The South African Denuclearization Exemplar

ABSTRACT

South Africa's nuclear disarmament is a unique historical case, notable in part for the dramatic shift from deception to cooperation. The unprecedented transparency it demonstrated in order to convince the international community of the veracity of their disarmament is heralded as an exemplar for verifiable denuclearization. Less known is how this case affords insights into how a nuclear weapon program can be clandestinely hidden by the ambiguity provided by an otherwise completely legitimate, peaceful, nuclear energy program. Using a variety of open sources, including newly declassified internal South African and US government reports, it can be shown that South Africa employed a variety of deceptive tactics before it disarmed, and even for nearly two years after becoming a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. This article reviews that information to derive instructive lessons on the lengths that a nuclear proliferant state might go to conceal its true capabilities and intentions, and to thwart international discovery of the existence and full extent of an existing—or, in this case, a former—nuclear weapon program.     

The Canary in the Nuclear Submarine: Assessing the Nonproliferation Risk of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Loophole

ABSTRACT

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) allows states to exempt nuclear material from international safeguards for use in nuclear submarine programs. This material, however, could be diverted for nuclear weapons purposes without the knowledge of inspectors, creating a potentially dangerous loophole in the treaty. This article argues that exercising that loophole today would amount to admitting a nuclear weapon program, making it a particularly poor pathway to a weapon for a potential proliferant. Still, if states like Brazil ultimately exempt nuclear material from safeguards for a nuclear submarine effort, they could set a dangerous precedent that makes it easier for others to use the loophole as a route to a nuclear weapon capability. There are several policy options available to mitigate the damage of such a precedent; most promising is the prospect of a voluntary safeguards arrangement that would allow international inspectors to keep an eye on nuclear material even after it has been dedicated to a naval nuclear propulsion program.     

THE HEALTH OF THE NUCLEAR NONPROLIFERATION REGIME

How do we assess the health of international regimes? Many analysts have insisted recently that the nuclear nonproliferation regime is in urgent need of repair or that it should even be discarded because of its supposed ineffectiveness. However, it is essential that statements about the regime being in crisis be scrutinized for veracity and utility. While the spread of nuclear weapons poses an undeniable and serious threat to international security, a mistaken crisis mentality with respect to the regime could lead to rash attempts to alter it in unnecessary or ineffective ways or, at worst, to discard it completely. This paper returns to a theoretical framework that differentiates regimes, across both issue areas and time, to provide a more specified evaluation of regime health. By disaggregating the nuclear nonproliferation regime and assessing the individual and interactive health of multiple dimensions, a number of dimension-specific, regime-strengthening policy recommendations emerge.     

Asymptotic analysis of periodic policies for the inventory routing problem

In this article, a distribution system is studied where the sum of transportation and inventory costs is to be minimized. The inventory holding cost is assumed to be the same for all retailers. A fixed partition (FP) periodic policy is proposed with tight asymptotic worst‐case performance of 3/2 with respect to the best possible policy. This bound cannot be improved in the class of FP periodic policies. In partition‐based PB policies, the retailers are first partitioned into sets and then the sets are grouped in such a way that sets of retailers within a group are served together at selected times. A PB periodic, policy is presented with tight worst‐case asymptotic performance of with respect to the best possible policy. This latter performance improves the worst‐case asymptotic performance of of the previously best known policy for this problem. We also show that the proposed PB periodic policy has the best worst‐case asymptotic performance within the class of PB policies. Finally, practical heuristics inspired by the analyzed policies are designed and tested. The asymptotic worst–case performances of the heuristics are shown to be the same of those of the analyzed policies. Computational results show that the heuristics suggested are less than 6.4% on average from a lower bound on the optimal cost when 50 or more retailers are involved. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 00: 000–000, 2013     

War as a System: A Three-Stage Model for the Development of Clausewitz’s Thinking on Military Conflict and Its Constraints

This article presents a new model for the development of Carl von Clausewitz’s thinking on the factors that constrain warfare. The model posits three stages in his thinking that are determined by two system theoretic dimensions. The three stages are friction as a constraint on the effectiveness of the execution of military plans on paper, suspension as a constraint on the intensity of military action and political objectives as a constraint on military objectives. The two dimensions consist of an interactive perspective in the form of causal feedback loops and a holistic perspective in the form of a political system that forms the context of the military subsystem.     

Lost through non-translation: bringing Clausewitz's writings on ‘new wars’ back in

While Carl von Clausewitz has generally been respected as one of the most profound philosophers of war, his expertise has been regarded as somewhat limited if not even irrelevant to the so-called ‘new wars’ of the post-Cold War world. Many scholars in international relations have claimed that ‘new wars’ are essentially ‘post-Clausewitzian’ and ‘post-trinitarian’ in nature, meaning that they are no longer fathomable through a Clausewitzian framework. However Clausewitz's earlier writings were nearly exclusively dedicated to guerrilla warfare, or what he called ‘small wars’. These writings have been largely overlooked by many analysts of contemporary conflicts. By drawing on his rare and untranslated writings, the article uncovers a critical part of Clausewitz's expertise in asymmetric warfare and shows that, far from being irrelevant in an age where interstate warfare is increasingly being replaced by conflicts between states and semi-/non-state actors, Clausewitz's philosophical writings actually shed new light into the particular interactive dynamics generated during wars waged under conditions of asymmetry.     

天基预警系统资源调度问题分析

在介绍天基预警系统作战流程,以及天基预警系统资源和任务的分析和描述的基础上,提出天基预警系统资源调度问题,给出其输入输出结构,并以五元组的形式对该问题进行形式化描述。 关键词：天基预警系统、资源调度、形式化描述     

新形势下警卫部队训练工作探讨

部队战斗力的生成和提高主要依靠平时的军事训练来实现。根据公安警卫部队当前任务实际,着眼新形势下的警卫任务执勤需要,就警卫部队训练对象的层级划分和具体训练目标、训练科目和内容、训练管理体制的建立与完善等问题进行探讨。     

带限信号高频重建频域极小化外推算法

通过离散Fourier变换,给出了一个频域极小化外推算法。该算法能较好地抑制噪声干扰,其计算量小,计算机仿真结果表明,该方法有良好的应用前景。     

反导预警雷达的优化配置问题研究

根据反导预警雷达的预警任务和配置要求,建立带有可调参数的反导预警雷达优化配置模型.首先,给出雷达对弹道覆盖范围的计算方法,并建立X波段多功能相控阵雷达的优化配置模型.其次,考虑实战中对预警时间和重叠探测区的不同需求,在P波段远程预警相控阵雷达的优化配置模型中引入了可调参数,使输出的方案能同时满足对预警时间和重叠探测区的作战需求.最后,通过实例分析验证了模型的可行性,并且发现预警时间最大化与重叠探测区最大化不能同时实现,反导作战指挥人员应根据实际情况选择适当的可调参数,输出满足实战需求的雷达配置方案.