The failure of defense planning in European Post-Communist Defense Institutions: ascertaining causation and determining solutions

By any objective measure, defense institutions in Central and Eastern Europe have all but universally been incapable of producing viable defense plans that are based on objective costing and operational planning data. This situation exists in spite the provision of considerable Western advice and assistance, let alone reporting to and receiving assessments by NATO’s International Staff under Partnership for Peace, as well as via the integrated defense planning and reporting systems. An explanation for this systematic failure across European post-Communist defense institutions can be found in the continued slow development of an over-arching policy framework which directs and approves all activities of the armed forces, as well as the de-centralization of financial decision-making down to capability providers. The essay ends with an examination of the adverse effects of the early introduction of planning programming, budgeting system (PPBS), have had on the development of effective policy and planning capabilities within these defense institutions.     

HARNESSING GLOBAL TRADE DATA FOR BIOLOGICAL ARMS CONTROL

Unlike treaties dealing with nuclear and chemical weapons, the Biological Weapons Convention still lacks formal verification measures, 31 years after entering into force. Here we propose a global export-import monitoring system of biological dual-use items as an additional measure for a web of biological arms controls that could complement traditional export controls. We suggest that such a measure may help to guide consultation or verification processes in the biological area.     

“GOOD COP/BAD COP” AS A MODEL FOR NONPROLIFERATION DIPLOMACY TOWARD NORTH KOREA AND IRAN

Scholarly and popular literature in the recent past has framed nonproliferation diplomacy toward both Iran and North Korea as an example of “good cop/bad cop,” a social-psychological strategy borrowed from law enforcement to describe a process for forcing a confession by subjecting a target to stressful emotional contrast. This article examines those two cases, roughly covering the period since 2003, when the most recent attempts to deal with the Iranian and North Korean proliferation threats began, in light of criteria for employment of the good cop/bad cop strategy. There is some evidence that within the framework of the six-party talks with North Korea and within the framework of the EU-3-U.S. diplomacy toward Iran, the players seeking nonproliferation have adopted good cop/bad cop roles to that end. The article concludes, however, that while there are similarities to the interrogation room technique, the complexity of the international political environment as compared to the interrogation room has prevented the states involved from successfully adopting or effectively exploiting good and bad cop roles. Substantial and exploitable differences of interest among them, and the availability of alternative “escape routes” for the target state, raise serious questions about the applicability of the good cop/bad cop strategy to these two nonproliferation cases, and even about its applicability in future nonproliferation challenges.     

Saudi Arabia's defence offset programmes: Progress,policy and performance

This paper discusses the performance of Saudi Arabia's defence offset programmes. The Kingdom is involved in some of the World's biggest defence offset agreements and a review of the problems it has faced and the policies it has introduced provides a useful insight into that part of the international defence market where trade and development meet.

The paper reviews the origins and development of Saudi Arabia's major defence offset programmes. Saudi policies towards defence offsets are outlined before assessing the practical impact of the programmes themselves. The author concludes that Saudi Arabia's offset projects have had only a minor impact on the Kingdom's economy to date and makes a number of policy recommendations which are designed to enhance the utility of the programmes in the Kingdom's drive to enhance and diversify the technological base of its economy.     

基于TCP/IP协议的无人机IFFC系统仿真

为了提高无人机自主飞行、自主攻击的能力,设计一种整体式的无人机综合火力/飞行控制系统(IFFC系统),并对激光制导炸弹模态下的系统进行数字仿真.系统基于Winsock的TCP/IP协议的C/S模式,在服务器上完成无人机火控解算、火飞耦合器设计,在客户端设计基于PID算法的飞行控制模块.火控系统根据飞行状态和目标信息实时计算炸弹可达区域,瞄准距离误差经过火飞耦合器形成航向和俯仰控制命令反馈给飞控系统,驱动载机消.除瞄准误差,实现闭环控制.实验结果表明,无人机的瞄准速度和攻击精度都有所提高,为进一步开展自主式UAV的研究打下基础.     

