, has been empowered to identify the perpetrators of chemical attacks in Syria. The Investigation and Identification Team (IIT), which was formed to conduct the OPCW’s new attribution mission, has announced its intention to investigate and identify the perpetrators of nine chemical attacks in Syria, including the April 7, 2018, attack in Douma. This article reviews recent efforts to attribute chemical attacks in Syria, describes what we know about the nine incidents to be investigated, summarizes what is known about the Syrian government officials, military commanders, and chemical-warfare scientists suspected of being responsible for these attacks, discusses what to expect during the next phase of the attribution process, and offers insights into how the international community can move beyond attribution to accountability. Accountability is necessary to provide justice for victims and to prevent future incidents by demonstrating that perpetrators of chemical attacks will be identified and punished.     

Cost analysis of warranty policies

This article analyzes two general warranty policies involving an initial free replacement period, followed by a pro rata period. We examine the short-run total costs and longrun average costs under these policies. Formulas for both consumer costs and manufacturer profits under warranty are derived. We also study the expected number of purchases over the product life cycle under both policies. Bounds for the expected total costs and expected number of purchases are obtained for the case where the failure distribution of the item is new better than used.     

The strategic purpose of individual augmentee officers for junior partners in multinational military operations

ABSTRACT

This article examines the strategic purpose of Individual Augmentee Officers (IAOs) for junior partners in multinational military operations through an exploratory case study of Danish IAOs in Iraq and South Sudan between 2014 and 2017. IAOs are individual officers who are moved from their normal functions to be seconded to other units of the armed forces of their own or another country or an international institution. The study concludes that IAOs function as strategically important, yet not necessarily indispensable, supplements to military contingents in several ways: making tangible contributions to the overall mission (contributing), gaining access to information, knowledge, and experience (learning), and lobbying decision-making processes within mission headquarters (lobbying). The usefulness of IAOs depends on whether the junior partner has specific interests and a significant presence in the theatre and whether the mission is conducted as a UN mission, a NATO mission, or an ad hoc coalition.     

Building the Somali National Army: Anatomy of a failure, 2008–2018

ABSTRACT

Over a decade of security force assistance (SFA) initiatives to build an effective Somali National Army (SNA) failed because of the interrelated effects of political, contextual and operational challenges. The key political challenges were interest asymmetry between international actors and Somali elites, insufficient focus on institution-building and a lack of donor coordination. The principal contextual challenges in Somalia were the legacies of two decades of state collapse and the negative effects of clan dynamics. The main operational challenges were building an army while simultaneously fighting a war, the complexities of military integration, and the severe capability gaps afflicting the SNA.