Mirror,mirror on the wall,who is the most offensive of them all? – Explaining the offensive bias in military tactical thinking

This article explores why the offensive predominates military tactical thinking. With survey results showing an offensive bias among 60 per cent of senior Swedish officers and as many as 80 per cent in the case of the army, it is clear that this is not just a problem of the past but is equally relevant today. The article asks why there is a tendency to perceive and understand offensive tactics as the preferred choice and the way to conduct battle that should be encouraged and preferred. Drawing on existing research and the findings of a pilot study, ten propositions for why the offensive bias exists are tested using a mixed-method approach. Based on the findings, the article develops a model to understand why the offensive dominates military tactical thinking. It is found that the two key constitutive factors behind the offensive bias are military culture and education. These factors most directly and profoundly influence an officer’s identity, perceptions, and thinking. Military culture and education, in turn, work as a prism for four other factors: military history, the theory and principles of war, doctrine and TTPs, and psychological factors.     

Utility assessment procedures for polynomial-exponential functions

This article develops a methodology for testing constant exchange risk properties and identifying an appropriate form for a decision maker's utility function. These risk properties characterize six different utility functions which are sums of products of polynomials and exponential functions. Such functional forms are commonly used in decision analysis applications. The practical advantage of this methodology is that these constant exchange risk properties eliminate the usual arbitrariness in the selection of a parametric utility function and often reduce the data requirements for subsequent estimation. The procedure is straightforward to apply. The decision maker need only provide certainty equivalents for two-outcome gambles and determine the more-preferred gamble in paired comparisons. The technical details of the procedure can be handled by interactive computer software.     

可判定条件下的零知识证明

零知识证明是密码学关注的问题之一。在可判定条件下,运用代数学中群的共轭性质进行零知识证明,其实例就是数学中关于寻找共轭子的困难性问题。     

The 22 September 1979 Vela Incident: Radionuclide and Hydroacoustic Evidence for a Nuclear Explosion

This article offers a new analysis of radionuclide and hydroacoustic data to support a low-yield nuclear weapon test as a plausible explanation for the still contentious 22 September 1979 Vela Incident, in which U.S. satellite Vela 6911 detected an optical signal characteristic of an atmospheric nuclear explosion over the Southern Indian or Atlantic Ocean. Based on documents not previously widely available, as well as recently declassified papers and letters, this article concludes that iodine-131 found in the thyroids of some Australian sheep would be consistent with them having grazed in the path of a potential radioactive fallout plume from a 22 September low-yield nuclear test in the Southern Indian Ocean. Further, several declassified letters and reports which describe aspects of still classified hydroacoustic reports and data favor the test scenario. The radionuclide and hydroacoustic data taken together with the analysis of the double-flash optical signal picked up by Vela 6911 that was described in a companion 2017 article (“The 22 September 1979 Vela Incident: The Detected Double-Flash”) can be traced back to sources with similar spatial and temporal origins and serve as a strong indicator for a nuclear explosion being responsible for the 22 September 1979 Vela Incident.     

The elephant in the room

When United States (US) President Barack Obama announced in 2013 that he would host the first United States-Africa leaders' summit the next year, he was greeted with considerable scepticism. Many critics thought he was just playing catch-up with other countries and organisations which had been holding Africa summits for years, especially China. But, whatever the motives, the event itself proved to be a substantial success, probably re-setting US relations with Africa for many years to come.     

RAIN,GROWTH, AND CIVIL WAR: THE IMPORTANCE OF LOCATION

We re‐examine the Miguel et al. (2004 Miguel, E., Satyanath, S. and Sergenti, E. 2004. Economic shocks and civil conflict: an instrumental variables approach. Journal of Political Economy, 112(4): 725–753. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) study of the impact of growth on civil war, using growth in rainfall as an instrument. Miguel et al. (2004 Miguel, E., Satyanath, S. and Sergenti, E. 2004. Economic shocks and civil conflict: an instrumental variables approach. Journal of Political Economy, 112(4): 725–753. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) – in our view, erroneously – include countries participating in civil wars in other states. Restricting the conflict data to states with conflict on their own territory reduces the estimated impact of economic growth on civil war. We show how spatial correlations in rainfall growth and participation in civil conflicts induce a stronger apparent relationship in the mis‐classified data.     

SUICIDE TERRORISM AND THE BACKLASH EFFECT

This paper presents a game‐theoretic model of suicide terrorism containing three agents: the terrorist leader; a targeted government; and potential terrorist supporters. Supporters join the terrorist group if they gain more from their participation than from their economic opportunities. Preemptive measures by the government can result in a backlash that encourages recruitment through new grievances. Suicide attacks can also lead to recruitment. Increases in preemption costs and/or economic opportunities can reduce the overall level of terrorism, while increasing the proportion of suicide to normal attacks. An increase in the effect of preemption on recruitment, or the propaganda effect of suicide bombings has the opposite effect of increasing normal and suicide attacks, but decreasing the proportion of suicide to normal attacks in the terrorist organization’s strategy profile.