中国空间安全形势

随着中国在太空领域的不断崛起,太空地位不断提升的同时,也面临着各种各样的挑战,这些挑战既有源自传统政治领域的大国阻挠,也有来自外太空的人类共同威胁。为了应对这些威胁和挑战,保护中国的太空利益和国家利益,我们需要从多方面着手,多管齐下,以维护日益重要的中国国家太空利益。     

IS STUXNET PHYSICAL? DOES IT MATTER?

Cyber-weapons are software and software, at least intuitively, is non-physical. Several authors have noted that this potentially renders problematic the application of normative frameworks like UN Charter Article 2(4) to cyber-weapons. If Article 2(4) only proscribes the use of physical force, and if cyber-weapons are non-physical, then cyber-weapons fall outside the purview of Article 2(4). This article explores the physicality of software, examining Stuxnet in particular. First, I show that with a few relatively uncontroversial metaphysical claims we can secure the conclusion that Stuxnet is physical. In particular, there exist instances of Stuxnet that are both located in space and causally efficacious, and this is very strong evidence for their being physical. Second, I argue that the question of physicality is actually irrelevant for the moral evaluation of an attack like Stuxnet because of its undeniably physical effects. Finally, I argue that some features of Stuxnet should make us optimistic about the prospects for discrimination and proportionality in cyberwarfare.     

How not to pay for the war

As a result of allied subsidy and the influence of sunk costs, the marginal cost of the Gulf War to the US was reduced to negligible size. This result is at variance with the Olson‐Zeckhauser thesis that in an alliance “the small exploit the large.” A game theoretic alternative explanation suggests that the relation between allies resembles the game of Chicken, successfully played by the US. The ability to shift the marginal costs of war in the short term raises questions about the possible underestimation of long term effects.     

WHAT ARE THE ODDS?

Nuclear optimists and pessimists disagree on whether the odds of nuclear war are low or high. This viewpoint assesses the odds of nuclear war over the past sixty-six years, exploring three pathways to nuclear war: an international crisis leading directly to nuclear war, an accident or misperception leading to nuclear escalation or nuclear retaliation against an imaginary attack, and a general conventional war leading to nuclear war. The assessment is based on the application of Bayes's theorem and other statistical reasoning and finds that the expected probability of nuclear war during this historical period was greater than 50 percent. This level of risk is unacceptably high. It is therefore urgent that effective measures be taken to substantially reduce the risk of nuclear war.     

Attacking the Atom: Does Bombing Nuclear Facilities Affect Proliferation?

Abstract

What are the consequences of military strikes against nuclear facilities? In particular, do they ‘work’ by delaying the target states ability to build the bomb? This article addresses these questions by conducting an analysis of 16 attacks against nuclear facilities from 1942 to 2007. We analyze strikes that occurred during peacetime and raids that took place in the context of an ongoing interstate war. The findings indicate that strikes are neither as uniformly fruitless as the skeptics would suggest, nor as productive as advocates have claimed. There is evidence that the peacetime attacks delayed the target's nuclear program, although the size of this effect is rather modest. The wartime cases were less successful, as attacks often missed their targets either due to operational failure or limited intelligence on the location of critical targets. In our concluding section we show that many of the conditions that were conducive to past success are not present in the contemporary Iran case. Overall, our findings reveal an interesting paradox. The historical cases that have successfully delayed proliferation are those when the attacking state struck well before a nuclear threat was imminent. Yet, this also happens to be when strikes are the least legitimate under international law, meaning that attacking under these conditions is most likely to elicit international censure.     

Russian Reactions to Reagan's ‘Maritime Strategy’

The US Navy's audacious Maritime Strategy of the 1980s is often credited with acting as a key catalyst to the demise of the USSR. In assessing the role of strategic missile submarine “bastions” in the country's overall military strategy, the authors are skeptical of the above thesis, explaining that Moscow actually viewed deployments of Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles on to US submarines (versus direct threats against the Soviet Navy itself) as the most alarming threat. The authors concede that the arms race played a role in the collapse of the USSR, but deny a direct connection with Soviet naval development citing the relatively minor naval proportion of overall defense spending. For the difficulties facing the fleet at the end of the Cold War, they instead blame deep systemic problems internal to the Soviet Navy.     

Cost allocation of capacity investment games

Consider a manufacturer serving a set of retail stores each of which faces deterministic demands in a finite planning horizon. At the beginning of the planning horizon, the production capacity of the manufacturer is built, followed by production, outsourcing to third party manufacturers if necessary and distribution to the retail stores. Because the retail stores are usually managed by different managers who act as independent profit centers, it is desirable that the total cost is divided among the retail stores so that their incentives can be appropriately captured and thus efficient operations can be achieved. Under various conditions, we prove that there is a fair allocation of costs among the retail stores in the sense that no subset of retail stores subsidizes others, or equivalently, the resulting capacity investment game has a nonempty core, that is, the capacity investment game is a balanced game. In addition, our proof provides a mechanism to compute a fair cost allocation. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 60: 512–523, 2013     

Problems with the Kurds as proxies against Islamic State: insights from the siege of Kobane

Abstract

The siege of the northern Syrian town of Kobane was lifted in January 2015. The Kurdish defenders there had triumphed against Islamic State (IS). The conflict then moved on. It moved on, though, with the United States, the United Kingdom, and other Western powers having adopted, almost by default, the Kurds as proxy fighters in this conflict. The Kurds, however, are a divided and fractious nation spread across three states and historically famous for fighting among themselves. In employing the Kurds as proxies against IS, as this article shows, these Western powers must be aware of the unintended consequences that can result.