Towards a Humanitarian Military Ethics: Moral Autonomy,Integrity and Obligations in the British and German Armed Forces

Humanitarian operations may pose challenges to which armed forces prepared for warfighting seem rather ill-equipped. It is the aim of this article to examine in what way military ethics should be adapted to humanitarian tasks. Two ideal types of military ethics are defined here: warfighting and humanitarian. The warfighting ethic is supposed to maximise the utility of the military in war and combat and to that end utilises the virtues of loyalty and honour. In contrast, humanitarian obligations require to a larger extent the development of personal integrity and an ability to follow one’s own conscience. The adaptation of military ethics is demonstrated in the case studies of the UK armed forces and the German Bundeswehr. Whereas the moral code of the UK armed forces remains anchored in the principles of the warfighting ethic, the case of the Bundeswehr presents a military ethic closely approximating the humanitarian ideal type.     

基于组件的末段高层反导作战仿真系统功能分析与设计

末段高层反导作战系统是拦截来袭战术弹道导弹的一个重要武器系统,其发展水平是一个国家军事实力的重要体现。鉴于该系统构成复杂、成本昂贵,因此开发用于科研和训练的作战仿真系统已成为一个关键问题。分析了末段高层反导作战仿真系统的功能结构和数据流,建立了末段高层反导作战仿真系统的功能组件模型。基于功能组件的作战仿真系统具有可重用和即插即用性等特点,有利于简化作战仿真系统结构组成,缩短作战仿真系统开发周期,可为实际战斗力生成提供一个用于科研和训练的实验平台。     

从孙子“将帅五德”看军校素质教育

《孙子兵法》作为我国古代兵学著作中的圭皋,其博大精深的思想内容不仅深刻揭示了战争的一般规律,而且对如何培养优秀的军事人才也有着卓越的见解,对于今天我们培养造就新型军事人才有着宝贵的借鉴作用。     

Intellectual spring cleaning: it’s time for a military “Do Not Read” list; and some sources that should be on that list

Military reading lists, intended to promote professional reading and in turn enhance education and develop critical thinking skills and sound judgement, recommend key texts to military personnel. This is a noble intent but the lists themselves, while generally good, are not flawless. Critiques of military reading lists often focus on what sources they are missing. This article offers its own critique but from a different perspective. It does so by analysing why some sources, which have become outdated, are based on faulty or incomplete research, have been thoroughly disproven, or some combination of the above, nevertheless linger on military reading lists. It then offers a short list of such sources, which it recommends be either removed from existing reading lists or accompanied by other sources that place the original source in appropriate historical context. Where applicable, it also recommends alternative sources that provide insights into the same subject matter. In so doing, this article is intended generate debate and to assist militaries to achieve a better balance between evaluation, induction and retention of valid knowledge on one hand, and rejection of outdated or flawed knowledge on the other.     

BOOK REVIEWS

This study examines how young people who have joined the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) on the two-year Military Skills Development System (MSDS) contract experience military service, and the effect this has on their ability to readapt to civilian life. The first part of the study examines the theoretical debates associated with military socialisation and reintegration into civilian life. Hereafter, the findings are presented in terms of the experiences of MSDS privates serving in the infantry, those that have left, and the perceptions of employment agencies in terms of the marketability of military skills. The conclusion is reached that MSDS members experience their two years in the SANDF as life-changing, that this affects their ability to reintegrate back into civilian society, and that the skills acquired during military training is of limited market value. The conclusion is reached that more needs to be done to assist these young military veterans to adapt to civilian life and to augment their military experience with more marketable skills to enable them to find gainful employment.     

Measuring Military Professionalism in Partner Nations: Guidance for Security Assistance Officials

The U.S. spends billions of dollars in its security cooperation program to develop “professional, accountable, and capable security forces” in other nations, part of a grand strategy to improve global stability and counter violent extremism. Despite its great investment in professionalizing foreign militaries, however, the U.S. has no functional definition of military professionalism – a term that until now has been considered too vague and multi-faceted to operationalize. In this article, the author seeks to remedy this oversight, drawing from twenty years of security cooperation fieldwork in Latin America and Africa, as well as a vigorous literature review, to define four important components of military professionalism: (1) formal military education and vocational training, (2) military subordination to elected civilian officials, (3) knowledge and practice of the law of armed conflict and human rights law, and (4) a clearly established program of professional military ethics. This article provides guidelines for U.S. and European officials who work with partner nations to develop more professional military forces and, in particular, for officials managing security assistance programs with developing countries.     

Does military spending promote social welfare? A comparative analysis of the BRICS and G7 countries

Whether military spending is capable of promoting social welfare is currently a controversial issue. The aim of this paper is to investigate how military spending affects the input and output of social welfare (i.e. social welfare expenditures and social welfare index). A panel cointegration analysis and an impulse response function are conducted with multi-country panel data, over two time periods, 1998–2011 and 1993–2007. In addition, to extend a comparative analysis over different economies, BRICS (i.e. Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) and G7 (i.e. the US, Japan, Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Canada) countries are selected as representatives of emerging economies and developed countries, respectively. The empirical results show that military spending enhances social welfare expenditures in developed countries, while the effect is ambiguous in emerging economies. Also, military spending is capable of promoting the social welfare index based on the FMOLS estimation. The comparative analyses indicate that unlike in the G7, the effect of the growth of military spending on the growth of social welfare expenditures is negative and shorter in the BRICS.     

