Imperial nostalgia,the liberal lie,and the perils of postmodern counterinsurgency

Since 9/11, counterinsurgency is back in fashion; the ‘war on terror’ has even been branded a ‘global counterinsurgency’. However the context within which counterinsurgency originally arose is critical to understanding the prospects for its present success; the radically changed environment in which it is currently being conducted casts into considerable doubt the validity of the doctrine's application by many national militaries currently ‘rediscovering’ this school of military thought today. Above all, classical counterinsurgency was a profoundly imperial, state-centric phenomenon; consequently it only rarely faced the thorny issue of sovereignty and legitimacy which bedevils and may doom these same efforts today.     

The African warlord revisited

To date, warlordism in Africa has been viewed solely negatively. This has come about, in part, because of the analytical lenses that have been used. Typically, warlordism has been examined at the state level; and behavioural traits, rather than definitionally necessary components, have been the focus. In effect, ‘warlord’ has been confused with other violent actors. I suggest here a reconceptualisation ‘from below’, which takes into account variation in types of warlordism, and which allows for both positive and negative effects of warlordism on society and the state.     

CORRUPTION,PERCEPTION AND FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT

Bribery undermines human development and a transition to stable democratic rule. It props up illegitimate regimes as corporations bid for contracts by bribing, in a seeming race to the bottom. The world's wealthy are slowly waking up to this and criminalising this scandalous practice of bribing foreign public officials. However, such measures, if enforced, need to be combined with domestic anti-corruption strategies in the South. If this opportunity is missed, the risk of investing private capital in marginalised economies perceived to be highly corrupt is further upped, making investment-driven economic growth possibly even less unattainable.     

THE AU MISSION IN BURUNDI

Abstract

Even though the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, MPLA) managed to take firm control of the state as the war ended in 2002, this article contends that its hegemony is not absolute. At the fringes of the state administration, emerging regional elites have established associations that seek to provide a remedy against the centralised system, which essentially deprives regions of political influence and sufficient economic resources. As in many other countries on the African continent, political identities that were legally enforced and institutionally reproduced in colonial times have hardly been transcended in the post-colonial period. Even if the associations' influence today does not yet reach further than bringing some insecurity to an otherwise secure polity dominated by the MPLA, the associations could play a role in reinforcing strong regional solidarity and give political expression to feelings of exclusion. Such sentiments could in turn lead to an increase of exclusivity ideas about citizenship, or even xenophobic violence. Much will depend on the strategies of the MPLA, and to what extent it will accommodate these emergent forces in the post-war era, not the least through the current sub-national state reforms.     

POLITICAL SURVIVAL AND NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION

Nuclear Logics: Contrasting Paths in East Asia and the Middle East, by Etel Solingen. Princeton University Press, 2007. 404 pages, $26.95.     

油料洞库主罐室地震作用破坏机理

油料洞库担负着我国未来石油储备的重要任务,为深入研究油料洞库在地震作用下的响应规律,运用FLAC3D软件,采用动力时程法对油料洞库的简化模型进行数值模拟分析。从不同围岩级别、不同埋深、不同地震烈度3个方面分析地震作用时水平峰值位移和最大拉应力峰值的变化规律。结果表明：随着围岩级别从Ⅲ级到Ⅰ级的变化以及埋深的增加,油料洞库的抗震性能逐渐提高;无论何种工况,最大拉应力峰值均发生在主罐室与支通道交接的墙角处;9度地震时各监测点水平峰值位移大幅增加,塑性区已经贯通,故在油料洞库选址时应尽可能避开可能发生9度及以上地震的地区。     

基于轴对称内聚力单元的立贮发动机黏接界面结构完整性分析

建立轴对称内聚力单元是进行立贮发动机黏接界面应力分析的重要手段。在变形后的轴对称内聚力单元上建立参考坐标系,推导了单元节点位移在参考坐标系和全局坐标系下的转换关系。基于单元分离位移推导了单元内力矢量和单元刚度矩阵。开展了旋转体的分离测试,验证了轴对称内聚力单元的准确性和高效性。针对立贮发动机,先后开展了轴向加速度以及波浪载荷作用下的发动机结构分析,重点研究了黏接界面上应力的大小以及分布规律。研究方法和结论可以为发动机黏接界面结构分析提供有利参考。     

Generation and storage dispatch in electricity networks with generator disruptions

We present methods for optimizing generation and storage decisions in an electricity network with multiple unreliable generators, each colocated with one energy storage unit (e.g., battery), and multiple loads under power flow constraints. Our model chooses the amount of energy produced by each generator and the amount of energy stored in each battery in every time period in order to minimize power generation and storage costs when each generator faces stochastic Markovian supply disruptions. This problem cannot be optimized easily using stochastic programming and/or dynamic programming approaches. Therefore, in this study, we present several heuristic methods to find an approximate optimal solution for this system. Each heuristic involves decomposing the network into several single‐generator, single‐battery, multiload systems and solving them optimally using dynamic programming, then obtaining a solution for the original problem by recombining. We discuss the computational performance of the proposed heuristics as well as insights gained from the models. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 62: 493–511, 2015     

高空长航时太阳能飞机研究进展与技术挑战

高空长航时太阳能飞机是当前的前沿热点方向,可实现月量级的长期驻空,并形成“时间持久+区域保持”的新型应用能力。系统总结了高空长航时太阳能飞机三阶段发展历程,包括初期探索阶段、快速发展阶段、实用能力验证与应用示范阶段,重点阐述国外典型发展计划,深入分析气动布局设计、储能电池、高空推进、大尺度结构、飞行控制等面临的主要技术挑战,并提出重点攻关方向建议,为高空长航时太阳能飞机创新发展提供参考。     

比例最小偏度单形UKF的RBF神经网络算法

为提高RBF神经网络的建模性能,提出一种基于改进无迹Kalman滤波(UKF)的RBF神经网络训练算法。在该算法中,首先将比例最小偏度单形Sigma点采样策略引入UT,以有效改进UKF,提升其计算效率,然后利用改进的UKF优化估计RBF神经网络的最优参数。仿真结果表明,改进的UKF比EKF具有更高的RBF神经网络模型训练精度,与传统UKF的模型精度大体相当,但速度更快,计算效率更高。