Optimizing the US Navy's combat logistics force

We study how changes to the composition and employment of the US Navy combat logistic force (CLF) influence our ability to supply our navy worldwide. The CLF consists of about 30 special transport ships that carry ship and aircraft fuel, ordnance, dry stores, and food, and deliver these to client combatant ships underway, making it possible for our naval forces to operate at sea for extended periods. We have modeled CLF operations to evaluate a number of transforming initiatives that simplify its operation while supporting an even larger number of client ships for a greater variety of missions. Our input is an employment schedule for navy battle groups of ships operating worldwide, extending over a planning horizon of 90–180 days. We show how we use optimization to advise how to sustain these ships. We have used this model to evaluate new CLF ship designs, advise what number of ships in a new ship class would be needed, test concepts for forward at‐sea logistics bases in lieu of conventional ports, demonstrate the effects of changes to operating policy, and generally try to show whether and how the CLF can support planned naval operations. Published 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 2008     

Measuring hard power: China’s economic growth and military capacity

China’s rapid economic growth is facilitating massive increases in its military spending and causing increased security concerns in Asia and the Western Pacific. But there is uncertainty over how large China’s military spending is relative to other countries, or how fast it is growing in real terms. We address this issue by deriving a relative military cost price index based on the relative unit costs of inputs. We find that China’s real military spending is much larger than suggested by exchange rate comparisons, and even larger than standard purchasing power parity comparisons. We also find, however, that the real growth of China’s military spending has been smaller than conventionally thought. This is due to rapidly growing wages in China and the large share of personnel in China’s military budget.     

Building Legitimacy: Interactional Dynamics and the Popular Evaluation of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey

Abstract

Previous research has identified a variety of general mechanisms to explain how insurgents build legitimacy. Yet, there is often a gap between these mechanisms and the interactional dynamics of insurgencies. This article attempts to bridge this gap through a theoretically informed analysis of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK) insurgency in Turkey. I show how the PKK’s efforts to cultivate legitimacy, Turkey’s counterinsurgency strategies, and civilian perceptions of the PKK, all mutually influenced one another. Based on this analysis, I argue that the mechanisms that produce popular legitimacy coevolve with insurgents’ behaviors, states’ interventions, and civilians’ perceptions.     

Damage functions and estimates of fratricide and collateral damage

There are multiple damage functions in the literature to estimate the probability that a single weapon detonation destroys a point target. This paper addresses differences in the tails of four of the more popular damage functions. These four cover the asymptotic tail behaviors of all monotonically decreasing damage functions with well‐behaved hazard functions. The differences in estimates of probability of kill are quite dramatic for large aim‐point offsets. This is particularly important when balancing the number of threats that can be engaged with the chances of fratricide and collateral damage. In general, analysts substituting one damage function for another may badly estimate kill probabilities in offset‐aiming, which could result in poor doctrine. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 50: 306–321, 2003.