信息化条件下装备器材供应链设计与重构研究

现行装备器材供应存在着供应渠道过长、不能快速响应等问题,为此通过对装备器材供应链进行集成化体系结构模型设计与构建,探讨了装备器材供应链的重构策略,分别从信息流模式重构、业务流程重构和物流体系重构等3个主要方面对装备器材供应链重构策略进行了分析与探讨,以实现装备器材供应链的快速响应.     

Does Military Spending Really Matter for Economic Growth in China and G7 Countries: The Roles of Dependency and Heterogeneity

This study revisits the causal linkages between military spending and economic growth in China and G7 countries (i.e. Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the USA) by focusing country-specific analysis for the period 1988–2010. The panel causality analysis, which accounts for both cross-country dependency and heterogeneity across countries, is employed in this study. Our results find evidence of the neutrality hypothesis for Italy, France, and Germany, the military spending–growth detriment hypothesis for both Canada and the UK, and one-way Granger causality running from economic growth to military spending for China. Furthermore, we find a feedback between military spending and economic growth in both Japan and the USA. Thus, our results do not support that one size fits all.     

AFRICA'S TRIPLE TRANSITION

Sub-Saharan Africa has witnessed the end of foreign colonial rule, the rise and fall of autocratic political regimes, and the disappearance of statist command economies. The challenges were to turn populations into coherent nations owing allegiance to the state; to democratise the state structures that govern these populations; and to liberalise the rules that regulate economic transactions. An important source to assess these prospects are the views and attitudes of ordinary Africans. This essay reflects on the original data derived from a crossnational research project. Nine African states were surveyed between 1999 and 2000. An attempt is made to gather some propositions from the analysis of the data. Many present serious challenges to common wisdom about African politics. It appears that the process of nationbuilding has created coherent political communities with high levels of national identity; that democratising the state in Africa builds on existing indigenous demands from ordinary Africans; and that economic liberalisation proceeds in the face of a mixed set of values about market and state.     

How should modeling and simulation be used to support defense acquisition?

This paper investigates the potential for modeling and simulation to contribute to new defense system development, by increasing the productivity of traditional R&D in developing system‐specific technology. Building on a previous optimal control model of defense system R&D, it shows that (1) the optimal use of modeling is related in a natural way to that of traditional R&D, and (2) both have similar optimal profiles over time. Simulated results based on limited historical data suggest that optimal use of modeling could increase the rate of growth in system‐specific technology significantly.     

Resourcing for defense: Solving the roles and missions puzzle

One of the most important issues facing the post‐Cold War U.S. defense establishment concerns the future allocation of combat tasks and responsibilities among different branches of the armed forces. The challenge is to reduce unnecessary redundancy across roles and missions when resources are highly constrained, without compromising military effectiveness. Defining the policy problem as one of resource allocation rather than operational effectiveness, we develop a methodology for allocating roles and missions. Our methodology focuses at the highest level of force aggregation and uses a mathematical programming model to produce cross‐service cross‐mission trade‐offs that will yield the best total force combat and non‐combat potential within resource consumption constraints.     

Demobilisation,disarmament and reintegration in the Democratic Republic of Congo: The numbers game

Abstract

The creation of the Africa Command (AFRICOM) has reflected the growth in the strategic importance of Africa in US foreign policy since the end of the 1990s. One of the objectives of this new geographical military command is to forge closer links between foreign, security and development policies. However, this approach met with a number of difficulties associated with the challenge of ‘inter-agency cooperation’ among rather disparate actors from foreign affairs, defence and development. In addition, the establishment of AFRICOM has met with fierce criticism in the US and elsewhere – especially in Africa – culminating in the charge that the US foreign and development policies in Africa are being militarised. Although AFRICOM has a number of interesting features, this paper shows that it has reacted to these criticisms by realigning itself more closely with the traditional model of a military command, at the expense of the innovative interagency elements.     

ADVANCED US CONVENTIONAL WEAPONS AND NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

The Obama administration has made a great effort to increase the role of advanced conventional weaponry in US national security thinking and practice, in part to help reinvigorate the global nuclear disarmament agenda by reducing the role played by nuclear weapons in the US defense posture. However, such a strategy is fundamentally flawed because increases in US conventional superiority will exacerbate US relative strength vis-à-vis other powers, and therefore make the prospect of a nuclear weapon-free world seem less attractive to Washington's current and potential nuclear rivals. Consequently, it is highly likely that the impact of efforts to increase US advanced conventional superiority through ballistic missile defense and a conventional “prompt global strike” program will ensure that the Obama administration is adopting a pathway to nuclear abolition on which it is the sole traveler for the foreseeable future.     

UNDER THE RADAR?

Missile Contagion: Cruise Missile Proliferation and the Threat to International Security, by Dennis M. Gormley. Praeger Security International, 2008. 272 pages, $54.95.     

YOU CAN'T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT

The 2010 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) produced a Final Document calling for an extension of the principles of the nonproliferation norm as well as steps toward complete disarmament. This article looks beyond the rhetoric, however, to examine recent decisions by great powers to expand nuclear trade with non-NPT countries and the implications of these decisions on the traditional nonproliferation norm of restraint. This article seeks to contribute to constructivist theory by supplementing existing accounts of norm creation and establishment with a new model of norm change. The article develops a case study of the 2008 US-India nuclear deal to highlight the role of elite agency in key stages of norm change, including redefinition and constructive substitution through contestation. It concludes that the traditional nonproliferation norm may be evolving in new directions that are not well captured by existing theoretical frames.