Discretization of the continuous ambush game

This article further considers the two‐person continuous ambush game introduced by Ruckle. This article extends the work of Ruckle, Baston and Bostock, and Lee by considering the game for a general number of barriers. By supplanting optimal strategies from a discretized version of the game, we show that there always exists a value for the game, which, furthermore, can be found using linear programming techniques. Further to this, we show that the discrete ambush game considered by Garnaev has the same value as a continuous game, allowing many new results to be obtained in both games. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 50: 515–529, 2003     

Exploiting self‐canceling demand point aggregation error for some planar rectilinear median location problems

When solving location problems in practice it is quite common to aggregate demand points into centroids. Solving a location problem with aggregated demand data is computationally easier, but the aggregation process introduces error. We develop theory and algorithms for certain types of centroid aggregations for rectilinear 1‐median problems. The objective is to construct an aggregation that minimizes the maximum aggregation error. We focus on row‐column aggregations, and make use of aggregation results for 1‐median problems on the line to do aggregation for 1‐median problems in the plane. The aggregations developed for the 1‐median problem are then used to construct approximate n‐median problems. We test the theory computationally on n‐median problems (n ≥ 1) using both randomly generated, as well as real, data. Every error measure we consider can be well approximated by some power function in the number of aggregate demand points. Each such function exhibits decreasing returns to scale. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 50: 614–637, 2003.     

Scheduling with parallel processors and linear delay costs

This paper deals with the sequencing problem of minimizing linear delay costs with parallel identical processors. The theoretical properties of this m-machine problem are explored, and the problem of determining an optimum scheduling procedure is examined. Properties of the optimum schedule are given as well as the corresponding reductions in the number of schedules that must be evaluated in the search for an optimum. An experimental comparison of scheduling rules is reported; this indicates that although a class of effective heuristics can be identified, their relative behavior is difficult to characterize.     

OTHER-THAN-INTERNET (OTI) CYBERWARFARE: CHALLENGES FOR ETHICS,LAW, AND POLICY

Almost all discussions of cyberwarfare, other cyber-attacks, and cyber-espionage have focused entirely on the Internet as the chief means of damage – the Internet as a ‘vector,’ using a term from the theory of infectious diseases. However there are a variety of means, some of which have already been used, that involve cyber-exploitation using vectors other than the Internet. Malware can be installed in the integrated circuits of computers and servers, but also in any devices attached to them – thumb drives, CDs, printers, scanners, and so on. One can also use various forms of electromagnetic radiation at a distance of meters or more to exfiltrate data or to infiltrate corrupt data. I call this large and diverse family of unwanted interference with the functioning of information processing systems other-than-Internet (OTI) attacks on information systems. Stuxnet, and probably the 2007 Israeli corruption of Syrian air defenses, were OTI attacks. Such OTI techniques are more difficult to develop than creating malware, requiring electronic manufacturing facilities or novel technologies, and are thus accessible only to larger corporations and technologically sophisticated countries. Particularly vulnerable would be countries (like the United States and Europe) whose information processing devices are mainly produced outside of the country. Once exploitations via the Internet become harder to perpetrate, OTI exploitations are certain to grow dramatically, eventually requiring equipment for critical uses to be expensively fabricated in (and transported using) secure facilities; expensive detection measures will have to be instituted. This will create challenges for policy, law, and ethics, as well as greatly increasing the cost of many electronic devices.     

ON RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY AND THE STUDY OF TERRORISM

When rational choice theory is applied to the study of terrorism, it is important that attention be given to the derived principles of constrained utility maximization. Particularly useful is the Slutsky equation, which rigorously analyzes the quantity response in one activity to a price change in another. By directing attention to assumptions and/or information about compensated cross price elasticities, expenditure shares, and income elasticities, the Slutsky equation can provide critical guidance in both theoretical and empirical analysis.     

Country Survey I–Military Spending in India 1

After a brief survey of the Indian economy, we survey the supply and demand of military expenditures in India over the last four decades. The causes of military expenditures appear to include regional rivalries and protracted conflicts, but it has proven difficult to delineate these with empirical models. The effects of military spending in India on economic growth appear to be benign, despite much speculation to the contrary. However, the opportunity costs of defence spending are shown to be considerable. We conclude with speculation about the role of debt and debt servicing in retarding future economic growth in India. We also speculate about the potential for the creation of a war economy in India.     

FOOD AID

Abstract

This paper seeks to critically appraise Africa's position within the United Nations Security Council from the inception of the UN in 1945 until the end of 2010, spanning the entire history of the world body. A few factors make such an appraisal a useful exercise. These include the ongoing debates about the reform of the Council in particular and the UN as a whole, and the growing interest that many African students and observers of and actors in international relations seem to have developed in recent years in the working of the world body. In this appraisal, emphasis will be placed on the origin and rationale behind the establishment of the Security Council as well as the use of the veto power by its permanent members, with a special reference to Africa.     

THE REGIONAL ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF MILITARY BASE REALIGNMENTS AND CLOSURES IN GERMANY

We identify the causal effect of a reduction in military personnel on a number of socioeconomic indicators within the peripheries of military bases. The base realignments and closures in Germany are used as an exogenous source of variation that allows us to identify the effect of a demand shock on household income, output, unemployment, and tax revenue within a specified buffer zone around each base. The analysis covers 298 communities for the period 2003–2007. Consistent with evidence found elsewhere, we find that these base adjustments have only a marginal impact on the local community in which the bases are located.     

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.