军队会计流程存在的问题及优化策略

在新军事变革的背景下,军队会计流程存在不适应新管理体制需要、信息技术应用对会计流程再造力度不够、军队会计科目设置影响流程等问题。本文从界定军队会计流程的含义入手,提出了优化军队会计流程、建立智能化军队会计信息系统的四项策略,即重塑军队会计流程体系、重构军队会计信息系统、调整军队会计科目体系以及完善各流程会计处理方法。优化军队会计流程、建设智能化军队会计信息系统,不仅能够反映军事经济活动的历史信息,还能为不同类型的信息使用者提供预测、决策等支持,并有利于改善军队会计核算质量,准确反映各类资产负债的价值信息和单位的真实财务状况,对于提高军队会计信息质量具有一定的借鉴意义。     

Measuring the Impact of Military Spending: How Far Does a DSGE Model Deviate from Reality?

Dunne, Smith, and Willenbockel (2005) argue that the mainstream growth literature has not found military spending to be a significant determinant of economic growth, yet much of the defense economics literature has noted significant effects. This paper revisits this issue by using a DSGE-VAR approach, combining both theoretical and empirical methods. We present that the DSGE approach (estimated with the Bayesian technique) and the Bayesian VAR with the Minnesota Prior both lead to worse in-sample fit than our proposed DSGE-VAR framework. The DSGE-VAR approach reveals that a positive military spending shock boosts the U.S. economy, increasing per capita real GDP growth, consumption, inflation and interest rate. Our results are robust to alternative model specifications. Future investigations such as exploring an optimal military spending policy could adopt the approach in this paper to determine the best model – empirical, theoretical, or a combination of the two.     

Counterinsurgency as armed reform: The political history of the Malayan Emergency

Despite the emphasis in doctrine and academia that counterinsurgency is in its essence political, these operations are all too commonly discussed and approached as primarily military endeavors. Informed by the need to refocus counterinsurgency studies, this article revisits a foundational case of the canon – the Malayan Emergency – to discuss its political (i.e., not military) unfolding. The analysis distinguishes itself by emphasizing the diplomatic processes, negotiations, and deals that gave strategic meaning to the military operations underway. In so doing, the article also generates insight on the use of leverage and elite bargains in creating new political settlements and bringing insurgent conflicts to an end.     

The demand for military expenditure in authoritarian regimes

This paper examines whether there are systematic differences in military spending between different types of autocratic regimes. We view military expenditure as an instrument a dictator can exploit in order to stay in power. How he utilises this instrument depends on the institutional set-up of his regime. We distinguish between military regimes, single party states and personalist regimes, and predict that military regimes should have the highest, whereas personalist dictatorships should have the lowest level of military spending. Using panel data on 64 dictatorships from 1960 to 2000, we find empirical evidence that our hypotheses are not rejected.     

The Nepalese Army: From counterinsurgency to peacekeeping?

Can peacekeeping participation help reform military institutions in democratizing states? Drawing on evidence from Nepal – one of the world's largest troop contributors to UN peacekeeping operations – this essay illustrates that participation in peace missions can sometimes undermine security sector reform and deteriorate civil–military relations. Furthermore, this analysis shows that peacekeeping participation will not necessarily reorient troops away from their conventional internal roles (such as counterinsurgency) or improve civilian control over the armed forces. Hence, civilians can lose control over soldiers just as frequently when they are deployed overseas as when they are at home.     

Do Military Expenditures Crowd-out Health Expenditures? Evidence from around the World, 2000–2013

Abstract

The paper examines the relationship between health and military expenditures using pooled cross-sectional (197 countries) and time series (2000–2013) data. Simultaneous equation models were employed to estimate the relationship between an array of public sector expenditures in order to address potential endogeneity. Our empirical findings strongly support the crowding-out hypothesis whereby increased military expenditures reduce the capacity of government to direct expenditures to health expenditures. These findings were robust to alternative specifications explored in the sensitivity analyses. Compared with upper-middle-income countries, the crowding-out effect became more pronounced among lower-middle-income countries. Consequently, this study shows that increased military expenditures negatively impacts health expenditures, and therefore poses as an important risk factor for population health and individual well-being. Moreover, it is the poorest of nations that are most sensitive to the negative effects of increased military expenditures.     

