Territorial contestation and repressive violence in civil war

This study models the structural sources of variation in the use of selective (discriminate) repression within 89 civil wars fought between 1981 and 2005. The severity of repressive violence is modeled as a function of the amount of territory being contested by the insurgents. This idea is operationalized using measures of the location, size, and density of insurgency violence. The analysis finds evidence that the repressive behavior of both governments and rebel groups is linked to conflict geography. Governments violate physical integrity rights more frequently and kill more civilians the greater the overall amount of territory under contestation. Rebels kill more civilians in highly dispersed insurgencies that lack a clear epicenter.     

What Goes Up Must Come Down: Military Expenditure and Civil Wars

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of civil war on military expenditure. We employ two measures of military expenditure: the share of military expenditure in general government expenditure and the logarithm of military expenditures. We would reasonably expect a priori that military expenditure as a share of general government expenditure increases during a civil war and that such increases would taper off over the duration of a civil war. We also explore whether the termination of a civil war induces a decline in the share of military expenditure as a share of the general government expenditure in the short-run. We find evidence the of share of military expenditure increases during a civil war and falls in the year succeeding the end of a civil war, and, in particular, if a war ends in a peace treaty. The level of military expenditures, however, rises during civil wars and does not appear to decline in the short-term after the end of a civil war.     

PREVENTIVE ATTACKS AGAINST NUCLEAR PROGRAMS AND THE “SUCCESS” AT OSIRAQ

Advocates of the preventive use of force against emerging nuclear, biological, or chemical programs often look to the allegedly successful 1981 Israeli airstrike against Iraqi nuclear facilities at Osiraq. According to the conventional wisdom, this attack may have prevented Iraq from going nuclear before Operation Desert Storm in 1991. This article assesses the claim that the 1981 attack substantially delayed Iraqi acquisition of nuclear weapons, both by revisiting older debates and by introducing new evidence from Iraqi scientists. The article casts doubt on the conclusion that the attack was successful for three reasons: (1) the reactor itself was not well equipped to generate plutonium for a nuclear weapon; (2) illegal plutonium production would likely have caused a cutoff in the supply of nuclear fuel and an end to weapons activities; and (3) the attack may have actually increased Saddam's commitment to acquiring weapons. These conclusions have implications for the Bush Doctrine, as the lack of success in 1981 casts doubt on the possible success of future attacks against nuclear programs.     

基于复杂网络理论的作战系统结构拓扑模型研究

基于复杂网络理论,分析了信息化作战系统网络结构,构建了传统作战系统和信息化作战系统拓扑模型的生成算法,并通过对传统作战系统和信息化作战系统结构拓扑模型度量性质的比较,说明了信息化战争下的作战系统结构特点,为进一步研究网络化战争提供了良好的模型基础．     

基于多传感器信息系统的仿人机器人步态规划算法改进研究

摘要：基于视觉传感器、角度传感器和力／力矩传感器组成的多传感器信息系统,对仿人机器人理想的步态规划算法进行了改进．以双目视觉立体标定原理处理视觉传感信息,从而判断目标距离及目标路径的可达性;通过角度传感器获取实时旋转角度,经参数调整减小执行误差;根据力／;5矩传感信息对支撑脚踝关节的侧摆角度进行增量式补偿．经实验验证,改进后的算法对机器人的步态稳定性控制具有良好的效果．     

面向信息整合的军用数据中心研究

针对未来多样化军事任务对数据服务需求,在充分研究军用数据异构、分散存储、服务方式多样等现状的基础上,分析了数据应用的能力需求,提出了面向信息整合的军用数据中心技术架构与组成,阐述了该架构的特点以及关键技术,很好地解决了现有数据服务存在的问题,为未来军用数据工程建设奠定基础。     

Should competing firms reveal their capacity?

In this article, we explore when firms have an incentive to hide (or reveal) their capacity information. We consider two firms that aim to maximize profits over time and face limited capacity. One or both of the firms have private information on their own capacity levels, and they update their beliefs about their rival's capacity based on their observation of the other firm's output. We focus on credible revelation mechanisms—a firm may signal its capacity through overproduction, compared to its myopic production levels. We characterize conditions when high‐capacity firms may have the incentive and capability to signal their capacity levels by overproduction. We show that prior beliefs about capacity play a crucial, and surprisingly complex, role on whether the firm would prefer to reveal its capacity or not. A surprising result is that, despite the fact that it may be best for the high‐capacity firm to overproduce to reveal its capacity when capacity information is private, it may end up with more profits than if all capacity information were public knowledge in the first place. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2013     

Transforming Mexico’s energy field: the intended consequences of a drug war

ABSTRACT

By utilizing the theory of Strategic Action Fields (SAFs), the present article explains how a new meso-level social order seems to have emerged in Mexico as a result of the paramilitarization of organized crime, militarization of security, and the opening of Mexico’s energy sector to private investment. This work describes the transformation of Mexico’s energy field after a process of major constitutional and economic changes that were the consequence of a security crisis and an agenda of energy reform for which the so-called ‘drug war’ was a key underlying foundation.     

The effect of foreign state support to UNITA during the Angolan War (1975–1991)

ABSTRACT

State support for foreign rebel groups has become more salient, yet it remains unclear how this affects armed conflict. This paper therefore analyses the effect of foreign government assistance and does so in the typical case of the Angolan War (1975–1991). It argues that South African and United States support greatly helped the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) wage a large and sustained insurgency campaign but was ultimately insufficient to overthrow the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) government because it enabled the incumbent government to obtain similar foreign assistance and because the level of aid awarded to UNITA fluctuated strongly, preventing it from engaging in meaningful long-term planning.     

US warfare in Somalia and the trade-off between casualty-aversion and civilian protection

This article examines the ways in which the two normative concerns of casualty-aversion and civilian protection influenced US military strategy in the particular context of the asymmetric conflict in Somalia in the early 1990s. The article critically evaluates US military operations through the prism of international humanitarian law and examines whether American forces started prioritizing casualty-aversion over the safeguarding of Somali civilians. Finally, by drawing on emerging moral guidelines (such as Michael Walzer's idea of ‘due care’), the article examines whether lower numbers of Somali civilian deaths could have been achieved if marginal increases to the risks faced by US soldiers had been accepted.