Livelihood systems of enlisted Ugandan Army soldiers: honour and reform of the UPDF

This article explores the livelihood pathways of serving Ugandan Army soldiers and traces their methods and motivations for enlistment. All were from areas of northern Uganda affected by nearly two decades of violent instability. With the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) increasing recruitment eligibility requirements and taking other measures to improve professionalism, some soldiers enlisted using false credentials and names, travelled to skirt unofficial ethnic quotas, and joined against their family's wishes. The Army's defence reform process was intended to preclude such problems. The article concludes with reflections on what strategic deception (by both recruits and the Army) may imply for warriors' honour.     

Lessons in airpower projection: Indochina and Algeria

The lessons from the two French counterinsurgencies, Indochina and Algeria, give rise to a new understanding of the projection of airpower in remote and hostile environments and the purpose, design, and use of aircraft in counterinsurgency. In both Indochina and Algeria, the campaigns were ones of poverty, and it is their imaginative management under severe resource constraints that provides thoughtful and applicable lessons for today. In both cases, airpower held the promise of delivering victory and solving the resource issue. In Indochina, acquisition of the needed aircraft, operating knowledge, and experience came too slowly to realize this promise. In Algeria, the French embraced the lessons from Indochina and were quite successful and innovative in the use of airpower. The lessons can be reduced to four requirements: (1) a network of airfields for liaison, ground-support, and intra-theater airlift to enable effective air support of ground forces; (2) a solid, reliable, and simple ground-support aircraft capable of operating from forward airfields within range of ground engagements; (3) a capable intra-theater heavy-lift transport to supply the extended ground forces; and (4) helicopter capability to enhance tactical troop mobility and support.     

基于多特征模糊融合的疲劳状态判决

在基于视觉的疲劳驾驶识别过程中,使用单个特征进行疲劳驾驶判断,常常会受到非普遍适用性、噪声等因素的影响,从而导致识别率降低。为了解决眼部特征参数或者是嘴巴特征参数单个特征识别率低甚至特使环境无法识别的问题,提出一种基于多特征融合的判决方法,利用了各种特征之间的优势互补,可以降低噪声和类内类间差异的影响,从而提高系统的性能,并且能增强适用性。最后通过实验结果证明,使用眼部和嘴巴特征融合的方法比单一的判决方法准确率更高。     

Applying Lanchester's linear law to model the Ardennes campaign

In modern warfare, many believe the decisive factor in winning a battle is seizing the right moment to shift from defense to attack, or vice versa. This paper attempts to bring that perspective to Lanchester's differential equations of warfare, and continues the application of Lanchester's linear law to the analysis of the World War II battle of Ardennes, as reported in earlier issues of Naval Research Logistics by Bracken and by Fricker. A new variable, shift time, accounting for the timing of the shift between defense and attack is explicitly included in our version of the model, and it helps obtain improved goodness of fit to historical data. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 48:653–661, 2001     

A risk function for the stochastic modeling of electric capacity expansion

We present a stochastic optimization model for planning capacity expansion under capacity deterioration and demand uncertainty. The paper focuses on the electric sector, although the methodology can be used in other applications. The goals of the model are deciding which energy types must be installed, and when. Another goal is providing an initial generation plan for short periods of the planning horizon that might be adequately modified in real time assuming penalties in the operation cost. Uncertainty is modeled under the assumption that the demand is a random vector. The cost of the risk associated with decisions that may need some tuning in the future is included in the objective function. The proposed scheme to solve the nonlinear stochastic optimization model is Generalized Benders' decomposition. We also exploit the Benders' subproblem structure to solve it efficiently. Computational results for moderate‐size problems are presented along with comparison to a general‐purpose nonlinear optimization package. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 48:662–683, 2001     

When is model complexity too much? Illustrating the benefits of simple models with Hughes' salvo equations

The simulations that many defense analysts rely upon in their studies continue to grow in size and complexity. This paper contrasts the guidance that the authors have received—from some of the giants of military operations research—with the current practice. In particular, the analytic utility of Hughes' simple salvo equations is compared with that of the complex Joint Warfighting System (JWARS), with respect to JWARS' key performance parameters. The comparison suggests that a family of analytic tools supports the best analyses. It follows that smaller, more agile, and transparent models, such as Hughes' salvo equations, are underutilized in defense analyses. We believe that these models should receive more attention, use, and funding. To illustrate this point, this paper uses two very simple models (by modern standards) to rapidly generate insights on the value of information relative to force strength. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2003     

Insurgency in Afghanistan: implications for Pakistan's internal and external security

In the aftermath of 9/11, the USA embarked on a massive global hunt for terrorists and launched its “Operation Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan. Its failure to control insurgency in Afghanistan spilled over into Pakistan, with disastrous consequences. The resurgence of the Taliban with more formidable tactics and maneuvering skills has become more troublesome for both Afghanistan and Pakistan and for the USA and its allied forces. The fierce comeback of the insurgents has challenged the political and territorial integrity of Pakistan, one that it cannot tolerate. This article analyzes the current situation and its implications for Pakistan's security. Moreover, it looks into the internal and external security complexities that Pakistan faces and the possible implications of the US exit strategy for Pakistan's security. It concludes that the security situation in Pakistan is continuously deteriorating and no part of her territory is immune from terrorists' attacks. To be successful, Pakistan must pursue a broad-based strategy that encompasses military, political, social, economic and informational domains aimed at accomplishing four major objectives: (1) elimination of foreign terrorists and their facilitators; (2) strengthening of the political and administrative institutions in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA); (3) establishing a safe and secure environment conducive for sustained development and the realization of real socio-economic progress and (4) integrating the FATA into the national mainstream. In the long term, a strategy based on the concept of “Enlightened Moderation” is the right solution, not only to the internal problems of Pakistan but also for the Muslim world and the international community.     

Signature based analysis of m‐Consecutive‐k‐out‐of‐n: F systems with exchangeable components

In this article, we study reliability properties of m‐consecutive‐k‐out‐of‐n: F systems with exchangeable components. We deduce exact formulae and recurrence relations for the signature of the system. Closed form expressions for the survival function and the lifetime distribution as a mixture of the distribution of order statistics are established as well. These representations facilitate the computation of several reliability characteristics of the system for a given exchangeable joint distribution or survival function. Finally, we provide signature‐based stochastic ordering results for the system's lifetime and investigate the IFR preservation property under the formulation of m‐consecutive‐k‐out‐of‐n: F systems. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2011     

Operation ‘enduring freedom’: a victory for a conventional force fighting an unconventional war

The track record of the US military in unconventional wars has not been good and there were fears that Operation ‘Enduring Freedom’ might suffer the same fate as previous campaigns. This contribution explores why the Taliban were defeated so easily by the US in 2001. It challenges the view that America's victory was due solely to changes in its modus operandi or that the outcome heralds a change in the fortunes of the US when fighting unconventional war. It also questions the idea that America's victory was a consequence of Taliban incompetence. Instead, it explains the defeat of the Taliban in terms of the prevailing political conditions within Afghanistan, which made them vulnerable to attack. The essay concludes that current political circumstances could, in the long run, permit the resurrection of the Taliban and undermine the US-led coalition's victory.     

Country survey VIII: Federal republic of Yugoslavia

This survey article focuses on defence economics issues and provides data and analysis on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's (FRY) defence policy, defence spending, the size of its armed forces, its defence industries and the cost of the civil war. The main section is devoted to the period from 1990 to the present and deals with the following aspects: the situation after the break‐up of the former Yugoslavia, general economic data; the cost of the civil war, the defence budget; the armed forces; the manufacture of armaments and the structure of the defence industry.