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。     

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.     

要地防空中的光电对抗战术

介绍了光电精确制导武器和光电对抗装备的特点,进而分析得出要地防空中要采用分层对抗战术,并分析了实施方法和运用方式,给出了战术配置原则,从技术、战术和地形气候方面分析了影响战术配置的因素,对部队开展基地训练中的光电对抗战术训练具有一定的参考价值。     

EUROPEAN DEFENCE FIRMS: THE INFORMATION BARRIER ON PRIVATE FINANCE*

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, European governments adopted a hands‐off policy towards the defence industrial base, in an attempt to increase the sector’s efficiency and reactivity. In this context, one topical issue is how to motivate defence firms to apply for private rather than public finance. Since banks have no prior experience with European defence firms, a problem of asymmetric information may block this transition. The problem is analysed within the framework of a game between defence firms and banks. It is shown that the Bayesian Equilibrium might correspond to a situation where low‐risk firms prefer the state‐financed scheme; yet, in a perfect information set‐up, the same firms would apply for bank credit. In order to facilitate the transition to private finance, the government might decide to subsidize investors who agree on financing defence firms; the state aid should be made available during a transitory learning period.     

Financial versus human resources in the Greek‐Turkish arms race: A forecasting investigation using artificial neural networks

This paper aims at forecasting the burden on the Greek economy resulting from the arms race against Turkey and at concentrating on the leading determinants of this burden. The military debt and the defence share of GDP are employed alternatively in order to approximate the measurement of the arms race pressure on Greece, and the method used is that of artificial neural networks. The use of a wide variety of explanatory variables in combination with the promising results derived, suggest that the impact on the Greek economy resulting from this arms race is determined, to a large, extent, by demographic factors which strongly favour the Turkish side. Prediction on both miltary debt and defence expenditure exhibited highly satisfactory accuracy, while the estimation of input significance, indicates that variables describing the Turkish side are often dominant over the corresponding Greek ones.     

Individual preferences and the demand for military expenditure*

Whose preferences determine the tradeoff between security and civilian output in deciding upon budget allocations to defence? This paper considers the role that consumer preferences might play in influencing military spending. We propose normative criteria to judge the economic or political efficiency of defence provision at a given time, and test them using Australian survey‐based micro‐data. Our results suggest that the political system has not delivered a simple social‐choice translation of individual preferences into collective outcomes, nor has it delivered results consistent with simple majority‐voting median preferences.     

针对国家导弹防御系统突防措施研究

美国为了追求绝对的安全,不顾国际社会的反对,贸然发展其国家弹道导弹防御系统。为了追求世界的制衡,必须研究如何突破弹道导弹防御系统。简述了NMD的发展演变,在分析了美国的国家导弹防御系统构成的基础上,针对其使用的拦截手段,重点分析了弹道导弹突破NMD的7种可能措施。