BUTTER,GUNS AND ICE‐CREAM THEORY AND EVIDENCE FROM SUB‐SAHARAN AFRICA

This paper is intended to complement the existing literature on civil wars. First, it presents a simple theoretical model of conflict that defines a two‐sector economy. In a contested sector, two agents struggle to appropriate the maximum possible fraction of a contestable output. In an uncontested sector, they hold secure property rights over the production of some goods. Agents split their resource endowment between ‘butter’, ‘guns’ and ‘ice‐cream’. Following the theoretical insights the empirical analysis focuses on the relationship between civil wars and different sectors of the economy. In particular, a panel probit specification shows that the incidence of a civil war decreases in the size of manufacturing sector.     

Country survey XII: South Africa

This article examines the relationship between defence expenditure and economic performance in South Africa, both prior to and after that country's first fully democratic election in 1994. Prior to 1994 defence expenditure decisions were largely dominated by non‐economic factors; since then defence spending has declined in reaction to, inter alia, the need to address a number of socio‐economic inequities.

After 1975 in particular, military industrialisation in South Africa placed a disproportionately high burden on the country's industrial resources and natural economic and technical capabilities. However, although this suggests that the opportunity cost of domestic arms production has been fairly high, the country's poor economic and development performance since the mid‐1970s is a function of underlying structural deficiencies and institutional constraints rather than the consequence of inordinately high defence spending levels.     

Defense Burden and the Effect of Democracy: Evidence from a Spatial Panel Analysis

ABSTRACT

Do democracies spend less on national defense? This paper provides new evidence of the effect of democracy on defense burden based on a Spatial Durbin Model with panel data for 98 countries for the years 1992–2008. While democracy measured by means of an index variable covering the entire range from perfect democracy to perfect autocracy turns out to be insignificant, dummy variables indicating transition to higher levels of democracy reveal a statistically highly significant negative effect of democracy on a country’s defense burden. Allowing for country-specific effects reveals heterogeneity in the effect of democracy across countries. Apart from the effect of democracy, the estimation results indicate strong spatial dependence of military burdens across countries. Moreover, they provide statistical evidence for a peace dividend, for substitution effects in defense spending and for a negative effect on the military burden for countries when they exhibit a trade surplus instead of a trade deficit.     

The causal nexus between military spending and unemployment in the G7: a bootstrap panel causality test

We revisit the causal relationship between military spending and unemployment in the G7 countries applying a bootstrap panel causality analysis that accounts for both cross-sectional dependence and for heterogeneity across countries. Using per capita real GDP as a controlled variable, we found a unidirectional causality running from military spending to unemployment for Canada, Japan, and the US, one-way causality running from unemployment to military spending for France and Germany, and bidirectional causality for Italy and the UK. The empirical evidence does not seem to provide consistent results regarding the causal relationship between military spending and unemployment in G7 countries.     

舰艇近区安全防卫系统分析

针对我国舰艇近区安全存在的问题,参照国外舰艇近区自卫装备发展情况,提出了发展具有综合利用观瞄设备和声纳,并集合各种致命和非致命武器特点的舰艇近区安全防卫系统的构想。系统配备的观瞄设备用于探测地面、水上及低空近临目标,而声纳用于探测水下目标,如蛙人,无人水下航行器等。在打击方面,系统配备了可以歼灭目标的致命武器以及用于驱逐目标的非致命武器。并对系统的关键技术进行了初步探讨。 关键词：舰艇近区安全,近区安全防卫系统,非致命武器     

基于BP神经网络的防空预警雷达阵地选址决策方法

防空预警雷达阵地选址的优劣直接影响到雷达本身及防空武器作战效能的发挥。为了在雷达阵地选址中快速处理繁多的数据和进行定量分析,减少人为主观因素,给出了防空预警雷达阵地选址决策指标体系,并构建了基于BP神经网络的防空预警雷达阵地选址决策模型。最后通过实例验证了该模型对优选防空预警雷达阵地选址具有可行性和实用性。     

吊放声纳主动工作模式探测域建模与仿真

水声环境对于吊放声纳搜潜效果影响很大,以往的水声环境对吊声探测影响建模尚未涉及吊声立体探测域,不能为吊声搜潜战术研究提供有效支撑。在对声传播损失、海洋环境噪声和混响进行深入分析和建模的基础上,根据吊声探测机理建立了主动探测概率模型,仿真分析了吊声主动探测概率的三维空间分布,并提出了吊声搜潜战术应以三维非连续探测域为基础,结合战法实验等新手段进行不确定性研究的建议。     

装甲车辆运动姿态实时仿真系统设计与实现

系统基于计算机仿真技术构建装甲车辆运动时的虚拟战场环境,利用自动控制技术和虚拟现实技术实现对装甲车辆运动姿态的实时仿真,采用同步建模和实时动态仿真技术实现机电系统与视景的同步仿真,从而保证了平台振动位置与由视景运动产生的位置变化一致.通过软、硬件互补的优化设计,提高了系统的抗干扰能力,实现了高仿真度、高质量的仿真通用平台的研制.该系统模型结构完整,参数选取精细,量化科学,三维图形实时性好,模拟程度逼真,工作可靠,维护方便,通用性强.     

多无人机梯次攻击航路规划

为了解决多无人机协同攻击航路规划问题,基于一种雷达威胁等效方法,以及无人机在不同姿态下雷达散射截面RCS(Radar Cross-Section)值随之改变的特性,结合多机作战战术思想,提出了一种多无人机梯次协同攻击同一目标的方法,并利用Dijkstra算法进行多无人机航路规划.仿真结果表明,该方法具有更高的应用价值.     

CORBA构件模型在指控系统中的应用

针对现有指控系统由于功能模块化设计导致模块间耦合性强、复用性差,系统开发效率低以及升级困难等问题,分析了应用CORBA构件模型(CCM)开发指控系统软件的可行性,建立了CCM构件与分布式中间件集成模板框架,并以WorkBench开发环境为例,给出了应用CCM进行指控系统构件开发、打包、部署等具体实现过程.实际应用表明:CCM在指控系统的有效应用,能够实现系统基于可重用构件设计的开发,不仅提高了系统灵活性、重用性和可配置性,而且简化了系统开发流程,缩短了开发周期,降低了开发成本.