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EXTERNAL DEBT,DEFENCE EXPENDITURES AND GNP REVISITED: THE CASE OF TURKEY

This paper contributes to the continuing debate on the economic effects of military expenditure by undertaking a case study of Greece. Within Europe Greece provides a particularly interesting object of study. It has the highest military burden in Europe and NATO, is the only European Union country situated in the unstable environment of the Balkans, faces a military threat from Turkey, and has a very weak economy. After some background analysis of the economy and military expenditure, the paper investigates the determinants of Greek military expenditure as well as whether the high military burden has played an important role in Greece's poor economic performance over the period 1960–1996. It estimates a Keynesian simultaneous equation model with a supply side, which allows the indirect effects of military expenditure to be captured explicitly. It concludes that the major determinants of Greek defence spending are not economic but strategic (the threat of war) and that the direct effect of defence spending on economic growth as well as the indirect effects through savings and trade balance are all significantly negative. On the basis of such strong results, the paper concludes that defence spending is harmful for the Greek economy.     

Civil—military relations in Africa: Navigating uncharted waters

“Perception is a second reality!”

This essay discusses the military as a part of wider society and the interactions between the two. It argues that civil—military relations are complex and not always harmonious. In its focus on Africa, the essay describes some differences in the development of African militaries and civil—military relations on the continent as compared with the West, but argues that the differences are merely a matter of degree. As civil—military relations on the continent have been strongly influenced by its colonial history, which caused fear and even dislike of the colonial military, it still impacts on these relations in the post-colonial era. After examining the relationship between the armed forces, democracy and politics in the politically turbulent African environment, it is concluded that a simplistic definition of civil—military relations is difficult to arrive at. The essay identifies the key principles of democratic civil—military relations and, although admitting that these principles are not always easy to adhere to, argues that as Africa develops civil—military relations, African militaries have moved and will move closer to observing these principles. To enhance this process it is essential for African militaries to include civic education programmes at all levels of education and training in order to gain a better understanding of and commitment to these principles.     

Research communication security in the 90s: A view from the UK

This paper develops a methodology for measuring the capital value of military assets in monetary terms. We distinguish between two military capital measures. One measure, called the value of military capital (services) summarizes the value of military defense assets during a particular year. A comparison of the capital‐services value of U.S. and Soviet tactical combat aircraft is provided for the period 1970–1984.

One feature of the capital‐services measure that makes it particularly interesting is that its size can be compared with such military expenditures as operating and support. While these latter expenditures reflect the readiness of a defense establishment, the relevant capital‐services measure reflects force structure and modernization.

A second measure, called the value of military capital (wealth), summarizes the military benefits obtained from defense assets over the remainder of their service lives. This measure depreciates the capital as it ages, and is useful for comparing military wealth with other types of wealth in the economy. We provide this measure for the U.S. military capital stock for 1925–1984.     

‘All Innovation Leads to Hellfire’: Military Reform and the Ottoman Empire in the Eighteenth Century

The debates on the pace, scope and nature of Ottoman military reform tend to be dominated by domestic and/or cultural explanations. Issues of military competition and efficiency, embodied in Neorealist perspectives, might appear to have little to offer as an explanatory tool in the Ottoman context. This article argues that this view is mistaken. First, despite their value, there remains an indeterminacy about domestic and cultural explanations that limits their usefulness as single-cause explanations. Second, Neorealism does generate valuable insights into the dynamics of military reform in the Ottoman Empire; issues of military competition and efficiency do matter in explaining the nature of Ottoman military reform during this period. Ultimately, domestic, cultural, and Neorealist perspectives are complementary, and mono-causal explanations of eighteenth century developments in the Ottoman military are likely to be too simplistic.     

The causes of trust and distrust in the military

Trust in institutions is an important issue of political science and sociology. This article contributes to the discussion by exploring public trust in the military at the global, regional and national levels, and the causes of trust and distrust in the military. Analyses of public opinion data reveal that the military is a highly trusted social institution across the world. In Slovenia, the trust in the military is high as well; however, it is lower than international data would suggest, averaging at 50%. Against this background, the article focuses on the causes of trust. The original empirical survey was accomplished and shows that the most significant causes of a high level of trust in the military are its frequent and successful involvement in disaster relief, its professional qualifications and high performance, as well as its national defense role. Whereas the key causes of distrust are: the poor levels of transparency in its procurement process; the politicization of the military and organizational problems.     

刑法修正案（五）新增军事犯罪的罪名探析

对《刑法修正案(五)》第三条增设的过失军事犯罪的具体罪名,刑法学界和司法实务界存在分歧。通过对用词的分析,根据罪名的确定原则,认为最佳选择的罪名是"过失损坏武器装备、军事设施、军事通信罪"。     

Bringing Military Conduct out of the Shadow of Law: Towards a Holistic Understanding of Rules of Engagement

In this article, I outline a holistic approach to the military concept of “Rules of Engagement” (ROE), which complements the legal aspects of ROE with considerations of operational and political requirements for the use of military force. Drawing upon two illustrative cases from the US military experience with the use of ROE, I demonstrate that ROE for any particular military operation should be formulated to balance optimally, if not harmonize fully, the legal, operational and political concerns related to the use of force. In this task, political decision-makers and military practitioners alike are confronted with unavoidable and real-life dilemmas. How these dilemmas are handled has significant implications for how legal requirements concerning accountability and concerns for civilian lives in military combat can be preserved through ROE.