Book Reviews

Strategic Air Defense. Edited by Stephen J. Cimbala. Scholarly Resources, Wilmington, DE (1989), ISBN 0–8420–2285–6, $40.00

NATO's Defence of the North. Brassey's Atlantic Commentaries No. 1. Edited by Eric Grove. Brassey's, London (1989), ISBN 0–08–037339–9, £7.50

Maritime Strategy and the Balance of Power: Britain and America in the Twentieth Century. Edited by John B. Hattendorf and Robert S. Jordan. Macmillan, London (1989), ISBN 0–333–43789–6, £45.00

Superpowers at Sea: an Assessment of the Naval Arms Race. By Richard Fieldhouse and Shunji Taoka. SIPRI, Oxford (1989), ISBN 0–19–829135–3

Security at Sea: Naval Arms Control. Edited by Richard Fieldhouse. Oxford University Press, Oxford (1990), ISBN 0–19–829130–2, £25.00

Strategy in the Southern Oceans: a South American View. By Virginia Gamba‐Stonehouse. Pinter, London (1989), ISBN 0–86187–017–4, £30.00

The Defence Industrial Base and the West. Edited by D. G. Haglund. Routledge, London (1989), ISBN 0–415–00923–5, £30.00

Defense and Détente: US and West German Perspectives on Defense Policy. Edited by Joseph I. Coffey and Klaus von Schubert. Westview Press, Boulder, CO, ISBN 0–8133–7722–6, $36.50     

The World Aerospace Industry in Transition

Abstract

With the world aerospace industry gathering at Farnborough, it is appropriate to take stock of how it is responding to the ‘New World Order’.     

Computerized scheduling of seagoing tankers

Computerized Scheduling of Seagoing Tankers The tanker scheduling problem considered in this paper is that of the Defense Fuel Supply Center (DFSC) and the Military Sealift Command (MSC) in the worldwide distribution of bulk petroleum products. Routes and cargoes which meet delivery schedule dates for a multiplicity of product requirements at minimum cost are to be determined for a fleet of tankers. A general mathematical programming model is presented, and then a mixed integer model is developed which attempts to reflect the true scheduling task of DFSC and MSC as closely as possible. The problem is kept to within a workable size by the systematic construction of a set of tanker routes which does not contain many possible routes that can be judged unacceptable from practical considerations alone.     

Defence industries adjusting to change 1

This paper analyses the impact of terrorist activity on international tourist flows. To this end, we have estimated a cross‐sectional gravity equation for tourism from the G‐7 countries to a sample of 134 destinations over the period 2001–2003. Within this framework, we evaluate the deviation from ‘normal’ tourist flows due to terrorist activity, which is considered as negative advertising for the affected country. The analysis suggests that both domestic victims and international attacks are relevant factors when foreign tourists make their choice. This result is robust under alternative specifications. Moreover, the impact of terrorism is more severe in developing countries.     

Defence and firm performance in the UK

The UK Ministry of Defence is British industry's largest single customer and a number of firms and industries are highly dependent on defence sales. Various hypotheses have been proposed about the impact of defence procurement on firms and these are investigated using four performance indicators: financial structure, investment, productivity and profitability. With regard to the borrowing ratio, capital investment and the rate of return, there is no statistically significant difference between the mean financial ratios for low and high dependence firms. However, non‐dependents appear to have a higher level and rate of growth of labour productivity than dependents.     

THE CASE FOR DEFENCE

What is the case for defence and is it a worthwhile investment? This question is addressed for two contrasting nations, namely, the UK and New Zealand. Economists have a set of standard analytical tools for addressing the question but they are difficult to operationalise. This paper provides policy‐relevant answers.     

State-making and region-building: the interplay of domestic and regional security in the Middle East

In his contribution to this collection, Keith Krause discusses the link between state-formation processes and regional security-building. In doing so, he draws attention to a specific, domestic, aspect of the process of regional community-building: the role of ideas about, institutions of, and instruments of organized violence in social, political and economic life. According to Krause, focusing on the role of institutions of organized violence in structuring and influencing the basic choices for security policy might allow a better evaluation of the prospects for constructing a regional security order.     

Grammar but No Logic: Technique is Not Enough – A Response to Nagl and Burton

Abstract

In issue 33/1 of The Journal of Strategic Studies, John Nagl and Brian Burton were provided with the opportunity to respond to the observations we made in our article, ‘Whose Hearts and Whose Minds? The Curious Case of Global Counter-Insurgency’, which appeared in the same issue. Nagl and Burton's reply, however, did not overtly address the points raised in our article, but instead offered a re-statement of the precepts of classical counter-insurgency (COIN). While we certainly recognise the value of counter-insurgency methods in conflicts such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan, Nagl and Burton's reply overlooks our original concerns about the limited utility of neo-counter-insurgency thinking outside these environments and the dangerous political implications it contains. They further ignore our core contention that a narrow preoccupation with theatre-specific technique has profound limitations when offered as a universal panacea to address complex transnational threats.