Mailed Fists and Velvet Gloves: The Relevance of Smart Power to Singapore’s Evolving Defence and Foreign Policy

Abstract

This paper critically assesses the conceptual utility of smart power to Singapore’s evolving defence and foreign policy and behaviour. First, as a political concept adopted by the United States for its post-Afghanistan strategy, smart power does not travel easily. With qualifications, however, the notion is relevant to Singapore’s policy pragmatism and its emphasis on deterrence and diplomacy. Second, Singapore’s willingness to employ its military assets in disaster relief and peacekeeping arguably hews most closely to smart power’s mix of hard and soft approaches. Third, Singapore’s contributions to global governance, albeit limited, imply a rethinking among its leaders on the place of values in its policy.     

不确定性作战任务形式化描述方法

针对复杂作战环境下作战任务的不可预知性特点,对不确定性任务的形式化描述方法进行了深入研究。分析不确定环境导致的任务分解和执行过程中存在的不确定性因素,从任务本身的不确定性、任务之间关系不确定性以及作战单元执行不确定性等方面,对不确定性任务进行了形式化描述,提出了不确定性任务形式化描述流程,最后通过一个实例对所提方法进行了验证。     

Exact expected values of variance estimators for simulation

We formulate exact expressions for the expected values of selected estimators of the variance parameter (that is, the sum of covariances at all lags) of a steady‐state simulation output process. Given in terms of the autocovariance function of the process, these expressions are derived for variance estimators based on the simulation analysis methods of nonoverlapping batch means, overlapping batch means, and standardized time series. Comparing estimator performance in a first‐order autoregressive process and the M/M/1 queue‐waiting‐time process, we find that certain standardized time series estimators outperform their competitors as the sample size becomes large. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2007