Military Expenditure as a Proxy for State Power. The Case of France

This paper attempts to build a simple indicator of state power. Military expenditure is the paper’s point of departure, with the definitions given by NATO, SIPRI and others. This definition is discussed and a power version is build, using French budgetary data. Then a defence of the result against traditional or non-traditional critics is presented under an imperative of action. Finally, this concept is enlarged and a new concept of power expenditures is given, one more time using French budgetary data. The conclusion is that this large expenditure concept is an unbiased but imperfect indicator of the will to act, and has to be completed by GDP to indicate the capability to act in the long-run.     

From the sociology of the (military) profession to the sociology of (security) expertise: the case of European national defence universities

Few would disagree that European militaries have experienced dramatic changes since the end of the Cold War. Much of the discussion on these changes to date has referred to the concept of professionalism. However, this approach became outdated as professions in post-industrialist societies entered a state of crisis as a result of growing competition from a variety of competitors. The present study adapts a new framework from the sociology of knowledge literature – sociology of expertise – into one, sociology of security expertise, which is suitable for study of contemporary armed forces. Its utility is demonstrated through analysis of five European professional military education institutions. The analysis shows that European military organisations are transiting, albeit in various degrees, from one form of social organisation of military knowledge production – associated with the military education model common to traditional military colleges – toward another, which is related to the military education model of national defence universities. Hence it is highly probable that European military organisations lose, either voluntary or unintentionally, their professional character and can no longer be unquestionably assumed to be military professions. Hence, they should be analysed hereafter using the sociology of security expertise framework.     

Land power in the age of joint interdependence: toward a theory of land power for the twenty-first century*

This essay outlines a theory of land power. After explaining the absence of such a theory, the article establishes the modern context for such a theory, specifically within the concept of joint interdependence. The analysis defines key terms and premises behind the theory, to include a definition of land power. The argument then outlines the national elements of power that contribute to a theory of land power. The analysis next applies the theory to the fundamental purposes of military power: defeat, deter, compel, assure, shape and support to the nation. The analysis then tests key definitions, supporting premises, and utility of the theory. The essay argues that historical experience validates the applicability and utility of the theory, and offers a solid basis for extrapolating the validity of the theory into the near future.     

Artificial intelligence & future warfare: implications for international security

Recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) suggest that this emerging technology will have a deterministic and potentially transformative influence on military power, strategic competition, and world politics more broadly. After the initial surge of broad speculation in the literature related to AI this article provides some much needed specificity to the debate. It argues that left unchecked the uncertainties and vulnerabilities created by the rapid proliferation and diffusion of AI could become a major potential source of instability and great power strategic rivalry. The article identifies several AI-related innovations and technological developments that will likely have genuine consequences for military applications from a tactical battlefield perspective to the strategic level.     

美国退出《中导条约》与俄美关系发展走向

2018年10月,美国宣布单方面退出《中导条约》。《中导条约》是美苏两国在冷战后期达成的,并得到了切实执行的条约,对于维护冷战后全球战略平衡发挥了至关重要的作用。冷战后,俄美曾经企图将《中导条约》多边化,构建俄美新型战略关系,但最终反目成仇,使得俄美关系严重倒退,并迈入新的相互战略遏制的时代。     

加强防空导弹部队和歼击航空兵部署建议的 论证方法

兵力需求是作战筹划的重要内容之一,防空兵力需求的估算是防空作战指挥员和指挥机关平时进行战场建设,战时实施兵力集结与调动的基本依据。本文提出了一种加强防空兵力部署建议的论证方法,在不使用复杂的冲突空域仿真模型的情况下,使军事指挥机关能够高效地确定冲突双方兵力对比关系以及期望的作战行动效能;拟定在任何一个部队责任区内,防空导弹部队和歼击航空兵部署战斗编成的论证建议,供部队指挥员决策参考。     

Excess procurement strategies by a dominant buyer under constrained supply

Supply chains are often characterized by the presence of a dominant buyer purchasing from a supplier with limited capacity. We study such a situation where a single supplier sells capacity to an established and more powerful buyer and also to a relatively less powerful buyer. The more powerful buyer enjoys the first right to book her capacity requirements at supplier's end, and then the common supplier fulfills the requirement of the less powerful buyer. We find that when the supplier's capacity is either too low (below the lower threshold) or too high (above the higher threshold), there is no excess procurement as compared to the case when supplier has infinite capacity. When the supplier's capacity is between these two thresholds, the more powerful buyer purchases an excess amount in comparison to the infinite capacity case.     

适用于行星巡视探测的集中式载荷控制方法

以行星巡视探测任务为背景,针对资源紧张条件下自主控制载荷进行科学探测的需求,提出一种集中式载荷控制方法。建立新型的载荷电子学和载荷数管集成一体化硬件架构;软件采用基于事件表和工作模式表的控制方式自主控制载荷工作;采取多项健康管理措施,依据预设的规则监控载荷的状态,自主对故障载荷采取恢复和隔离措施。实现的公用控制部分仅重3 kg,功耗6 W,软件支持9个工作模式表同时运行,指令执行时刻误差优于40 ms。该方法应用到我国首次火星探测任务中,地面测试结果表明其简捷、高效、可靠,适合在资源苛刻的行星巡视探测任务中,对各载荷进行控制。     

Purchase and retrieval competition for seasonal produce

We study the competition problem of purchase and multiretrieval of perishable seasonal produce, where wholesalers purchase and stock their products in the first period, and then retrieve and sell them in subsequent periods. We first consider the duopoly case and assume that the prices are exogenous and fluctuate. In each period, after the price realization, the wholesalers retrieve some stock from their warehouses to satisfy their demands. One wholesaler's unsatisfied customers can switch to another and be satisfied by its left retrieved products. Any unsold retrieved stock has no salvage value and any unsatisfied demand is lost. The unretrieved stock is carried to the next period at a perishable rate. The wholesalers compete for the substitute demand by determining their own purchase and retrieval quantities. We show the existence and uniqueness of a pure-strategy Nash equilibrium, and that the Nash equilibrium strategy has the simple “sell-down-to” structure. We also consider the general N-person game and show the existence of the Nash equilibrium, and characterize the structure of the equilibrium strategy for the symmetric case. In addition, we consider the case with endogenous prices, and show that the problem reduces to a repeated newsvendor game with price and inventory competition. We derive the conditions under which a unique Nash equilibrium exists and characterize the equilibrium strategy. Finally, we conduct numerical studies to examine the impacts of the model parameters on the equilibrium outcomes and to generate managerial insights.     

Assortment optimization with position effects under the nested logit model

We study the assortment optimization problem with position effects under the nested logit model, whose goal is to find the revenue-maximizing subset of products as well as their corresponding display positions. In this joint assortment-position optimization problem, the choices of products are affected by not only their qualities and prices but also the positions where they are displayed. Despite determining the assortment and their corresponding display positions sequentially, we propose to solve this problem in an integrated way to obtain the optimal solution. We formulate this problem as a nonlinear binary integer programming model and develop a dynamic programming based solution approach to obtain the optimal assortment-position assignments. We carry out extensive numerical experiments to evaluate the benefit of our integrated approach. The most important insight we discover is that it is not necessarily better to put the most attractive products in the best position. Moreover, we show that compared to the sequential approaches, our approach can improve revenue by 10.38% on average, which suggests that firms should take into consideration position effects when making assortment decisions. Finally, we discuss results related to two extensions of this problem, that is, the special case when positions are preassigned to nests, and the joint assortment-position-price optimization problem.