Defense–Growth Causality: Considerations of Regime-Switching and Time- and Country-Varying Effects

This paper develops a panel smooth transition vector autoregressive model to investigate the economic growth–defense causality. This model simultaneously resolves the estimation problems of endogeneity, heterogeneity, and nonlinearity. Empirical results support that the causality is bidirectional, nonlinear, time- and country-varying. Economic growth has a negative impact on military spending and vice versa. The larger the HDI, the smaller the negative causality. Evidently, the increase in the level of country development can reduce the negative impact of military outlays on economic growth. Reducing the ratio of military spending to GDP is beneficial for countries with low HDI scores; however, moderately increasing the share of military expenditure is favorable for countries with extremely high HDI scores. Policy authority needs to set optimal education, health, and economic development shares of GDP for purchasing a maximum economic growth rate.     

Noncognitive skills and job match: evidence from military applicants

The study examines the effect of noncognitive skills on early career choices among young job seekers. Specifically, we analyze the influence of personality traits on the decision by military applicants either to choose the military or a civilian career option. We use a unique micro-level data-set of applicants to the US Navy and exploit the fact that many individuals who initially apply for military jobs eventually choose civilian careers instead. In this institutional setting, job candidates use new information to update their beliefs about the military job match. Personality traits are viewed as productive abilities that influence applicants’ expectations about the economic return to the job and occupational training offered by the Navy. The study finds that many of the 15 lower order personality facets associated with the Big Five traits are predictive of applicants’ job choices and provides suggestive evidence of a link between personality traits, job match expectations, and career choice.     

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.     

小型旋翼无人机在未来城市军事行动应用中潜力评估

随着全球范围的城市化进程不断推进,未来军事斗争向城市环境中发展是必然趋势。在城市作战需求分析的基础上,剖析了传统装备的"城市病",阐述了小型旋翼无人机在城市军事行动中的应用潜能。研究表明,针对现有装备在城市作战中显示出的若干短板,发展基于小型旋翼无人机打造侦察平台与精确打击平台将是一个较好的解决方案。而运用军民融合的发展模式挖掘小型旋翼无人机军用潜力,在提升军队作战能力,降低成本均具有积极意义。     

基于雷达数字孪生的水上多目标跟踪方法研究

雷达的采样数据经过多目标跟踪处理后可为无人艇提供障碍状态,以保障无人艇的安全.对雷达数字孪生的水上多目标跟踪方法进行了研究.首先,以雷达采样的真实数据为研究对象,建立雷达观测数据多目标跟踪算法全流程处理策略,提出了雷达和惯性导航/全球定位组合导航的采样数据的时钟二次同步对准算法;然后,建立了雷达数据的起始航迹、暂时航迹...     

规整化SAR图像特征提取

SAR成像算法通常都基于FFT运算,图像分辨率要受到瑞利限的制约。为了提高图像分辨率,目前常用的SAR/ISAR超分辨成像算法大多借助于现代谱估计技术。从解方程的角度考虑,认为有限长数据的高分辨率谱估计是一个欠定方程问题,估计的结果存在"病态"性。在Bayes估计准则下,把信号谱的先验概率密度作为规整项包含进信号频谱的最大后验概率估计中,提高谱估计的分辨率。将这种方法用于SAR图像峰值特征提取,提高了图像分辨率。     

OTHER-THAN-INTERNET (OTI) CYBERWARFARE: CHALLENGES FOR ETHICS,LAW, AND POLICY

Almost all discussions of cyberwarfare, other cyber-attacks, and cyber-espionage have focused entirely on the Internet as the chief means of damage – the Internet as a ‘vector,’ using a term from the theory of infectious diseases. However there are a variety of means, some of which have already been used, that involve cyber-exploitation using vectors other than the Internet. Malware can be installed in the integrated circuits of computers and servers, but also in any devices attached to them – thumb drives, CDs, printers, scanners, and so on. One can also use various forms of electromagnetic radiation at a distance of meters or more to exfiltrate data or to infiltrate corrupt data. I call this large and diverse family of unwanted interference with the functioning of information processing systems other-than-Internet (OTI) attacks on information systems. Stuxnet, and probably the 2007 Israeli corruption of Syrian air defenses, were OTI attacks. Such OTI techniques are more difficult to develop than creating malware, requiring electronic manufacturing facilities or novel technologies, and are thus accessible only to larger corporations and technologically sophisticated countries. Particularly vulnerable would be countries (like the United States and Europe) whose information processing devices are mainly produced outside of the country. Once exploitations via the Internet become harder to perpetrate, OTI exploitations are certain to grow dramatically, eventually requiring equipment for critical uses to be expensively fabricated in (and transported using) secure facilities; expensive detection measures will have to be instituted. This will create challenges for policy, law, and ethics, as well as greatly increasing the cost of many electronic devices.     

WHILE WAITING FOR THE PROTOCOL

The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) regime currently suffers from a lack of effective compliance procedures. Because a legally binding compliance protocol to the BWC is not available, other measures are needed to stabilize the regime against the risk of violations of its rules. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the experiences of UN inspection teams show that among the necessary components of effective compliance mechanisms are an intermediary level between bilateral consultations of states parties and involvement of the UN Security Council as well as independent assessment capabilities. This article suggests that the UN Secretary General could assume such an intermediary function and, using the authority contained in Article 99 of the UN Charter, could investigate not only alleged use of biological weapons but also alleged breaches of the BWC. A standing expert unit in the Department for Disarmament Affairs could provide the independent expertise necessary for such investigations. Such a compliance mechanism could provisionally help stabilize the BWC regime until a permanent compliance system can be agreed.