The Telefunken Affairand the internationalisation of the Algerian War, 1957–59

Between 1957 and 1959 the West German company Telefunken and the Bonn government became prime targets in the French army's campaign against the Front de Libération Nationale's (FLN) efforts to establish communications networks. To the French military, the prevention of sales of Telefunken equipment to the FLN or its allies constituted a matter of strategic importance. To the Germans, it was an act of economic protectionism that exposed France's continued misgivings of Germany. The problem exerted a considerable strain between Paris and Bonn, and even threatened to harm German-Arab relations. The Telefunken affair thus highlights the Algerian war's international ramifications. It further reveals the responsibility of the French military in the internationalisation of that war.     

Landmarks in defense literature

Der totale Krieg. By Erich Ludendorff. Ludendorffs, Munich (1935)     

Terror and Internal Migration in Israel

This paper empirically analyses the effect of terror on internal migration between Israeli subdistricts. Using a unique data-set comprising migration flows for the period 1999–2012 and the number of rocket and non-rocket attacks, we test the hypotheses that terror reduces migration into an affected subdistrict and increases migration out of it. According to our results, the effect of terror on migration is asymmetric as we only find evidence for the first hypothesis. This result remains when we use an instrumental variables strategy that corrects for underreporting of the number of rocket attacks. The largest effects of rocket attacks are found for migration into the Southern subdistrict of Ashqelon as well as into other border regions in Northern Israel, while non-rocket attacks also have substantial effects in the more populous centres of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.     

Striking a deal on the F-35: multinational politics and US defence acquisition

Why does joint defence production of advanced weapons systems, which appears like a logical choice at first, become harder for both the primary production state and its allies to manage and justify as the acquisition process runs its course? To answer this question, we analyze the multinational politics of the F-35 JSF with a focus on how secondary states who have bought into the program are affected by domestic politics within the primary production state. We find that US congressional and bureaucratic politics, cuts to US defence spending, and a desire to retain tight control over the program has locked allies into a program with which they have little leverage. Potentially losing the ability to fight along side the US if they don’t follow through, coupled with inter-Alliance pressures, leaves secondary states who are involved with the F-35 program, vulnerable to the whims of US domestic politics.