A1 Qaeda and the radical Islamic challenge to western strategy

The September 11 global crisis prompted by the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon raises major questions concerning the nature and trajectory of terrorism in the post-Cold War global order. Hitherto, terrorism has been largely debated by analysts at the level of nation states. Terrorist and insurgent movements have also been largely anchored in nationalist and ethnic power bases even when they have sought to mobilise a transnational ideological appeal on religious or class grounds. There have been a few exceptions to this pattern such as the alliance between the German Baader-Meinhof group and the Japanese Red Army Faction, but even such international alliances as this did not, until at least the 1980s, presage anything like a global terrorist network necessitating a global strategic response. This study examines terrorism and global strategic responses.     

Setting a place at the table: ending insurgencies through the political process

This article argues that, under certain conditions, allowing insurgents into the political process – through elections or government posts – can be a useful tool in the peace process and can help end insurgencies. However, bringing insurgents into the political process is unlikely to end insurgencies on its own, particularly if insurgents, the government, or the population believes that force is still a viable means of defeating the opponent and changing the status quo. The article begins with a brief overview of the causes of insurgency and on conflict resolution for internal wars. The article then considers two examples of insurgents that have entered the political process – the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Northern Ireland and Hezbollah in Lebanon – and the differing degrees of success in transforming these insurgents to non-violent participants in the political process. It concludes by suggesting how insurgents can be brought into the political process as part of conflict resolution and the implications for Afghanistan.     

A LONG‐RUN ANALYSIS OF DEFENCE SPENDING IN THE NATO COUNTRIES (1960–99)

This paper analyses the long‐run demand for defence output through a homogeneous treatment of 15 NATO member countries between 1960 and 1999. We carry out a progressive study of the interactions between either defence spending or defence burden and their main determinants: income, external threat and allied military spending. To that end, we use time‐series analysis with endogenously determined structural breaks. We further consider individual country functions related to one another through a common correlated effects method, in order to take into account explicitly the connections between members of an alliance.     

空舰导弹火控系统精度分析研究

介绍了一种空舰导弹火控系统动态精度试验的试验方法、误差分析理论和方法.用导弹火控系统的数据测量设备获取火控系统输出射击诸元参数实际值,再测量载机和靶船的位置和运动参数,经真值解算模型解算出射击诸元参数标准值.将实际值与标准值进行比较与分析,即可得知空舰导弹火控系统的动态精度是否满足要求.此方法已成功地应用于导弹火控系统精度飞行试验中.     

半预制破片PELE弹丸对武装直升机毁伤效能

为研究半预制破片PELE弹丸对武装直升机的毁伤效能,选取代表性的阿帕奇武装直升机为研究对象,建立了阿帕奇武装直升机关键部件驾驶舱和发动机舱的等效模型,在此基础上应用ANSYS/LS-DYNA就半预制破片PELE弹丸对阿帕奇武装直升机的毁伤效能进行了数值分析.结果表明:半预制破片PELE弹丸能有效穿透阿帕奇武装直升机的防护装甲,在穿透防护靶后弹丸壳体大面积碎裂,产生大量具有较高轴向剩余速度和一定径向飞散速度的破片,形成一个大面积的破片场,这些破片及弹丸剩余部分可对武装直升机内部人员及仪器设备造成有效毁伤,极大地增强了PELE弹丸的毁伤效能.     

多机吊放声纳对潜警戒扇面动态计算方法

针对多架反潜直升机使用吊放声纳搜索时的对潜警戒扇面动态计算问题,根据搜索方法建立多机悬停点坐标解算模型;采用等效的方法,将当前悬停点吊放声纳的探测区域与所有已完成探测的悬停点不存在潜艇的区域等效为对潜警戒范围进行计算;建立了各悬停点探测区域相对舰艇编队舷角的动态计算模型;给出了动态计算多机对潜警戒扇面起始、终止舷角的计算方法。最后仿真计算了对潜警戒扇面随搜索时间、间距系数的动态变化关系。结果显示:对潜警戒扇面将在一定范围内周期性动态变化;且受间距系数的影响较大。     

舰艇防空反导自适应干扰HDP算法分析与仿真

为干扰来袭的多波次、多方向反舰导弹,提高舰艇防空反导能力,分析了自适应干扰HDP算法模型,并通过实例进行仿真。通过对结果进行分析,验证了启发式动态规划(HDP)算法在自适应电子干扰策略最优组合的生成过程中的时效性、预测精度以及适用性,为该算法的后续研究提供支持。     

Institutions,information, and commitment: the role of democracy in conflict

This paper explores the hypothesis that both the preexisting quality of democracy in a polity at the onset of conflict and the quality of democracy expected to emerge in the aftermath influence the likelihood of civil war. An empirical investigation of the hypothesis presents a challenge due to concerns of endogeneity and selection: the post-conflict level of democracy is endogenous to the pre-conflict level. Further, for a given time period, either a number of countries have not experienced civil war; or if they did, did not resolve the conflict. We overcome this selection bias by implementing a three-step extension to the Heckman procedure using an unbalanced cross-country panel of 77 countries over the period 1971–2005. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find that a standard deviation improvement in the existing level of democracy reduces the probability of civil war by approximately 9 percentage points and a corresponding improvement in expected post-conflict democratization increases the probability of conflict by approximately 48 percentage points.     

Exact algorithms and bounds for the dynamic assignment interdiction problem

We study a multi‐stage dynamic assignment interdiction (DAI) game in which two agents, a user and an attacker, compete in the underlying bipartite assignment graph. The user wishes to assign a set of tasks at the minimum cost, and the attacker seeks to interdict a subset of arcs to maximize the user's objective. The user assigns exactly one task per stage, and the assignment costs and interdiction impacts vary across stages. Before any stage commences in the game, the attacker can interdict arcs subject to a cardinality constraint. An interdicted arc can still be used by the user, but at an increased assignment cost. The goal is to find an optimal sequence of assignments, coupled with the attacker's optimal interdiction strategy. We prove that this problem is strongly NP‐hard, even when the attacker can interdict only one arc. We propose an exact exponential‐state dynamic‐programming algorithm for this problem as well as lower and upper bounds on the optimal objective function value. Our bounds are based on classical interdiction and robust optimization models, and on variations of the DAI game. We examine the efficiency of our algorithms and the quality of our bounds on a set of randomly generated instances. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 64: 373–387, 2017     

Simulation on the dynamic stability derivatives of battle-structure-damaged aircrafts

Accurately evaluating the aerodynamic performance of a battle-structure-damaged aircraft is essential to enable the pilot to optimize the flight control strategy. Based on CFD and rigid dynamic mesh techniques, a numerical method is developed to calculate the longitudinal and longitudinal-lateral coupling forces and moments with small amplitude sinusoidal pitch oscillation, and the corresponding dynamic de-rivatives of two fragment-structure-damaged and two continuous-rod-damaged models modified from the SACCON UAV. The results indicate that, at the reference point set in this paper, additional positive damping is generated in fragment-damaged configurations; thus, the absolute values of the negative pitch dynamic derivative increase. The missing wingtip induces negative pitch damping on the aircraft and decreases the value of the pitch dynamic derivative. The missing middle wing causes a noticeable increase in the absolute value of the pitch dynamic derivative;the missing parts on the right wing cause the aircraft to roll to the right side in the dynamic process, and the pitch-roll coupling cross dynamic derivatives are positive. Moreover, the values of these derivatives increase as the damaged area on the right wing increases, and an optimal case with the smallest cross dynamic derivative can be found to help improve the survivability of damaged aircraft.