Assessing Capabilities in International Politics: Biased Overestimation and the Case of the Imaginary ‘Missile Gap’

How states assess the capabilities of their adversaries and rivals is of paramount importance to the theory and practice of international relations. This paper presents a framework for understanding why states overestimate the capabilities of their adversaries. Three types of overestimation are presented, consisting of conscious/rational, erroneous and biased overestimation. In order to demonstrate the phenomenon of biased overestimation in international politics, the case of the ‘Missile Gap’ (1957–61) controversy in the United States is examined.     

The Persistent Military Security Dilemma between China and India

This paper evaluates to what extent the improving Sino-Indian relations coincide with a mitigation of military threat perceptions. A critical review of the demilitarisation of the border, the military strategies with respect to the Indian Ocean and nuclear arms programmes, reveals that the two countries are still locked in a military security dilemma. Distrust still results in military balancing. The outcome is a complex and multi-level military balance of power that might not bring about peace but enhances stability.     

Rubber match: a third Lebanon war

Israel and Hezbollah have applied the lessons learned from the 2006 Lebanon War and have been preparing for a future conflict with both sides aiming for a more decisive victory. With improved capabilities from 2006, future hostilities will be far more destructive. This article analyzes their performance in 2006 and the lessons they have drawn to predict what a future conflict is likely to look like. The article analyzes both parties in three categories: ground forces; rockets, missiles, and anti-armor weapons; and lastly, Israel's air and sea dominance and Hezbollah's efforts to counter that dominance. Finally, this article argues that, contrary to conventional wisdom, a large-scale conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is unlikely to become a larger regional conflict involving Syria and Iran.     

Reassessing private military and security company (PMSC) ‘competition‘ in civil war: lessons from Sierra Leone

ABSTRACT

This paper challenges recent claims that competitive market dynamics incentivize Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) to fully commit to providing effective services, thereby reducing the duration of civil war. Our assessment of a most-likely case scenario for this argument – Sierra Leone – reveals four critical problems. First, there is rarely direct competition, even if numerous companies are present. Second, the presence of multiple PMSCs usually represents a collaboration among subsidiaries providing distinct services, often under the same corporate umbrella. Third, data aggregation obfuscates the overlap of PMSC presence, inflating the amount of perceived competition. Finally, we raise concerns regarding how quantitative analyses can conflate conflict intensity with conflict termination.     

SHOULD MILITARY UNIFORMS CARRY THE UNION LABEL?

It is widely believed that the unionization of military labor leads to reduced discipline and lower combat capability. Case studies of the performance of existing military unions, however, generally suggest that unionization has a benign impact on the performance of the armed forces. In this paper, we offer a theoretical economic analysis of the likely impact of military unionization on volunteer militaries. Our analysis suggests that military unionization will unambiguously lead to larger, but less disciplined, armed forces, leaving the overall impact of unionization on defense capability ambiguous. Military unionization, however, will clearly enhance social welfare.     

Trading coups for civil war

This paper investigates civil conflict as a product of the survival strategies of African leaders. Specifically, the paper offers a theory of risk substitution that predicts coup-fearing leaders will undermine the military effectiveness of the state when making an effort to extend their own tenure. While ‘coup-proofing’ practices have often been noted as contributors to political survival, considerably less attention has been paid to the influence of these strategies on other forms of conflict. Utilising data from a number of cross-national datasets, the analyses show that having a higher number of ‘coup-proofing’ counterweights significantly worsens a state's civil conflict prospects. A brief consideration of multiple episodes of conflict further suggests that in addition to coup-proofing undermining the counterinsurgency capacity of the state, some leaders are simply indifferent to – or can even potentially benefit from – the existence of an insurgency.     

An algorithm for the discrete bilevel programming problem

The bilevel programming problem (BLPP) is an example of a two-stage, noncooperative game in which the first player can influence but not control the actions of the second. This article addresses the linear formulation and presents a new algorithm for solving the zero-one case. We begin by converting the leader's objective function into a parameterized constraint, and then attempt to solve the resultant problem. This produces a candidate solution that is used to find a point in the BLPP feasible reagion. Incremental improvements are sought, which ultimately lead to a global optimum. An example is presented to highlight the computations and to demonstrate some basic characteristics of the solution. Computational experience indicates that the algorithm is capable of solving problems with up to 50 variables in a reasonable amount of time.     

Optimal empty vehicle redistribution for hub‐and‐spoke transportation systems

This article considers the empty vehicle redistribution problem in a hub‐and‐spoke transportation system, with random demands and stochastic transportation times. An event‐driven model is formulated, which yields the implicit optimal control policy. Based on the analytical results for two‐depot systems, a dynamic decomposition procedure is presented which produces a near‐optimal policy with linear computational complexity in terms of the number of spokes. The resulting policy has the same asymptotic behavior as that of the optimal policy. It is found that the threshold‐type control policy is not usually optimal in such systems. The results are illustrated through small‐scale numerical examples. Through simulation the robustness of the dynamic decomposition policy is tested using a variety of scenarios: more spokes, more vehicles, different combinations of distribution types for the empty vehicle travel times and loaded vehicle arrivals. This shows that the dynamic decomposition policy is significantly better than a heuristics policy in all scenarios and appears to be robust to the assumptions of the distribution types. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2008