Additive utilities with finite sets: Applications in the management sciences

A theory of additive utilities is discussed for cases where the set X, on which an individual's preference-indifference relation is defined, is a subset of the Cartesian product of n finite sets. A number of potential applications of additive utilities in decision making are presented.     

Contracting Out Security

Private security companies (PSCs) currently receive a great deal of attention in the news media, in sensationalist reporting, and increasingly in scholarly books and articles. While the scholarly books and articles make significant contributions to our understanding of this global phenomenon, there are several impediments to analysis that must be recognized and overcome if analysis is to be improved. Three of these impediments are reviewed in this article. The author suggests that US government material is currently available to minimize impediments and offers a framework to make analytical sense of it. Since contracting out is based on contracts, and unless the complexities of awarding and managing contracts are understood, recommendations made to reform the process of contracting out security are unrealistic.     

The Myth of British Minimum Force in Counterinsurgency Campaigns during Decolonisation (1945–1970)

This article argues that the dominant paradigm in studies of British small wars positing a central role of minimum force in doctrinal guidelines for counterinsurgency needs to be even more fundamentally revised than has been argued in recent debates. More specifically, it argues that minimum force is nowhere to be found in British doctrine during the small wars of decolonisation. The need for revision also applies to the way British counterinsurgency is usually sharply contrasted with French counterinsurgency. British doctrine during this period is better understood when placed in its proper historical context. This means comparing it with the other two most significant examples of doctrinal development for small wars of decolonisation – those of France and Portugal. This comparison shows that British counterinsurgency was not uniquely population-centric, and this characteristic cannot, therefore, be the reason for its arguably superior if far from infallible performance. Evidence for these arguments comes primarily from doctrinal sources developed specifically to deal with counterinsurgency, complemented with insights from key military thinkers and archival sources of relevance practices. Some wider implications of this analysis for the relationship between combat experience and doctrinal development as well as for counterinsurgency are identified.     

United States Internal Security Assistance to Pakistan1

Pakistan confronts numerous domestic security challenges including jihadist extremism, Sunni-Shi'a sectarian violence, drug trafficking, illegal commodity smuggling, endemic corruption, and systemic problems with the provision of justice and law enforcement. While much has been written about US military assistance to the Government of Pakistan (GOP) and the ever-evolving political relations between the two countries, basic questions of highest policy significance related to Pakistan's internal security have never been fully studied or considered. This essay begins to address these empirical lacunae. It first provides a comprehensive examination of Pakistan's internal security environment and the effectiveness of the GOP's criminal justice structures in dealing with these challenges. The paper then goes on to assess the impact and utility of the current suite of US law enforcement assistance in helping to fortify Pakistan's domestic security environment. The study raises a number of difficult questions pertinent to the long-term impact of this support, particularly in terms of its effect on fostering a viable, accountable and transparent system of civilian governance and policing.