Northern Ireland and minimum force: the refutation of a concept?

The debate over whether there exists a British counter-insurgency tradition of minimum force is one that has been thoroughly discussed. Is there anything left to say? This study suggests there is further insight to be attained if one explicitly evaluates the concept of minimum force in relation to the conduct of the security forces in the years of the Northern Ireland conflict. Through an examination of three key periods in the conflict, it will be shown that while there was invariably an awareness of the need to act with restraint among senior officers at the strategic level, this was often difficult to apply at the tactical level in the heat of confrontation. The argument demonstrates that the British Army, and other instruments of the state, rarely acted in a manner that could be described as ‘minimal’. Instead, it was the broader liberal values of the British state that explains largely the degrees of restraint exhibited by the government and security forces.     

Conflict and fiscal capacity

We examine the role of war in retarding state fiscal capacity in developing countries, measured by tax revenue ratios to GDP. We build a simple theoretical model of a factionalized state, where patronage substitutes for common interest public goods, along with violent contestation over a rent or prize. Our dynamic panel empirical analysis applied to 79 developing countries, during 1980–2010, indicates that war, especially civil war, retards fiscal capacity, along with imperfect democracy, political repression, poor governance, and dependence on oil and macroeconomic mismanagement. High intensity conflict is particularly destructive of state capacity. In countries experiencing low intensity wars, other institutional factors may matter more than war. The diminution of fiscal capacity due to war appears less pronounced after the end of the cold war.     

Russia's pivot to China goes astray: the impact on the Asia-Pacific security architecture

High-level declarations in Moscow and Beijing on the steady progress in upgrading their strategic partnership depart increasingly far from the reality of shrinking economic ties and diverging political perspectives. In late 2014, the dynamic development of this partnership appeared to have the potential of becoming a major shift in the fluid security balance in the Asia-Pacific region; in late 2015, however, the concerned neighbours have more reasons to worry about the deformations in the development of Russia–China relations. President Vladimir Putin and President Xi Jinping are eager to demonstrate perfect personal rapport but their mutual trust is open to doubt and their views on priorities of domestic and international order are in fact strikingly dissimilar. The deep contraction of trade and the lack of interest from Chinese investors propels the Russian leadership towards increasing the emphasis on the security dimension of the partnership, and this makes Russia one of the key sources of instability in the Asia-Pacific region and a challenge to the East Asian peace. It is also entirely possible that the Russian challenge to the stability of the world system would result in strengthening of the key institutions of its governance, thus leaving the revisionist Russia in isolation.     

An application of yield management for Internet Service Providers

In this paper we study strategies for better utilizing the network capacity of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) when they are faced with stochastic and dynamic arrivals and departures of customers attempting to log‐on or log‐off, respectively. We propose a method in which, depending on the number of modems available, and the arrival and departure rates of different classes of customers, a decision is made whether to accept or reject a log‐on request. The problem is formulated as a continuous time Markov Decision Process for which optimal policies can be readily derived using techniques such as value iteration. This decision maximizes the discounted value to ISPs while improving service levels for higher class customers. The methodology is similar to yield management techniques successfully used in airlines, hotels, etc. However, there are sufficient differences, such as no predefined time horizon or reservations, that make this model interesting to pursue and challenging. This work was completed in collaboration with one of the largest ISPs in Connecticut. The problem is topical, and approaches such as those proposed here are sought by users. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Naval Research Logistics 48:348–362, 2001     

Scheduling customer arrivals to a stochastic service system

An efficient algorithm for determining the optimal arrival schedule for customers in a stochastic service system is developed. All customers arrive exactly when scheduled, and service times are modeled as iid Erlang random variables. Costs are incurred at a fixed rate per unit of time each customer waits for service, and an additional cost is incurred for every unit of time the server operates beyond a scheduled closing time. The objective is to minimize total operating cost. This type of problem arises in many operational contexts including transportation, manufacturing, and appointment‐based services. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 46: 549–559, 1999     

Decomposition algorithms for the maximum-weight connected graph problem

Given a positive integer R and a weight for each vertex in a graph, the maximum-weight connected graph problem (MCG) is to find a connected subgraph with R vertices that maximizes the sum of their weights. MCG has applications to communication network design and facility expansion. The constrained MCG (CMCG) is MCG with a constraint that one predetermined vertex must be included in the solution. In this paper, we introduce a class of decomposition algorithms for MCG. These algorithms decompose MCG into a number of small CMCGs by adding vertices one at a time and building a partial graph. They differ in the ordering of adding vertices. Proving that finding an ordering that gives the minimum number of CMCGs is NP-complete, we present three heuristic algorithms. Experimental results show that these heuristics are very effective in reducing computation and that different orderings can significantly affect the number of CMCGs to be solved. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 45: 817–837, 1998     

Iterative methods for dynamic stochastic shortest path problems

We consider a routing policy that forms a dynamic shortest path in a network with independent, positive and discrete random arc costs. When visiting a node in the network, the costs for the arcs going out of this node are realized, and then the policy will determine which node to visit next with the objective of minimizing the expected cost from the current node to the destination node. This paper proposes an approach, which mimics the classical label-correcting approach, to compute the expected path cost. First, we develop a sequential implementation of this approach and establish some properties about the implementation. Next, we develop stochastic versions of some well-known label-correcting methods, including the first-in-first-out method, the two-queue method, the threshold algorithms, and the small-label-first principle. We perform numerical experiments to evaluate these methods and observe that fast methods for deterministic networks can become very slow for stochastic networks. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 45: 769–789, 1998     

Automated air load planning

We describe the development of a heuristic algorithm for determining efficient 2-dimensional packings in cargo aircraft where cargo placement constraints are critically important in determining the feasibility of packing locations. We review the performance of a new algorithm versus some traditional ones for aircraft loading. The algorithm is also tested in a more generalized setting where there exist no additional constraints on items, to suggest applicability in other environments. The new algorithm has been used worldwide in the Automated Air Load Planning System (AALPS) for cargo aircraft loading, with much success. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 45: 751–768, 1998     

A nation-in-the-making,in arms: control of force,strategy and the Ukrainian Volunteer Battalions

At the core of waging war and strategy is the creation, control and use of force. This article investigates the volunteer battalions that mobilized in Ukraine during the spring of 2014. It contextualizes the volunteer phenomenon and focuses on the state strategies to establish control over these militias. As ambiguous entities arising from a situation characterized by rapid social change – revolution and war – the volunteer battalions threatened existing hierarchies and questioned state authority. The situation was exacerbated by the war, which deviated from the expectations of Ukrainian combatants and Western military observers alike. The state nevertheless enjoyed a modicum of success in reining in the militias through four strategies of undermining, co-option, incorporation and coercion. While predominantly integrated into a more rigid category of paramilitary forces, the volunteers continue to play a role in both the Ukrainian society and security sector to the unforeseeable future.     

An index policy for a stochastic scheduling model with improving/deteriorating jobs

We consider stochastic scheduling models which have the natural character that jobs improve while being processed, but deteriorate (and may possibly leave the system altogether) while processing is diverted elsewhere. Such restless bandit problems are shown to be indexable in the sense of Whittle. A numerical study which elucidates the strong performance of the resulting index policy is complemented by a theoretical study which demonstrates the optimality of the index policy under given conditions and which develops performance guarantees for the index heuristic more generally. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 49: 706–721, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/nav.10036