Size Still Matters: Explaining Sri Lanka’s Counterinsurgency Victory over the Tamil Tigers

The military effectiveness literature has largely dismissed the role of material preponderance in favor of strategic interaction theories. The study of counterinsurgency, in which incumbent victory is increasingly rare despite material superiority, has also turned to other strategic dynamics explanations like force employment, leadership, and insurgent/adversary attributes. Challenging these two trends, this paper contends that even in cases of counterinsurgency, material preponderance remains an essential—and at times the most important—factor in explaining battlefield outcomes and effectiveness. To test this, the paper turns to the case of the Sri Lankan state’s fight against the Tamil Tiger insurgency, a conflict which offers rich variation over time across six periods and over 25 years. Drawing on evidence from historical and journalistic accounts, interviews, memoirs, and field research, the paper demonstrates that material preponderance accounts for variation in military effectiveness and campaign outcomes (including military victory in the final campaign) better than strategic explanations. Additionally, a new quantitative data-set assembled on annual loss-exchange ratios demonstrates the superiority of materialist explanations above those of skill, human capital, and regime type.     

导弹武器系统研制费用估算方法

针对导弹武器系统研制费用相关数据样本量少,变量之间存在严重共线性等问题,提出了一种基于偏最小二乘法的研制费用估算模型。引入库克距离对原始数据进行识别,并剔除异常数据,采用灰色关联度分析法选取相关度高的自变量,提高模型准确性和稳定性。利用偏最小二乘法进行数据拟合,估算出导弹武器系统的研制费用。应用算例的计算结果表明,该方法建立的研制费用估算模型拟合度良好,计算误差在8%以内。     

装备研制技术风险流传导与耦合过程的CFD模拟

装备研制中风险间的相关性导致风险传导与耦合的产生,为深化对技术风险动态传导效应和非线性耦合机理的认识,探索研制技术风险管理与控制的有效思路或工具,在对风险传导与耦合进行定义的基础上,给出了装备研制中的风险传导模式,基于CFD技术对两种不同的耦合模式进行了数值模拟,结合仿真结果分析了风险的耦合机理,所提方法对于揭示装备研制技术风险传导与耦合规律有一定的促进作用,为下阶段求解关键风险因子间的关联关系奠定了良好基础。     

Does civil war hamper financial development?

We examine how armed conflict effects financial development in a cross-country setting using dynamic panel data analysis in a panel of 66 developing countries for the period 1985–2010. Financial development is measured by M2 as a share of GDP, and credit allocated to private sector by banks as a share of GDP. Our findings suggest that armed conflict has a significant adverse effect on financial development. Simultaneously, the quality of governance is always highly significant and conducive to the financial development. The quality of governance is more salient in determining financial development compared to low- and medium-intensity armed conflict; however, the quality of governance cannot entirely offset the adverse impact of high-intensity armed conflict on financial development.     

EU Battlegroups: High costs,no benefits

This article reviews the gloomy saga of the EU Battlegroups, focusing on four questions: Where do they come from? What do they look like? What have they been hindered by? And where do they go from here? It builds upon earlier findings in the literature and adds novel insights based on original data. In doing so, the article pays particular attention to the standby nations’ constant calculation of political and financial costs. It argues that recognizing these cost–benefit calculations allows for identifying the most crucial areas to be tackled to make the EU Battlegroups functional. In addition, the article stresses that these considerations play out in a setting wherein the Battlegroups are just one among many policy instruments available for rapid response.     

Homes for heroes? Assessing the impact of the UK’s Military Covenant

The British Military Covenant can be located in and from many sources and from 2011 onwards in primary legislation. This article argues that the provision of military housing amounts to an early test of how the military covenant is understood and used by those involved in defence policy, and those in the armed forces affected by it. It finds that housing was a prominent feature of how service personnel understood how they were valued, but was not explicitly understood as a covenant issue by those personnel or the officials in charge of the Defence Estates. We locate three reasons for this: (1) the covenant has been poorly translated from aspiration into policy practice, (2) the covenant is unevenly understood across its stakeholders which has the effect of generating disappointment through misaligned expectations, (3) those engaged in the reform process surrounding the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) saw the covenant as a means to energise reform. Ultimately housing was seen as a dry and technocratic business area and thus an issue ripe for being refracted through the covenant was ultimately left outside of its remit.     

2017年世界军事装备技术发展

2017年,世界军事技术装备发展将呈现出一些新趋势.航母仍是大国竞相发展的国之重器,第五代战机逐步开始列装,新一代防空反导系统将投入使用,“常规快速全球打击”装备技术试验稳步推进,军用卫星技术国际竞争将更加激烈,核武器小型化将取得重要进展,无人作战装备与技术依然是新宠,网络攻防技术将向物联网领域拓展,新概念武器实战化有望取得新突破,军用新材料将引发新的热潮.     

国有军工集团生产与创新双效率研究

文章利用DEA方法对2015-2016年我国国有军工集团的生产效率和创新效率进行了分析,结果发现:我国国有军工集团的生产效率在近两年整体上有所提升,受行业影响小于自身因素影响,受管理、技术等水平的影响与来自规模因素的影响相差不大;创新效率在近两年整体上有所下降,受行业影响与自身因素影响均较大,无效率主要来自创新管理水平或技术条件的不足;生产效率与创新效率呈现统计上不显著的正相关关系。在此基础上,提出了军工集团实施国企改革的几点建议,以供有关方面参考。     

我国科研诚信研究发展概述:科学计量学视角

2015年以来,国际出版集团连续、批量撤销中国学术论文,在国内外学术界造成恶劣影响,严重损害了科技工作者的国际声誉和科技成果的可信性,我国科研诚信建设问题也受到越来越多的关注。为了解科研诚信领域的研究现状,文章以CNKI数据库为基础,以科研诚信领域相关词语为检索词,检索到从相关研究起步至今的期刊论文共2402篇。结合科学计量学方法及可视化软件,从时序、机构、期刊、作者、研究内容等角度对我国科研诚信相关研究的发展进行分析,揭示研究现状的同时,分析相关研究的不足,以期作为相关研究的支撑,来进一步推动科研诚信相关研究的发展。     

军事领域“大数据”研究

学术界对于大数据相关问题的研究,从2009年大数据之初就已经开始。目前军事领域对大数据的研究逐步深入,主要围绕大数据对军事领域的影响及挑战、大数据技术在军事领域中的应用等展开,呈现出重点突出、角度多样、不断细化等特征,但在研究的系统性和全面性上还存在一些不足,这些不足将成为进一步拓展和深化研究的重点。