The impact of military spending and income inequality on economic growth in Turkey

An extensive literature on the effect of military expenditures on economic growth yields conflicting results. However, a crucial issue that has not been investigated in this context is the possible effect of inequality. The impact of military expenditures on economic growth in Turkey has also received substantial attention. Yet, the majority of these studies are not constructed based on a structural model, but rather examine the causality between the variables in question. Considering these two shortcomings in the literature and the lack of consistent results, this study attempts to provide further evidence for the relationship between military expenditures and economic growth for the case of Turkey by considering income inequality within an augmented Solow growth model. Our findings for the 1963–2008 period show that while income inequality has a positive impact on economic growth, military expenditures have no significant effect.     

Thinking Globally and Acting Locally: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Modern Wars – A Reply to Jones and Smith

In light of present day calls for increased levels of cultural understanding on the part of Western forces engaged in conflict, this article assesses the utility of such knowledge in light of the British experience of the North-West Frontier of India 1901–1945. By using the British concept of the Political Officer as an example, it proposes that while cultural understanding is of genuine importance when operating in such a challenging environment, possession of it does not necessarily aid either the design or implementation of successful policy. As the British experience on the Frontier during this period illustrates, cultural awareness and understanding may be possessed in abundance, and the mechanisms for achieving such a state of understanding may be advanced, but traditional factors such as a cultural bias on the part of policy-makers, conservatism, underfunding, local resistance to unfamiliar concepts and a fractured civil-military relationship will dominate such awareness and overshadow the benefits that it may provide.     

Contracting Out Security

Private security companies (PSCs) currently receive a great deal of attention in the news media, in sensationalist reporting, and increasingly in scholarly books and articles. While the scholarly books and articles make significant contributions to our understanding of this global phenomenon, there are several impediments to analysis that must be recognized and overcome if analysis is to be improved. Three of these impediments are reviewed in this article. The author suggests that US government material is currently available to minimize impediments and offers a framework to make analytical sense of it. Since contracting out is based on contracts, and unless the complexities of awarding and managing contracts are understood, recommendations made to reform the process of contracting out security are unrealistic.     

China's Military Procurement and Its Operational Implications: A Response to Yoram Evron

This article is a response to Evron's argument, offering readers another perspective to assess China's military modernization and war fighting capabilities, using the same framework and methodology. It examines three topics: China's national security and military strategy, the PLA's procurement decision-making process, and China's military support and mobilization system. It concludes that, China's military modernization is to fight and win local wars under the conditions of informatization, but if required the PLA can reliably supply large numbers of sophisticated weapons and spare parts, to wage a complex and prolonged conflict.     

NATO's Transformation Gaps: Transatlantic Differences and the War in Afghanistan

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has since the turn of the new century experienced a double transformation gap: between global and regionally oriented allies and between allies emulating new military practices defined by the United States and allies resisting radical change. This article takes stock of these gaps in light of a decade's worth of collective and national adjustments and in light of counter-insurgency lessons provided by Afghanistan. It argues first of all that the latter transatlantic gap is receding in importance because the United States has adjusted its transformation approach and because some European allies have significantly invested in technological, doctrinal, and organizational reform. The other transformation gap is deepening, however, pitching battle-hardened and expeditionary allies against allies focused on regional tasks of stabilization and deterrence. There is a definite potential for broad transformation, our survey of officers' opinion shows, but NATO's official approach to transformation, being broad and vague, provides neither political nor military guidance. If NATO is to move forward and bridge the gap, it must clarify the lessons of Afghanistan and embed them in its new Strategic Concept.     

‘Mowing the Grass’: Israel’sStrategy for Protracted Intractable Conflict

‘Mowing the Grass’, Israel’s strategy in the twenty-first century against hostile non-state groups, reflects the assumption that Israel finds itself in a protracted intractable conflict. The use of force in such a conflict is not intended to attain impossible political goals, but a strategy of attrition designed primarily to debilitate the enemy capabilities. Only after showing much restraint in its military responses does Israel act forcefully to destroy the capabilities of its foes, hoping that occasional large-scale operations also have a temporary deterrent effect in order to create periods of quiet along its borders. The Israeli approach is substantively different from the current Western strategic thinking on dealing with non-state military challenges.     

Military Spending and Economic Growth in the Middle East Countries: Bootstrap Panel Causality Test

This study revisits the causal relationship between military spending and economic growth in 10 Middle East countries via a panel causality analysis that accounts for cross-sectional dependence and heterogeneity across countries. Our results indicate unidirectional causality from military spending to growth for Turkey; one-way causality from economic growth to military spending for Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, and Syria; bidirectional causality for Israel; and no causality in either direction for Jordan, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. The empirical evidence does not provide consistent results regarding the causal relationship between defense expenditure and economic growth in these countries.     

An empirical assessment of us air force

The US Air Force is facing a record shortfall in pilots over the coming decade. Using personnel data on more than 10,000 Air Force pilots, this study examines the factors affecting the retention of pilots and assesses the effectiveness of the pilot bonus programme implemented by the Air Force to reduce attrition. Although surveys indicated sustained deployment rates were the leading cause of job dissatisfaction among Air Force pilots, the results of this study suggest economic factors had the largest impact on retention.