Integrated capacity,demand, and production planning with subcontracting and overtime options

Models for integrated production and demand planning decisions can serve to improve a producer's ability to effectively match demand requirements with production capabilities. In contexts with price‐sensitive demands, economies of scale in production, and multiple capacity options, such integrated planning problems can quickly become complex. To address these complexities, this paper provides profit‐maximizing production planning models for determining optimal demand and internal production capacity levels under price‐sensitive deterministic demands, with subcontracting and overtime options. The models determine a producer's optimal price, production, inventory, subcontracting, overtime, and internal capacity levels, while accounting for production economies of scale and capacity costs through concave cost functions. We use polyhedral properties and dynamic programming techniques to provide polynomial‐time solution approaches for obtaining an optimal solution for this class of problems when the internal capacity level is time‐invariant. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2007     

Designing safety space in a supply chain to handle system‐wide disruptions

In some supply chains serious disruptions are system wide. This happens during periods of severe weather, as when storms cause shuttle tankers serving oil platforms in the North Sea to stop movements of crude oil, barges are frozen in the Mississippi, or all airplanes are grounded after a blizzard. Other notable instances of system‐wide disruption happened after the attack on the World Trade Center when all aircraft were grounded and the natural gas and crude‐oil pipelines were tangled by hurricanes in 2005. We model a situation where shutting down supply facilities is very difficult and expensive because of excessive inventory buildup from an inability to move out the production. We present a planning model that balances the cost of spare capacity versus shutting down production when planning for disruptions. The model uses an assignment model embedded in a simulation. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2007     

Provocation,war and restraint under the nuclear shadow: The Kargil conflict 1999

ABSTRACT

The Kargil conflict was a limited war between India and Pakistan fought along the Kashmir Line of Control during the spring/summer of 1999. Named for the principal town in the combat zone on the Indian side, it was the first open warfare between India and Pakistan as declared nuclear weapons states and included the first combat employment of the Indian Air Force since 1971. Despite its intensity, it was also characterised by considerable restraint on both sides. The potential for conventional escalation, however, was high and the possibility of nuclear confrontation could not be excluded. It had significant long-term ramifications for both countries and constitutes an important part of the backdrop to their relations today.     

Spies,advisors, and grunts: Film portrayals of counterinsurgency in Vietnam

Vietnam was a complex conflict, which historians and political scientists have struggled to understand. Some of the bitterest disputes in the historiography revolve around the US approach to counterinsurgency in Vietnam. Many different facets of the war have received the attention of filmmakers, and an examination of their work suggests new ways of thinking about the conflict. This article considers film portrayals of three phases of the Vietnam War – firstly, the early period of ‘political action’, then the advisory period, and finally the Americanization of the war after 1965. It suggests that by examining the experiences of participants in each of these phases, Vietnam War cinema helps to illustrate the problems that faced various American approaches to counterinsurgency in the conflict. Combined with the importance of films in determining popular perceptions of both historical conflicts and counterinsurgency in general, it suggests that they are worthy subjects of study and critique.     

Shifted Roles: Explaining Danish and Norwegian Alliance Strategy 1949–2009

During their 60 years within the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), Denmark and Norway have experienced both high and low standings within the alliance, which can be attributed to both external and internal factors influencing their alliance strategies. During the ‘first’ Cold War and Détente, 1949–79, Danish and Norwegian alliance strategy aimed to simultaneously deter and reassure the Soviet Union. During the ‘second’ Cold War, 1979–89, Danish alliance policy became driven by domestic politics, and the Danish government was forced to formally dissociate the country from NATO's policies. Norway was not uncritical, but held a much lower profile. After the Cold War this situation shifted. Denmark successfully rehabilitated itself as a loyal and dependable ally by responding to the call for focusing on out-of-area operations. Meanwhile, Norway's continued focus on the lingering Russian Threat made the country seem out-of-touch with priorities in the post-Cold War alliance, and domestic politics prevented a more active out-of-area engagement.     

Managing Global Counterinsurgency: The Special Group (CI) 1962–1966

The contemporary American counterinsurgency discourse has emphasised a particular historical narrative of Vietnam to justify large-scale military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Absent from this narrative is any reference to the broader Cold War context in which Vietnam existed alongside numerous other small-scale counterinsurgencies and was therefore the exception, not the rule. This article seeks to redress this shortcoming by examining the way counterinsurgency was conceived and managed at the level of ‘grand strategy.’ Specifically, it focuses on the Special Group (Counterinsurgency) to demonstrate that senior policymakers under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson understood ‘counterinsurgency’ as involving ‘indirect’ assistance to foreign governments, rather than taking ‘direct’ military action with American ground forces.     

Ethnic targeting: A bad idea whose time has come

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Analyzing Taliban taranas (chants): an effective Afghan propaganda artifact

This article describes and analyzes a little understood Afghan Taliban propaganda tool: chants or taranas . These melodic refrains effectively use historical narratives, symbology, and iconic portraits. The chants are engendered in emotions of sorrow, pride, desperation, hope, and complaints to mobilize and convince the Afghan population of the Taliban's worldview. The chants represent culturally relevant and simple messages that are communicated in a narrative and poetic form that is familiar to and resonates with the local people. They are virtually impossible for the United States and NATO to counter because of Western sensitivities concerning religious themes that dominate the Taliban narrative space, not to mention the lack of Western linguistic capabilities, including the understanding and mastering the poetic nature of local dialects.