Country survey XVIII: The two Koreas' defence economy

In this paper we change the structure of the basic conflict model. This makes it possible to found an economic theory of war and peace. Apart from few exceptions there exist no peace equilibria in the related literature of conflict theory. The aim of the paper is to fill this gap, because most parts of the world live in peace. Further we show that negotiations are possible to avoid a war. The main result is that war breaks out only if the distribution of resources and/or the effectiveness of weapons is sufficiently unequal.     

Economic theorizing of conflict: Historical contributions,future possibilities

This article is organized around two major topics addressed by nineteenth and early twentieth century economists: (1) international economic relations and war and (2) economic activity in the shadow of conflict. My thesis is that an early and neglected reservoir of economic thought on peace and war exists and valuable perspectives on research in defense and peace economics can be gained by tapping into it.     

对抗战时期中国机器工业“繁荣”的思辨

抗战时期,中国的机器业获得了一个＂繁荣＂的发展。这是近代中国追求机器业发展几十年的结果,更是战争特殊环境直接推动的结果。然而,这种主要因战争而＂繁荣＂的假象是暂时的,在整个中国工业中的比重也很弱,它并没有将中国工业化推向深入。同时,就战争带给机器业的影响来看,它是一把双刃剑,无论就战争发动者与应对者,它带给人类的是祸大于福,任何寄希望于战争带动社会经济、大发战争财的做法迟早会作茧自缚。我们应反对战争、创造和平、珍惜和平,只有在和平环境中才能谋求真正的发展。     

How do wars end? A strategic perspective

ABSTRACT

This article gives an overview of the literature on war termination both in the fields of behaviouralism social sciences and policy-oriented strategic studies. It identifies shortcomings and problems related to both lines of research. The main problem is the undifferentiated and indiscriminate use of the term ‘war’. The article proposes a categorisation of wars that could form the basis for more thorough research on the topic of war termination.     

Using the Feder-Ram and Military Keynesian Models to Examine the Link Between Defence Spending and Economic Growth in Sri Lanka

This study uses the Feder-Ram model in conjunction with the military Keynesian model to examine the nexus between defence spending and economic growth in Sri Lanka. We find that the Keynesian aggregate demand model is better suited to analyse the link than the Feder-Ram model for the case of Sri Lanka. Based upon our results we expect a higher economic growth rate in Sri Lanka if more public resources are diverted from the defence to civilian sectors of the economy, now that the war between the government and separatist guerrillas has come to an end. However, recent post war events cast doubt upon whether a diversion of sources from military to non-military spending will actually occur. We conclude that the sanguine predictions of our economic analysis are entirely dependent upon the political decisions of the Sri Lankan government for their realization.     

Pricing war within a real option framework∗

The aim of this paper is to provide insights on war spending using simple tools of financial calculus rather than developing a general theory. Combining Grossman and Han's theory of war finance with the empirical literature that displays a straightforward relationship between the real value of money and wartime military events, we advocate the use of the real option approach of war spending. Some calculations and an empirical example illustrate this approach.     

Jacques Maritain: Christian Theorist of Non-Violence and Just War

Jacques Maritain (1882–1973) is widely recognized as one of the foremost Catholic philosophers of modern times. He wrote groundbreaking works in all branches of philosophy. For a period of about 10 years, beginning in 1933, he discussed matters relating to war and ethics. Writing initially about Gandhi, whose strategy of non-violence he sought to incorporate within a Christian conception of political action, Maritain proceeded to comment more specifically on the religious aspects of armed force in “On Holy War,” an essay about the civil war then ongoing in Spain (1936–1939). After the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, Maritain penned a series of essays that sought to explain why the Anglo–French declarations of war were warranted on Christian just war principles. While the secondary literature on Maritain’s thought is extensive, thus far there has been little systematic exploration of his writings on war. In what follows I seek to remedy this lacuna, by examining how he conceptualized just war in the three phases outlined above.     

