Dynamic pricing in a dual‐market environment

This article is concerned with the determination of pricing strategies for a firm that in each period of a finite horizon receives replenishment quantities of a single product which it sells in two markets, for example, a long‐distance market and an on‐site market. The key difference between the two markets is that the long‐distance market provides for a one period delay in demand fulfillment. In contrast, on‐site orders must be filled immediately as the customer is at the physical on‐site location. We model the demands in consecutive periods as independent random variables and their distributions depend on the item's price in accordance with two general stochastic demand functions: additive or multiplicative. The firm uses a single pool of inventory to fulfill demands from both markets. We investigate properties of the structure of the dynamic pricing strategy that maximizes the total expected discounted profit over the finite time horizon, under fixed or controlled replenishment conditions. Further, we provide conditions under which one market may be the preferred outlet to sale over the other. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 62: 531–549, 2015     

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.     

The importance of predecessor centers of sovereignty and processes of state formation in explaining secession

A range of theories have sought to explain and predict secession with varying degrees of success. Arguing that a disproportionate focus upon the seceding group as the unit of analysis has frustrated the development of a comprehensive theoretical framework that is universally valid, this article highlights the role of predecessor institutions of governance and the failure of states to successfully incorporate these as an important, but neglected, causal factor in the study of secession. The inclusion of pre-state institutions of governance and processes of state formation not only results in a more complete, and therefore accurate, explanatory account of secession, but also explains why some regions have been more prone to secession than others.     

The Shifting Determinants of Defense Spending Preferences Between 1980 and 2008

This paper analyzes defense spending preferences using ordered logit regression analysis of American National Election Survey data from 1980 through 2008. Our results indicate that as opposed to having the ideology of isolationism, political party identification towards the Republican Party or having economic stakes in defense spending always play a significant role in increased preference towards defense spending. Demographic groups such as Native Americans, Hispanics, and retired women, a demographic subgroup, display generally positive preferences towards defense spending. Somewhat surprisingly, another demographic subgroup, ‘security moms,’ do not show a preference. Our analysis also displays lower (higher) preference in the early 1990s (2000s) for defense spending compared to the year 2008.     

For Ethnic Group or Country? Evaluating Post-conflict Elections in Africa

The utility of post-conflict elections in sub-Saharan Africa has been the subject of lively academic and policy debates. While some scholars associate several electoral outcomes with votes for peace, others argue that post-conflict elections exacerbate existing cleavages and could reproduce the conditions that led to civil war if the right electoral system is not employed. This paper examines these contesting claims using electoral data in a comparative study of the first truly post-conflict elections in Sierra Leone and Liberia. The analysis shows that political leaders in both countries received votes across numerous cleavage lines in contradiction with an ethnic census.     

Conjectures for framing cyberwarfare

Cyberspace has emerged as a potentially new (and unconventional) domain for warfare. Much debate has focused on understanding cyber conflict. The ability to critically analyse this phenomenon is important; however, the nascent nature of cyberwarfare and the complexity of the systems involved create challenges not met by conventional approaches. As a first step, this requires an analytical construct to frame discussions in a way that highlights distinct characteristics of the cyber domain. An approach proposed is one of the postulating conjectures for debate as a way to achieve this and to demonstrate its use, both at the strategic and operational levels. It is suggested that such an approach provides one component of a mature analytical framework for the analysis of cyber across a range of warfare domains.     

Can Smart Defense work? A suggested approach to increasing risk- and burden-sharing within NATO

“Smart Defense” is NATO's new approach to risk- and burden-sharing, which has been a chronic problem within the alliance since the 1950s. Numerous solutions have been proposed, but initiatives resulting in more equitable burden-sharing have never been fully implemented. There are two driving forces influencing a county's willingness to support such initiatives – the economic theory of alliances and the risks posed by the implementation of capability sharing. The authors examine each of these and propose that rather than aiming for group consensus on the production of capabilities, NATO should focus on interoperability through support functions. This approach provides the most likely solution for connecting the forces, doctrine, procedures, standards and other factors of joint capability production such that country leaders find the risks of doing so to be politically and militarily acceptable.     

An enterprise portfolio approach for defence capability planning

Capability-based planning (CBP) is considered by many defence organisations to be the best practice for enterprise-level planning, analysis and management. This approach, loosely based around investment portfolio theory, is premised on balancing the cost, benefit and risk of capability options across the defence enterprise. However a number of authors have recently noted limitations of its current applications. The authors propose a more general, insurance-based approach, which can support the evolutionary improvement of the current CBP approach. This approach is implemented as hedging-based planning and aims to better reflect the enterprise nature of defence organisations, capturing both force structure and force generation aspects of military systems.     

Grievance and the Kashmiri diaspora

Grievance theories that emphasize injustice as the primary cause of secessionist violence offer valuable insights into the motivations of sponsors and participants. However, they face a difficulty in explaining the participation and support of geographically dispersed populations of co-ethnics (diaspora) that is not shared by rival theories that instead emphasize self-interest. This article uses the Kashmiri diaspora in Britain to examine how appeal to nationalist factors of shared identity, mutual sympathy and common understandings might allow grievance theories to effectively explain diaspora support. It concludes that, while a hybrid grievance-nationalist model might offer a more accurate and nuanced explanatory account of secessionist violence, it does so at the cost of conceptual clarity. Finally, the article addresses the implications for states and strategies to reduce the mobilization of diaspora in order to deny secessionists’ valuable assistance.