Is strategic studies narrow? Critical security and the misunderstood scope of strategy

Critical security advocates commonly portray strategic studies as crippled by its narrow focus on Cold War-era military issues, as state-centric and as Western-centric. I argue that this conception of the scope of strategy is flawed and I offer a comprehensive rebuttal by working out the logic of the theories advanced by Carl von Clausewitz and Thomas Schelling. The proponents of critical security overlook the striking expansion of strategy during the Cold War, its longstanding inclusion of competing political actors not just states, as well as its capacity to put Western and non-Western actors in a common analytic frame. By breaking out of the conceptual jails in which strategy has been incarcerated, I seek to reconnect International Relations to strategic thought from which it has become increasingly estranged.     

Single‐commodity stochastic network design under demand and topological uncertainties with insufficient data

Stochastic network design is fundamental to transportation and logistic problems in practice, yet faces new modeling and computational challenges resulted from heterogeneous sources of uncertainties and their unknown distributions given limited data. In this article, we design arcs in a network to optimize the cost of single‐commodity flows under random demand and arc disruptions. We minimize the network design cost plus cost associated with network performance under uncertainty evaluated by two schemes. The first scheme restricts demand and arc capacities in budgeted uncertainty sets and minimizes the worst‐case cost of supply generation and network flows for any possible realizations. The second scheme generates a finite set of samples from statistical information (e.g., moments) of data and minimizes the expected cost of supplies and flows, for which we bound the worst‐case cost using budgeted uncertainty sets. We develop cutting‐plane algorithms for solving the mixed‐integer nonlinear programming reformulations of the problem under the two schemes. We compare the computational efficacy of different approaches and analyze the results by testing diverse instances of random and real‐world networks. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 64: 154–173, 2017     

改进IAHP-CIM模型的雷达组网探测能力评估方法

针对雷达组网探测能力的评估问题,采用鱼骨图法对影响雷达组网探测能力的多种因素进行梳理,得到结构层次清晰的指标评价体系。采用改进的区间层次分析—控制区间和记忆模型对该指标体系进行评估,具体方法是:运用区间层次分析法构造区间判断矩阵;利用蛙跳算法求解区间判断矩阵中满足最小一致性的确定性矩阵;利用控制区间和记忆模型来确定各指标的风险概率,实现指标体系的评估。以具体的案例为对象进行仿真实验,结果表明,所提评估方法有效,评估结论相对客观、可信,对雷达组网探测能力评估具有一定参考价值,从而为雷达组网的优化部署奠定良好基础。     

方差全局灵敏度求解的空间分割结合无迹变换方法

为有效计算基于方差的全局灵敏度指标尤其是非线性程度较高的响应函数的,将积分空间的可加性以及无迹变换结合起来,利用函数在子空间内非线性程度会降低以及无迹变换方法在概率空间内对低非线性函数性质具有强捕捉能力的特点,提出计算基于方差的全局灵敏度指标的高效方法。该方法只需产生一组无迹变换样本就可以近似求得各阶灵敏度指标,并且该近似解随空间分割个数的增加而收敛于真值。通过非线性程度较高的验证算例及工程算例验证了所提方法在处理非线性功能函数上的高效性和准确性。     

Counter-Insurgency in Pakistan: The Role of Legitimacy

The Pakistani security forces have won their fight against the insurgency of the Pakistani Taliban, though terrorism will remain a serious problem for the foreseeable future. Victory was won not chiefly on the basis of new tactics, but of the recovery of legitimacy for the campaign among the population and the armed forces. This occurred when the war came to be seen as one waged not in the interests of the USA, but for the defence of Pakistan. In Balochistan, the nationalist insurgency has been different from and weaker than that of the Taliban—but may prove longer lasting. Military tactics in Balochistan have closely resembled those of the British Raj, and have been based with some success on fomenting tribal divisions and co-opting tribal elites.     

Insurgency and Violent Extremism in Pakistan

Pakistan has an uneven history of dealing with insurgencies and extremism. This article identifies the various campaigns and policies employed to defeat militants and deal with violent extremism. It describes the major anti-state groups and how Pakistan’s military and civilian leaders, relying on the related strategies of selectivity, gradualism and containment, have allowed militancy and terrorism to thrive. This article finds that while the elites and the public may have belatedly come to appreciate the existential internal threats these groups pose to the country, there are strong reasons to doubt the state’s full commitment to its promises to take meaningful action.     

无人机规避或跟踪空中目标的自适应运动导引方法

无人机规避或跟踪空中目标可以看作是一个非线性运动导引控制问题。针对这类任务中无人机和目标存在高机动性、高时敏性等特点,提出了一种基于Lyapunov稳定性理论的无人机规避或跟踪目标运动导引方法。构建了基于精细时间运动导引方法的无人机规避或跟踪空中目标问题求解框架,并将无人机碰撞规避和机动目标跟踪问题分别转化为到达虚拟目标点和与虚拟目标点交会的问题。针对碰撞规避问题,将其转化为实现平行导引的控制问题,基于Lyapunov稳定性理论设计了无人机碰撞规避导引律。针对机动目标跟踪问题,在碰撞规避基础上,根据目标点交会的要求设计了相应的目标跟踪导引律。在Gazebo平台上开展了仿真验证实验,实验结果表明:所提方法能够有效避免大过载情况的出现,并具有较强的时变和参数适应性。     

凹障碍超宽带SAR图像特征分析

野外环境下的凹障碍感知一直是地面无人作战平台环境感知面临的难题,长期以来常规传感器,例如立体视觉、红外相机和激光雷达,都没有取得好的效果。超宽带合成孔径雷达作为一种全天时、全天候的高分辨率雷达,在目标感知方面得到了广泛的运用。基于超宽带合成孔径雷达感知凹障碍是一种有效的感知手段,阐述了凹障碍的雷达成像几何,利用MATLAB模拟仿真合成孔径雷达数据获得了凹障碍图像,分析得出了凹障碍在雷达图像表现出由阴影区和光亮区紧密相连的特征,并通过实测数据成像获得的凹障碍图像结果,对凹障碍雷达图像特征进行了进一步的验证。     

伞翼无人机线性自抗扰高度控制

针对伞翼无人机参数不确定性和复杂环境干扰敏感的问题,提出一种伞翼无人机线性自抗扰(Linear Active Disturbance Rejection Control,LADRC)高度控制方法。建立伞翼无人机8自由度飞行动力学模型,并引入风场和降雨模型以更加准确地模拟真实飞行环境。基于LADRC确定总体控制架构,设计线性扩张状态观测器对所有扰动进行估计,并引入误差反馈率在控制中实时补偿。使用该控制方法在多种扰动工况下进行伞翼无人机高度控制仿真实验。仿真结果表明,基于LADRC的高度控制方法能够有效克服内扰和外扰的影响,实现高精度高度控制;与传统PID控制效果相比,LADRC控制器具有更好的抗扰能力和鲁棒性。     

One-step synthesis of FeO(OH) nanoparticles by electric explosion of iron wire underwater

In this study,we investigated electric explosion of iron wire in distilled water with different energy input adjusted by charging voltage.The as-prepared samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD),scanning electron microscopy (SEM),transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS),showing the presence of iron and multiple iron-based compounds oxides with contents influenced by the experimental conditions.In particular,pure FeO(OH) nanoparticles were obtained using electric explosion of iron wire with energy input of 1125 J at charging voltage of 15 kV.Analysis of discharge current and resistive voltage data indicate that the high energy input induced by strong plasma discharge at high charging voltage is a key factor to form FeO(OH).This study presents a one-step method to synthesize FeO(OH) nanoparticles using electric explosion of iron wire.