Small world,big guns: globalization,interstate security networks and conventional weapons imports

With the burgeoning influence of emerging markets in Asia, a tectonic shift is taking place in the global security landscape. Asian states are concomitantly arming as their economic clout grows. In light of these developments, security analysts would benefit from a formal means of placing these arms acquisitions in a structural context. Are arms acquisitions on par with the expectations of Asian states, given their structural dispositions, or are recent acquisitions beyond anticipated levels? By using a dynamic panel regression of 187 states from 1950 to 2011, this research predicts arms import volume using the degree of interstate arms linkages, the size of a state's military, and its level of economic development. The technique offers analysts a formal means of distinguishing orthodox behavior in importing conventional weapons from extraneous security motivations. The article concludes by generating near-term forecasts of Asian arms imports and discussing the implications of the technique.     

伴随维修组维修模型聚合方法

面向装备维修保障系统的多分辨率建模问题,提出了一种装备维修模型的聚合方法,为装备维修保障系统模型的聚合研究提供了一种新的思路。该方法通过聚合故障输入和推理维修状态实现维修模型的聚合。最后通过基于MATLAB的仿真实验验证了该方法的可行性。通过实例验证可以看出,该方法缩短了仿真时间,减少了复杂系统底层建模的工作量。     

The Changing Nature of Legitimate Authority in the Just War Tradition

ABSTRACT

The legitimate authority principle has become reduced to the issue of state authority. In its current formulation, the state has the sole authority to wage war, and because non-state actors, by their very definition, cannot satisfy this principle, their use of force is inherently unethical. This does not reflect the reality that non-state actors are increasingly engaging in the use of force, sometimes legitimately. As a result, the legitimate authority principle can and should look beyond the state. This article navigates a terrain in which non-state actors engage in the use of force, and in which revisionist just war thinking proposes that the concept of legitimate authority is irrelevant to thinking about the ethics of war. It proposes a principled approach to the inclusion of some non-state actors under the rubric of legitimate authority. This approach draws upon the historical development of the legitimate authority principle and incorporates the factors important to early writers on the subject.     

The strategic purpose of individual augmentee officers for junior partners in multinational military operations

ABSTRACT

This article examines the strategic purpose of Individual Augmentee Officers (IAOs) for junior partners in multinational military operations through an exploratory case study of Danish IAOs in Iraq and South Sudan between 2014 and 2017. IAOs are individual officers who are moved from their normal functions to be seconded to other units of the armed forces of their own or another country or an international institution. The study concludes that IAOs function as strategically important, yet not necessarily indispensable, supplements to military contingents in several ways: making tangible contributions to the overall mission (contributing), gaining access to information, knowledge, and experience (learning), and lobbying decision-making processes within mission headquarters (lobbying). The usefulness of IAOs depends on whether the junior partner has specific interests and a significant presence in the theatre and whether the mission is conducted as a UN mission, a NATO mission, or an ad hoc coalition.