Effects of Mg/PTFE pyrotechnic compositions on reignition characteristics of base bleed propellants and heating mechanism

The effects of magnesium/polytetrafluoroethylene (Mg/PTFE) pyrotechnic compositions on the coupled flow field and reignition mechanism are important aspects governing the performance and range of base bleed projectiles (BBPs).Owing to a decrease in pressure and temperature when the BBP leaves the muzzle,rapid depressurization occurs,which extinguishes the base bleed propellant.The Mg/PTFE py-rotechnic composition pressed in the igniter of the base bleed unit (BBU) provides additional energy to the BBU via a chemical reaction.Thus,the extinguished base bleed propellant is reignited under the effect of high-temperature combustion gas jets from the igniter.In this study,a numerical analysis is conducted to evaluate the effects of PTFE and Mg granularity as well as Mg/PTFE pyrotechnic compo-sitions.Owing to the rapid depressurization,the temperature and pressure was found to decrease for different Mg/PTFE pyrotechnic compositions.However,the depressurization time increased as the PTFE granularity increased,the Mg granularity decreased,and the Mg content increased.When the pressure in the combustion chamber of the BBU decreased to the atmospheric pressure,the combustion gas jets from the igniter expand upstream (rather than downstream).However,these combustion gas jets exhibit different axial and radial expansion characteristics depending on the pyrotechnic compositions used.The results show that the reignition delay time,td,of the base bleed propellant was 377.608,94.27,387.243,523.966,and 221.094 ms for cases A-E,respectively.Therefore,it was concluded that the Mg/PTFE pyrotechnic composition of case B was the most beneficial for the reignition of the base bleed propellant,with the earliest addition of energy and mass to the BBP.     

One-bit splitting deceptive jamming against SAR

One-bit quantization is a promising technique due to its performance retention and complexity reduction in a deceptive jammer against synthetic aperture radar (SAR). In this paper, the 1-bit quantization technology is utilized to agilely generate split false targets in the SAR imagery once the radar signal is intercepted, which reduces the complexity of the jammer significantly with guaranteed focusing quality. A single-frequency threshold is used to decompose harmonics incurred by the 1-bit quantization, and its parameters are adjusted through different pulse repetition intervals to provide steerable modulations. In this way, the SAR signal is split into coupled false scatterers during the 1-bit interception. By further deploying amplitude, time-delay, and Doppler frequency modulations on the 1-bit intercepted signal, the split false targets are created. The proposed approach is compared with different deceptive jamming methods to show its validity in effectiveness and cost, and numerical experiments are also presented for verification.     

基于粗糙集-神经网络编队协同空战决策系统

为了提高空战决策的实时性和准确度,将粗糙集理论和神经网络引入到编队协同空战战术决策研究中,提出了应用SOM网络-粗糙集-BP网络集成进行编队协同空战战术决策的方案:应用SOM网络离散化决策系统输入数据的连续属性值;利用粗糙集数据分析方法,从数据中提取出规则将输入映射到输出的子空间上;在这个子空间上用BP网络进行逼近.2:4编队空战实例仿真结果验证该方案的可行性,在数据充分的条件下,该方案可以推广应用于其它空战决策系统.     

Waiting time analysis of the M/G/1 queue with finite retrial group

We consider an M/G/1 retrial queue with finite capacity of the retrial group. First, we obtain equations governing the dynamic of the waiting time. Then, we focus on the numerical inversion of the density function and the computation of moments. These results are used to approximate the waiting time of the M/G/1 queue with infinite retrial group for which direct analysis seems intractable. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2007     

Interval scheduling: A survey

In interval scheduling, not only the processing times of the jobs but also their starting times are given. This article surveys the area of interval scheduling and presents proofs of results that have been known within the community for some time. We first review the complexity and approximability of different variants of interval scheduling problems. Next, we motivate the relevance of interval scheduling problems by providing an overview of applications that have appeared in literature. Finally, we focus on algorithmic results for two important variants of interval scheduling problems. In one variant we deal with nonidentical machines: instead of each machine being continuously available, there is a given interval for each machine in which it is available. In another variant, the machines are continuously available but they are ordered, and each job has a given “maximal” machine on which it can be processed. We investigate the complexity of these problems and describe algorithms for their solution. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2007