An Empirical Analysis of the Arms Race Between South and North Korea

This study analyses an arms race between South and North Korea over the period 1963–2000. Despite the strategic importance of the Korean Peninsula, the arms race between South and North Korea has rarely been studied. In this study, the South–North arms race is empirically estimated using Richardson’s action–reaction model. The pattern of South–North arms race between the Cold War (1963–1989) and the post‐Cold War eras (1990–2000) as well as the existence of an arms race is examined comparing both countries’ defence spending, number of military personnel and tactical aircraft.     

Investigating optimal replacement of aging air force systems

An availability‐oriented approach has been developed to decide when to replace an aging system. For an existing system, it is optimal to operate another year if and only if the incremental cost per available year is less than the lifetime average cost per available year of a new aircraft. We illustrate our approach using United States Air Force KC‐135 tanker data. In demonstrating our approach, we find it will be optimal to replace the KC‐135 by the end of the decade.     

Specialization in defence forces

The choice between balanced and specialized defence forces depends on the technology of defence output (e.g. whether a force scope multiplier is present), the existence of scope and scale economies, the platform customization costs and, of course, the level of defence budgets. Minimum force element levels (thresholds), and scale economies facilitate specialization as opposed to scope economies (e.g. platform‐sharing), scale diseconomies and the force scope multiplier (e.g. defence weakest‐link technology). When a balanced force is not optimal, the option value of a non‐optimally maintained force element must also include the opportunity cost arising from suboptimal force elements. Shrinking defence budgets may produce two surprising phenomena. If some force elements are shut down as a result of thresholds, the surviving ones may increase in platform numbers as well as enjoying closer‐to‐most‐desirable platforms. Furthermore, if heritage force elements are shut down within the budget contraction environment, overall defence capability might rise.     

Military expenditure and employment in South Africa*

Previous research into the impact of military expenditure on employment finds considerable variation across countries. This paper adds to the debate by examining the long run relationship between military burden and manufacturing employment in South Africa. Such an analysis provides an opportunity to test for crowding‐out effects and the impact of the marked decline in military spending on the South African economy. The paper finds evidence supporting the view that military expenditure will have a detrimental impact on long term manufacturing employment, adversely affecting industrial structure and efficiency.     

军事办公建筑被动式节能设计策略

军事办公建筑的节能设计与使用,对推动节能减排、促进军营建设具有重要意义。通过对被动式节能设计策略的研究,从建筑设计的视角,以军事办公建筑设计为突破口,分析能耗现状,明确设计目标和思路,从空间设计布局、围护结构热工性能、遮阳系统设置、自然通风与自然采光等方面,探讨被动式节能设计策略在军事办公建筑设计中的应用。结合特定环境,寻求贯穿节能设计始终的适宜技术,充分发挥被动式节能技术集成的优势。通过多项节能技术的协同作用,可以强化和扩大节能措施带来的节能效应,在降低能耗的同时创造出健康、舒适、高效的办公环境。     

Drone Strikes and Grand Strategy: Toward a Political Understanding of the Uses of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Attacks in US Security Policy

This article analyzes the political utility of US drone strikes theoretically and deductively. Placing strikes within the context of the theorized political functions of force and considering how they fit into two grand strategies, restraint and selective engagement, I argue that these strikes buy the United States relatively little in the way of political effects assuring its own security because the terrorism threat they are intended to combat is a limited one within the skein of US global interests. Furthermore, their contribution to counter-terrorism efforts is likely to diminish with the adoption of armed drones by non-state actors. Drone strikes can, however, provide leverage over recalcitrant US client states while reassuring liberal partners and giving them some leverage over US choices. In addition, within the counter-terrorism sphere, drone strikes are less likely to inflame popular opinion than are alternative uses of force. This analysis contributes to an increasingly rigorous examination of the strikes’ role in US foreign and security policy.     

The joint signature of coherent systems

We investigate the joint signature of $m$ coherent systems, under the assumption that the components have independent and identically distributed lifetimes. The joint signature, for a particular ordering of failure times, is an $m$‐dimensional matrix depending solely on the composition of the systems and independent of the underlying distribution function of the component lifetimes. The elements of the $m$‐dimensional matrix are formulated based on the joint signatures of numerous series of parallel systems. The number of the joint signatures involved is an exponential function of the number of the minimal cut sets of each original system and may, therefore, be significantly large. We prove that although this number is typically large, a great number of the joint signatures are repeated, or removed by negative signs. We determine the maximum number of different joint signatures based on the number of systems and components. It is independent of the number of the minimal cut sets of each system and is polynomial in the number of components. Moreover, we consider all permutations of failure times and demonstrate that the results for one permutation can be of use for the others. Our theorems are applied to various examples. The main conclusion is that the joint signature can be computed much faster than expected.     

基于搜索论的反舰导弹机动搜捕策略建模方法

针对概略射击条件下反舰导弹机动搜索目标策略优化选择的需求,采用搜索论的基本理论对反舰导弹机动搜捕策略问题进行了研究,建立了反舰导弹随机搜索策略、平行搜索策略和螺旋搜索策略搜捕概率计算模型,并进行了仿真计算。仿真结果表明:在已知目标概略位置的条件下,反舰导弹假若采取螺旋式搜索策略,能以较高的概率快速捕捉目标。     

《军事语言研究》创刊实践及其发展战略

军事语言学的确立,填补了我国军事学学科体系中的一项空白,具有开创性的意义。《军事语言研究》学术期刊的创办,必将把这一新兴学科推向新的发展阶段。创办《军事语言研究》学术期刊,有其进行理论研究和推进部队现代化建设的现实需要。基于一年多的办刊实践,从注重创新性、突出办刊特色、不断拓展和延伸刊物内涵三个方面探讨了该刊的发展战略问题。     

Improving series and parallel systems through mixtures of duplicated dependent components

We discuss suitable conditions such that the lifetime of a series or of a parallel system formed by two components having nonindependent lifetimes may be stochastically improved by replacing the lifetimes of each of the components by an independent mixture of the individual components' lifetimes. We also characterize the classes of bivariate distributions where this phenomenon arises through a new weak dependence notion. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2011