Military Expenditures and Natural Resources: Evidence from Rentier States in the Middle East and North Africa

It has been argued that the discovery of a new natural resource greatly increases the risk of conflict. This research aims to study the effect of natural resources on military spending, using the data from rentier states in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries from 1987 to 2012. In considering the ‘resource curse,’ the types of natural resources matter. Our empirical results demonstrate that the ‘resource curse’ arising from the abundance of certain natural resources, particularly oil and forest resources, leads to increases in military spending. In contrast, the rent from coal and natural gas has a negative impact on military spending, while the rent from minerals has no impact on military spending, controlling for GDP growth and per capita income.     

The Production and Deposition of the Guisborough Helmet

In September 1878 the British Museum received a donation of a folded metal plate which had been embossed and gilded. Restoration of the object revealed that the folded plate was in fact the outer casing of a Roman copper alloy cavalry sports type helmet which dates to the late second or third century AD. The story of what became known as the Guisborough helmet began 14 years earlier in what was then the North Riding of Yorkshire when workers employed by the Cleveland Railway Company discovered a ‘very curious plate of metal’ during road construction. It appears that the helmet was deliberately prepared for deposition and buried at a depth of c30 cm close to a stream. Examination by the authors suggests that this was a high value item that had been repaired many times. Experimental evidence suggests that the decoration alone required approximately 16 h to fashion.     

Nuclear deterrence and cyber warfare: coexistence or competition?

Nuclear deterrence and cyber war seem almost antithetical in their respective intellectual pedigrees. Nuclear weapons are unique in their ability to create mass destruction in a short time. Information or “cyber” weapons, at least for the most part, aim at sowing confusion or mass disruption instead of widespread physical destruction. Nevertheless, there are some intersections between cyber and nuclear matters, and these have the potential to become troublesome for the future of nuclear deterrence. For example, cyber attacks might complicate the management of a nuclear crisis. As well, information attacks on command-control and communications systems might lead to a mistaken nuclear launch based on false warnings, to erroneous interpretations of data or to panic on account of feared information blackout. It is not inconceivable that future nuclear strike planning will include a preliminary wave of cyber strikes or at least a more protracted “preparation of the battlefield” by roaming through enemy networks to plant malware or map vulnerabilities.     

Sensor placement in active multistatic sonar networks

The idea of deploying noncollocated sources and receivers in multistatic sonar networks (MSNs) has emerged as a promising area of opportunity in sonar systems. This article is one of the first to address point coverage problems in MSNs, where a number of points of interest have to be monitored in order to protect them from hostile underwater assets. We consider discrete “definite range” sensors as well as various diffuse sensor models. We make several new contributions. By showing that the convex hull spanned by the targets is guaranteed to contain optimal sensor positions, we are able to limit the solution space. Under a definite range sensor model, we are able to exclude even more suboptimal solutions. We then formulate a nonlinear program and an integer nonlinear program to express the sensor placement problem. To address the nonconvex single‐source placement problem, we develop the Divide Best Sector (DiBS) algorithm, which quickly provides an optimal source position assuming fixed receivers. Starting with a basic implementation of DiBS, we show how incorporating advanced sector splitting methods and termination conditions further improve the algorithm. We also discuss two ways to use DiBS to find multiple source positions by placing sensors iteratively or simultaneously. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 64: 287–304, 2017     

Preemptive parallel‐machine scheduling with a common server to minimize makespan

We consider parallel‐machine scheduling with a common server and job preemption to minimize the makespan. While the non‐preemptive version of the problem is strongly NP‐hard, the complexity status of the preemptive version has remained open. We show that the preemptive version is NP‐hard even if there is a fixed number of machines. We give a pseudo‐polynomial time algorithm to solve the case with two machines. We show that the case with an arbitrary number of machines is unary NP‐hard, analyze the performance ratios of some natural heuristic algorithms, and present several solvable special cases. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 64: 388–398, 2017     

Scheduling combat logistics force replenishments at sea for the US Navy

The Replenishment at Sea Planner (RASP) is saving the U.S. Navy millions of dollars a year by reducing fuel consumption of its Combat Logistics Force (CLF). CLF shuttle supply ships deploy from ports to rendezvous with underway U.S. combatants and those of coalition partners. The overwhelming commodity transferred is fuel, ship‐to‐ship by hoses, while other important packaged goods and spare parts are high‐lined, or helicoptered between ships. The U.S. Navy is organized in large areas of responsibility called numbered fleets, and within each of these a scheduler must promulgate a daily forecast of CLF shuttle operations. The operational planning horizon extends out several weeks, or as far into the future as we can forecast demand. We solve RASP with integer linear optimization and a purpose‐built heuristic. RASP plans Replenishment‐at‐Sea (RAS) events with 4‐hour (Navy watch) time fidelity. For five years, RASP has served two purposes: (1) it helps schedulers generate a daily schedule and animates it using Google Earth, and (2) it automates reports command‐to‐ship messages that are essential to keep this complex logistics system operating.     

Insurgency and Violent Extremism in Pakistan

Pakistan has an uneven history of dealing with insurgencies and extremism. This article identifies the various campaigns and policies employed to defeat militants and deal with violent extremism. It describes the major anti-state groups and how Pakistan’s military and civilian leaders, relying on the related strategies of selectivity, gradualism and containment, have allowed militancy and terrorism to thrive. This article finds that while the elites and the public may have belatedly come to appreciate the existential internal threats these groups pose to the country, there are strong reasons to doubt the state’s full commitment to its promises to take meaningful action.     

Indications and warning in Belgium: Brussels is not Delphi

The terrorist attacks in France and Belgium of 2015–2016 that occurred while these countries were in a heightened state of alert raise questions about indications and warning methodology as well as effectiveness of the blanket-protection deployment of security services assisted even by the military. Response and perhaps even more anticipation may require strategic rethinking in light of the predatory attacks that target the most vulnerable spots of the public space. This study looks at threat analysis in Belgium as conducted through her intelligence fusion centre Coordination Unit for Threat Analysis (CUTA)?????? since its inception in 2006. With a special focus on what is known, at the time of writing, about the terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels, this study hopes to put into context how the system (mal)functions and will also consider the preventive measures that respond to the threat, and the international aspects which have implications far beyond Belgian borders. Therefore, a case is made for not just a Belgian homeland security framework, but one that fits into an EU-wide security concept.     

Timely Verification at Large-Scale Gas Centrifuge Enrichment Plants

This article examines challenges in international nuclear safeguards pertaining to the timely detection of highly enriched uranium production at large-scale gas centrifuge enrichment plants. To establish where present gas centrifuge enrichment plant safeguards measures and approaches could be strengthened, we have created a discrete time model for simulating hypothetical misuse scenarios, both through transient phases and at steady-state. We find that timely detection of misuse at modern large-scale facilities presents a challenge for international safeguards. A toolbox of unattended measurement systems, along with remote monitoring, however, could be used to improve detection timeliness, enabling the initiation of follow-up activities, potentially on a rapid time scale. These measures, which would need very low false alarm rates, should be implemented in a graded approach, depending on the characteristics of each enrichment plant and an analysis of plausible acquisition paths for the State in which it is situated. Some of these technologies could provide significant benefit to plant operators.