The practice of strategy: South African defence in stasis

The article concerns the strategy development processes of the South African Department of Defence in South Africa. It intends to identify the probable causes of the observed failure of the South African National Defence Force to develop appropriate departmental policy and military strategy. Military strategy comprises force development, force employment, force deployment and the coordination of these elements in pursuit of national, grand-strategic objectives. (See Dennis M. Drew and Donald M. Snow, Making Twenty-first Century Strategy: An Introduction to Modern National Security Processes and Problems Montgomery, AL: Air University Press, Maxwell Air Force Base, November 2006, 103). Of these four constructs, the article concerns itself only with the first two. The article analyses two complementary approaches to strategy formation: a resource-driven, inside-out model and an interests-driven, outside-in method. The article concludes that the Department is preoccupied with the inside-out method to the lasting detriment of the declared strategic intent of the defence policy.     

信息化条件下基于大数据的后装一体化保障构想

由于契约的不完全性、专用性资产的存在,导致民企参军的谈判过程中,一方可能利用另一方因专用性资产投资的锁定效应,而采取机会主义行为将另一方套牢,攫取可占用专用性准租金。这种套牢风险不是单向的,而是双向的,双向套牢风险的存在不仅会降低军品科研生产项目建设质量,而且还会严重挫伤民营企业承担军品科研生产任务的积极性。为有效防范双向套牢风险,本文将从博弈论的角度,建立民营企业与军队采办部门的期望收益与专用性资产投资的函数关系和博弈矩阵,分阶段讨论民营企业与军队采办部门所面临的套牢风险大小及各自的最佳行为选择。以降低民企参军面临的套牢风险,引导更多优势民营企业进入军品科研生产与维修领域,推动军民融合的深度发展。     

军民融合背景下军工企业多元化发展战略研究

冷战结束后,欧美多数军工企业在军转民的过程中采取多元化的经营战略,壮大企业规模并寻求进一步的发展。随着我国军民融合战略的深入实施,军工企业不再是封闭独立的单一军品生产基地,而是顺时应势逐步实现军品和民品同步多元化发展的战略转型。通过分析我国军工企业军转民的历史进程与国际经验,结合多元化战略的特点,考察军工企业在军转民过程中实施多元化战略的动因,构建军工企业多元化战略的选择函数。本文认为,军工企业选择多元化战略应考虑企业自身实际情况,积极响应国家政策,培育核心竞争力;同时,军转民过程作为军民融合深度发展的重要一环,会促使军工企业往多元化的方向发展,而多元化战略的实施也会加快军民融合深度发展的进程。     

An attacker‐defender model for analyzing the vulnerability of initial attack in wildfire suppression

Wildfire managers use initial attack (IA) to control wildfires before they grow large and become difficult to suppress. Although the majority of wildfire incidents are contained by IA, the small percentage of fires that escape IA causes most of the damage. Therefore, planning a successful IA is very important. In this article, we study the vulnerability of IA in wildfire suppression using an attacker‐defender Stackelberg model. The attacker's objective is to coordinate the simultaneous ignition of fires at various points in a landscape to maximize the number of fires that cannot be contained by IA. The defender's objective is to optimally dispatch suppression resources from multiple fire stations located across the landscape to minimize the number of wildfires not contained by IA. We use a decomposition algorithm to solve the model and apply the model on a test case landscape. We also investigate the impact of delay in the response, the fire growth rate, the amount of suppression resources, and the locations of fire stations on the success of IA.     

A Question of ‘Government’ Control: Afghanistan DDR Programs Since 2001

Since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA), the United States, the United Nations, and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have funded and led three different Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) programs. Despite a significant investment in time and treasure, all of them have failed to significantly reduce the number of insurgents or arbaki (militia). This article explores why these programs failed despite incorporating ideas from the prominent DDR schools of thought. Utilizing Stathis Kalyvas’ theory of The Logic of Violence in Civil War as a lens, this article argues that GIRoA and ISAF did not have sufficient control of territory to entice insurgents or arbaki to reconcile and/or reintegrate with the government. Further, in areas GIRoA nominally controlled in northern and western Afghanistan, regional powerbrokers who controlled these areas balked at these programs.     

Adjacency‐based local top‐down search method for finding maximal efficient faces in multiple objective linear programming

It is well‐known that the efficient set of a multiobjective linear programming (MOLP) problem can be represented as a union of the maximal efficient faces of the feasible region. In this paper, we propose a method for finding all maximal efficient faces for an MOLP. The new method is based on a condition that all efficient vertices (short for the efficient extreme points and rays) for the MOLP have been found and it relies on the adjacency, affine independence and convexity results of efficient sets. The method uses a local top‐down search strategy to determine maximal efficient faces incident to every efficient vertex for finding maximal efficient faces of an MOLP problem. To our knowledge, the proposed method is the first top‐down search method that uses the adjacency property of the efficient set to find all maximal efficient faces. We discuss this and other advantages and disadvantages of the algorithm. We also discuss some computational experience we have had with our computer code for implementing the algorithm. This computational experience involved solving several MOLP problems with the code.     

公安高校计算机基础课程关联性分析

对＂1＋X＂双层课程体系下的计算机基础课程之间的关联性进行初步分析,揭示了教学目标一致性、教学内容互相渗透、人才培养逐层连续性等特点。     

社会资本对维系西部受援高校发展的策略空间探析

“对口支援”西部高校工作开展以来,西部高校在支援高校的大力支持和援助下,学科建设、师资培养和管理水平均取得了显著的进步。这归因于支援高校为西部高校构建了广阔的社会网络,获得了所需的社会资本,得到了所需的学术资源。本文力求不仅要重视“对口支援”西部高校的直接社会援助,而且要高度重视“对口支援”西部高校所建立的社会网络和所获得社会资本。在“对口支援“西部高校政策框架下,充分发挥社会资本对西部高校发展的增值效应,进一步提升维系西部高校发展的策略空间。     

基于博弈论的装备科研、购置、维修经费比例关系优化分析

通过不同时期国家战略部署、科研发展情况及经济承受能力对装备经费分配的影响分析,采用博弈的方法,建立了装备科研、购置和维修费之间的比例关系优化模型,给出了寻求纳什均衡点的迭代算法,并进行了仿真计算.仿真结果证明了该方法的可行性与正确性.     

随舰备件需求分析中维修策略问题

分析了面向任务保障性工程理论指导下的舰船随舰备件配置问题,就最大、最小两种维修策略下随舰备件配置问题进行了研究,给出了面向任务的随舰备件需求分析仿真模型框架,结合算倒,研究了最大维修策略与最小维修策略的适用时机:在任务确定且任务结构函数明确条件下,应采用最小维修策略;否则采用最大维修策略.