A Re-assessment of the Japanese Armaments Production During World War II*

Abstract

This paper examines the nexus between the Japanese strategy and economic–industrial mobilization during the period 1937–1945. From 1937 to December 1941, the country was engaged in a land war of attrition in China. This war requested an immense amount of resources and was associated with armaments procurement strategy with emphasis in the army. However, the Japanese strategic vision assumed that the state was strong enough to engage in one land war against China and in a naval war in the Pacific simultaneously. The basis of Japanese strategy was a utopia. Making things worse, the naval war in the Pacific was conducted against the most industrialized powers in the world [the US and the British Empire (Britain, Australia, India, etc.)]. Finally, the internal Japanese industrial mobilization was associated with immense errors in armaments production (absence of economies of scale and scope, limited raw materials, etc.). Under these circumstances, the defeat was an expected outcome.     

Think again – supplying war: reappraising military logistics and its centrality to strategy and war

This article argues that logistics constrains strategic opportunity while itself being heavily circumscribed by strategic and operational planning. With the academic literature all but ignoring the centrality of logistics to strategy and war, this article argues for a reappraisal of the critical role of military logistics, and posits that the study and conduct of war and strategy are incomplete at best or false at worst when they ignore this crucial component of the art of war. The article conceptualises the logistics–strategy nexus in a novel way, explores its contemporary manifestation in an age of uncertainty, and applies it to a detailed case study of UK operations in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001.     

The concept of logistics derived from Clausewitz: All that is required so that the fighting force can be taken as a given

This article assesses the existing literature on logistics in war, concluding that there is no satisfactory conceptual definition of logistics. It proposes a concept of logistics derived from Clausewitz's theory of war to fill that void. This is presented as a derivation because Clausewitz's distinction between (1) the use of the fighting forces (tactics and strategy) and (2) all other activities in war that were required so that forces could be taken as a given. The latter, left unnamed by Clausewitz, corresponds to a concept of logistics that proves to be an analytical peer to Clausewitz's categories of politics, tactics and strategy.     

War,vagueness and hybrid war

It has frequently been observed in the literature on hybrid wars that there is a grey zone between peace and war, and that hybrid wars are conflicts which are not clear cases of war. In this paper, I attempt to illuminate this grey zone and the concept and nature of war from the philosophical discussions of vagueness and institutional facts. Vague terms are characterized by the fact that there is no non-arbitrary boundary between entities which lie in their extension, and entities which do not lie in their extension. I apply a theory of vagueness to notions such as “war” and “peace” and go on to suggest that the exact boundary for what counts as a war or not is arbitrary. However, the context in which the conflict occurs determines a range of possible locations for this boundary. The most important contextual parameter is in this respect how the parties to the conflict themselves conceptualize the conflict. I suggest that this can in various ways help us understand grey-zone conflicts.     

燕赵抗战文学赏析

抗战期间,英勇的燕赵儿女在中国共产党的领导下,在华北平原掀起了波澜壮阔、艰苦卓绝的抗日战争。曾亲身经历过这场战争的一代作家,以抗战为题材,创作出一批优秀的抗战文学作品。这些作品集中表现了燕赵大地传统文化中慷慨悲壮、尚武任侠的人文风貌。这种特定的人文精神孕育了一代代燕赵儿女,在艰苦的战争中又转化成强大的精神动力。在纪念抗日战争胜利60周年之际,追溯燕赵传统文化,重温抗战文学作品,仍具有深远的现实意义。     

Evaluating the Spillover Effects of the Colombian Conflict in Ecuador

The Colombian civil war lasted for nearly six decades with approximately 10 percent of its population being displaced over the same period. The implications of this conflict have transgressed international boundaries. Countries such as Ecuador experienced an exodus of victims as well as an increase in the presence of armed groups, along with the proliferation of illegal businesses. Even though the internal social and economic consequences of the Colombian conflict have been documented in the literature, there is yet to be a study addressing these issues from the perspective of impacted neighboring countries. In this work, we contribute to the literature by evaluating whether the influx of asylum seekers and the increasing presence of armed groups in the bordering provinces of Ecuador have lead to an increase in violence among these provinces. We do not find any link between the arrival of asylum seekers and the incidence of violent crimes in the Ecuadorean bordering provinces. Similarly, our results indicate that despite an increase in the presence of armed groups, these regions did not experience an increase in the homicide rates significantly different from the other provinces. The results are robust to various specifications and econometric techniques.     

