CONTRIBUTORS

Conventional wisdom states that the stability-instability paradox does not explain the effect of nuclear proliferation on the conflict propensity of South Asia, and that nuclear weapons have had a different and more dangerous impact in South Asia than Cold War Europe. I argue that the paradox explains nuclear South Asia; that the similarities between nuclear South Asia and Cold War Europe are strong; and that conventional instability does not cause revisionist challenges in the long run. I develop and probe a psychological causal mechanism that explains the impact of nuclear weapons on Cold War Europe and South Asia. Following the ten-month mobilized crisis in 2002, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf may have adopted a more moderate foreign policy toward India after experiencing fear of imminent nuclear war, as Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev did forty years earlier. I argue that the stability-instability paradox explains Cold War Europe and nuclear South Asia and will, conditional on Iranian and North Korean revisionism, predict the impact of nuclear weapon development on these states' conflict propensities.     

Statistical equivalency and optimality of simple step‐stress accelerated test plans for the exponential distribution

Accelerated life testing (ALT) is commonly used to obtain reliability information about a product in a timely manner. Several stress loading designs have been proposed and recent research interests have emerged concerning the development of equivalent ALT plans. Step‐stress ALT (SSALT) is one of the most commonly used stress loadings because it usually shortens the test duration and reduces the number of required test units. This article considers two fundamental questions when designing a SSALT and provides formal proofs in answer to each. Namely: (1) can a simple SSALT be designed so that it is equivalent to other stress loading designs? (2) when optimizing a multilevel SSALT, does it degenerate to a simple SSALT plan? The answers to both queries, under certain reasonable model assumptions, are shown to be a qualified YES. In addition, we provide an argument to support the rationale of a common practice in designing a SSALT, that is, setting the higher stress level as high as possible in a SSALT plan. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2013     

Partial input to output impacts in DEA: Production considerations and resource sharing among business subunits

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a methodology for evaluating the relative efficiencies of peer decision‐making units (DMUs), in a multiple input/output setting. Although it is generally assumed that all outputs are impacted by all inputs, there are many situations where this may not be the case. This article extends the conventional DEA methodology to allow for the measurement of technical efficiency in situations where only partial input‐to‐output impacts exist. The new methodology involves viewing the DMU as a business unit, consisting of a set of mutually exclusive subunits, each of which can be treated in the conventional DEA sense. A further consideration involves the imposition of constraints in the form of assurance regions (AR) on pairs of multipliers. These AR constraints often arise at the level of the subunit, and as a result, there can be multiple and often inconsistent AR constraints on any given variable pair. We present a methodology for resolving such inconsistencies. To demonstrate the overall methodology, we apply it to the problem of evaluating the efficiencies of a set of steel fabrication plants. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2013     

Learning ‘Under Fire’: Israel’s improvised military adaptation to Hamas tunnel warfare

What organisational attributes enhance a military’s ability to effectively adapt on the battlefield? Upon the outbreak of war in July 2014 between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) encountered an expansive network of tunnels from which Hamas was launching large-scale assaults into Israel. This article illustrates that the IDF’s ability to successfully adapt ‘under fire’ to this battlefield surprise was facilitated by several important attributes related to its organisational learning capacity: a dynamic, action-oriented organisational culture, a flexible leadership and command style, specialised commando units which acted as ‘incubators’ for learning and innovation, and a formal system to institutionalise and disseminate lessons learned.     

一种基于熵值的装备维修性评价模型

本文提出了一种基于熵值的装备维修性综合评价模型,该模型包括评价指标的熵值度量模型、装备维修信息结构图和行为控制图以及基于熵值的评价指标聚合模型等3个方面.本研究首先在分析装备维修一般过程和维修性评价内容的基础上,构建了定性指标和定量指标相结合的装备维修性评价指标体系,分析了维修任务复杂度、维修保障复杂度和基于熵值的维修...     

Graveyard of Analogies: The Use and Abuse of History for the War in Afghanistan

Decades of scholarship have warned against using historical analogies for policymaking. But the Taliban insurgency appears, on the surface, to confirm the usefulness of historical analogies to the British and Soviet wars in Afghanistan. I review the use of analogies for the war in Afghanistan and argue the analogies were historically unsound and strategically unhelpful. In fact, their effect on policy helped create the conditions for the very insurgency policymakers most hoped to avoid. The Taliban insurgency did not occur because of the presence of too many foreign troops and aid workers, but because there were too few.     

Bayesian inference for a Lanchester type combat model

We undertake inference for a stochastic form of the Lanchester combat model. In particular, given battle data, we assess the type of battle that occurred and whether or not it makes any difference to the number of casualties if an army is attacking or defending. Our approach is Bayesian and we use modern computational techniques to fit the model. We illustrate our method using data from the Ardennes campaign. We compare our results with previous analyses of these data by Bracken and Fricker. Our conclusions are somewhat different to those of Bracken. Where he suggests that a linear law is appropriate, we show that the logarithmic or linear‐logarithmic laws fit better. We note however that the basic Lanchester modeling assumptions do not hold for the Ardennes data. Using Fricker's modified data, we show that although his “super‐logarithmic” law fits best, the linear, linear‐logarithmic, and logarithmic laws cannot be ruled out. We suggest that Bayesian methods can be used to make inference for battles in progress. We point out a number of advantages: Prior information from experts or previous battles can be incorporated; predictions of future casualties are easily made; more complex models can be analysed using stochastic simulation techniques. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 47: 541–558, 2000