Securitising humanitarian assistance and post-conflict reconstruction in Africa: A critical review of South Africa's new defence policy

The South African Defence Review 2014 is the country's new defence policy. The Review, which is expected to steer South African defence policymaking for the next few decades, discusses in detail the role of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) in peace missions in Africa and proposes the direct involvement of the country's soldiers in both military and civilian tasks, from peacekeeping to humanitarian assistance, post-conflict reconstruction and development. This paper contains a critical review of the Review with regard to South Africa's envisaged contribution to regional and continental peace and stability. It is argued that humanitarian assistance and post-conflict reconstruction should not be securitised and that the SANDF should only be tasked with peacekeeping and the establishment of stability and security in fragile in-conflict and post-conflict settings. The humanitarian work should be left to humanitarian and aid agencies, while reconstruction and development should be left to organisations such as the New Partnership for Africa's Development, continental and international development organisations, and local actors.     

Offset Contracts as an Insurance Device in Building the National Security

A dynamic multi-stage decision-theoretic approach is introduced to establish the optimal offset and its incidence, the contract price arising from bargaining, and the scale of the acquisition. A new rationale is suggested for offsets in terms of their role as an insurance devise. Results are derived for the pricing of delivery contracts subject to offset claims and their national security implications. It is shown that the national security is strictly convex in the offset transaction. As to the incidence of the offset, the offset claim is shown to be capitalised in the delivery price. The bargaining price is shown to depend on the value of the product to be delivered for the national security, the relative negotiation power of the contracting partners and the social cost of public funds. The analysis highlights the expectation effects of offsets on the bargaining price and the scale of delivery. The results aid in explaining why offsets are widely used in procurement contracts for defence materiel. As they contribute to the national security, they should be allowed to survive and not be denied under competition laws.     

防空中存在两次转火射击时的火力分配模型

在对空防御时 ,进行火力分配不但要考虑到一次性分配的最佳方案 ,而且应该考虑是否在条件允许的情况下进行一次或两次转火射击 ,如果存在 ,怎样进行转火才能使其射击效果最好。把威胁判断和火力分配结合起来考虑 ,以我方的生存概率为指标 ,建立了存在两次转火射击的火力分配模型 ,并用实例计算检验了模型的正确性。     

诗学视域下的高校英美文学教学探讨

当今国内的英美文学研究已呈现出从赏析到文论探讨的趋势,英美文学课程的教学也应该适应这一趋势。广义的文论也称为诗学,包括形式诗学和文化诗学两大部分。形式诗学要求英美文学的教学注重文本分析等技术手段,文化诗学则要求英美文学的教学与历史、文化等因素相结合,扩展视野,增加深度。两者的有效结合将给国内高校的英美文学教学带来全新的体验和特色。     

海军舰载导弹防空系统信息作战方法

信息与火力是海军舰载导弹防空系统研究的核心问题,运用信息作战原理,在给定攻击战机的条件下,对舰载导弹防空系统的信息与火力联合作战能力的分析表明:与提高作战安全性的隐形战机相比,军事诱骗战术更易降低舰载导弹防空系统的火力防御能力.火力对作战能力的贡献约为信息的4倍.根据这一结论,可以为海军舰载导弹防空系统开发出基于信息作战原理的新战法,全面提高指战员在实战中把握信息与火力的运用规律、实施信息作战、做出科学决策和夺取战场胜利的能力.     

水面舰艇对鱼雷防御决策仿真分析

如何对来袭鱼雷进行防御成为水面舰艇对潜防御作战的重中之重.根据世界主要海军国家普遍装备的火箭助飞声诱饵的使用原理、基本战技性能,结合"线导+声自导"鱼雷的作战过程,仔细分析了水面舰艇对抗鱼雷的作战态势,通过大量的仿真计算得出火箭助飞声诱饵的最佳使用方式以及舰艇的机动方法.     

On the contribution of defense innovation to China’s economic growth

As the most knowledge-intensive industrial sectors, China’s defense industries are developing very fast. The present paper will explore the contribution of China’s defense innovation to its economic growth. Cobb–Douglas production function, integrating defense and non-defense stock in knowledge, is applied during the course. In addition, an input–output analysis of defense equipment procurement was done. Positive effect of China’s defense innovation on economic growth has been revealed by comparing the results from the two methods. And some suggestions are made to strengthen the effect.     

集团军区域防空体系的火力区分研究

密集部署的集团军区域防空体系,各防空群火力范围相互重叠,火力关系复杂。需要军防空指挥机构对所属各防空群的火力运用进行统一调控。论述了军区域防空体系火力区分的基本含义、特点和实施方法,建立了相应的数学模型,目的是为军防空火力运用和军新型防空指挥自动化系统开发提供理论指导和技术支持。     

目标识别的D-S融合算法

从防空角度出发,详细地阐明了D-S理论中关于多传感器数据融合的原理和目标识别的方法,同时结合应用实例给出了详细和可行的算法.     

Capacity allocation to sales agents in a decentralized logistics network

Many logistics systems operate in a decentralized way, while most optimization models assume a centralized planner. One example of a decentralized system is in some sea cargo companies: sales agents, who share ship capacity on a network, independently accept cargo from their location and contribute to the revenue of the system. The central headquarters does not directly control the agents' decisions but can influence them through system design and incentives. In this paper, we model the firm's problem to determine the best capacity allocation to the agents such that system revenue is maximized. In the special case of a single‐route, we formulate the problem as a mixed integer program incorporating the optimal agent behavior. For the NP‐hard multiple‐route case, we propose several heuristics for the problem. Computational experiments show that the decentralized system generally performs worse when network capacity is tight and that the heuristics perform reasonably well. We show that the decentralized system may perform arbitrarily worse than the centralized system when the number of locations goes to infinity, although the choice of sales incentive impacts the performance. We develop an upper bound for the decentralized system, where the bound gives insight on the performance of the heuristics in large systems. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2007