Is Britain a force for good? Investigating British citizens’ narrative understanding of war

It is commonly assumed in the foreign policy literature that narratives are uniquely persuasive and thus integral to obtaining public support for war. Yet, empirical research on “strategic narrative” is often vague on both the concept of narrative and how it persuades. Moreover, the stories publics use to interpret war are rarely examined. This paper offers a novel approach to studying “from the ground up” the war stories of individual British citizens. It examines public interpretations of war through emplotment: the way people select and link events to create a coherent story. Examining the wars people include and those they silence, it illustrates how a diverse range of citizens morally evaluates Britain’s military role, be it as a Force for Good, a Force for Ill or a country Learning from its Mistakes. In doing so, the paper offers an alternative methodological approach to studying how individual citizens understand war.     

The evaluation of a possible future Sino-Japanese armed conflict through the application of the ACEI-model

There is relatively little formal modeling of the economic effects of armed conflicts even though they have substantial economic effects. We set forth a new model, namely the armed conflict economic impact model – ACEI-Model. The model looks at the economic effects of war in three different stages: (i) pre-conflict stage; (ii) armed conflict stage; and (iii) post-conflict stage. The model is based on economic desgrowth (-δ) and other new conceptual indicators. We evaluate an imaginary armed conflict between China and Japan by applying the ACEI-Model.     

A Review of Recent Advances and Future Directions in the Quantitative Literature on Civil War

This paper reviews the booming literature on civil war. It presents the major theoretical perspectives and key empirical results on the determinants of civil war. The paper identifies controversies in the field and suggests ways to improve and organize our research. The conclusion outlines possible future directions for research on civil wars.     

Power-Sharing in Civil War: Puzzles of Peacemaking and Peacebuilding

Syria's slide into sectarian civil war in 2011 raises a new fundamental knowledge question about the conditions under which power-sharing pacts can be clinched as an approach to war termination. When intrastate conflicts escalate into violent sectarian struggles, power-sharing is a likely basis of an eventual political settlement in situations where partition is off the table. This article contends that there remain two puzzling knowledge gaps about power-sharing as the basis for peace agreements to end civil wars: first, the specific conditions under which elites find it in their own interest to share power with bitter adversaries rather than fight on the battlefield, and second, how war-ending elite-negotiated pacts may evolve into more enduring social contracts. These puzzles, critical for policymakers and still unresolved in the scholarly literature, suggest the need to develop more contingent- and context-specific knowledge if research findings are to more capably contribute to peacemaking efforts.     

Hybrid War and Its Countermeasures: A Critique of the Literature

This article examines critically the literature of hybrid war and evaluates the countermeasures often proposed. It explains the concept of hybrid warfare and its varied interpretations, illustrating how it is a manifestation of current anxieties in armed conflict. The selection of the literature is based on works that are referenced, that offer a scientific approach, and which review either the phenomenon of hybrid warfare or its countermeasures empirically. Unscientific works have been omitted. The analysis of the literature presented here shows that the antidotes to ‘hybridity’ lie not in the operational or tactical sphere but in strategic and political domains.     

Dangerous Demographics? The Effect of Urbanisation and Metropolisation on African Civil Wars, 1961–2010

Whether urbanisation promotes or inhibits the risk of civil war is disputed: while case studies usually support the former, quantitative investigations have found either the latter or no significant correlation at all. I argue that this contradiction is due to a conceptual and operational over-aggregation of urbanisation, ignoring its intrastate variation. I claim that a high relative concentration of the urban population and political, economic and social institutions in the largest city – so-called metropolisation – can increase both the motivation for and the feasibility of rebellion in a country. Triangulating case study evidence with a quantitative cross-national time series design, I show that metropolisation significantly and robustly increases the risk of governmental conflict in particular and hence civil war in general.