Security,autonomy and defense burdens: The effects of alliance membership in the 19th and 20th centuries

This paper investigates the effect of alliance membership on the defense burdens of major powers in the 19th and 20th centuries. We hypothesize that the reactions of states to alliance membership will be different in the pre‐nuclear and nuclear eras. Possession of nuclear weapons by allies makes the security provided by the alliance more akin to a collective good than is the case in the pre‐nuclear era. States join alliances for two reasons: security and autonomy. The effects of each of these concerns are identified. We include in our model such alliance‐level factors as the power equivalence of the allies and the number of states in the alliance. We also look at state‐level variables such as power position within the alliance. We conclude that the nuclear period generally operates as the free‐rider principle would posit, while models based on “complementarity of effort” are more applicable in the earlier period.     

Colonial violence and its ‘Small Wars’: fighting the Kuki ‘guerillas’ during the Great War in Northeast India, 1917–1919

ABSTRACT

This paper concerns the lesser known British counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in Northeast frontier of India during the First World War. Officially known as the ‘Kuki Operations’, it was considered as part of the Great War. Carried out in isolation from press and public, and shelved in colonial archives, the event remained invisible until today. Yet, it registers a critical case of colonial COIN doctrine where the ‘moral effect’ doctrine was employed without being questioned. It unleashed enormous amount of organized violence, ranging from shoot at sight to indiscriminate burning of villages, wholesale destruction of property and livestock, prevention of cultivation and rebuilding of villages, forced mass displacement in jungles or in ‘concentration camps’, and collective punishment (communal penal labour and payment of compensation) after the war. This paper argues that the theory of ‘minimum force’ and the practicability of the ‘moral effect’ doctrine as applied by the Empire, sit oddly with each other at the frontier, where violence was seen both as a natural and moral orders. Violence as an ‘imperatively necessary’ method to bring order in a disorderly frontier, in the opinion of colonial state, informs and registers Northeast India as geography of violence.     

Arming China: Major powers’ arms transfers to the People’s Republic of China

The rise of China has been fuelled by a massive military modernisation programme relying, in large part, on the acquisition of foreign military equipment. The question of how the world’s major powers define their arms transfer policies towards China is therefore crucially important. This article makes two original contributions. First, drawing on neoclassical realism, it proposes an explanatory framework integrating international and domestic factors to explain variations in major powers’ arms transfers. Second, based on a large body of elite interviews and diplomatic cables, it offers the first comprehensive comparison of American, British, French and Russian arms transfer policies towards China since the end of the Cold War.     

地缘缺陷是制约大国崛起的重要因素：以印度为例

历史上，地缘因素对大国崛起起过重要的作用。地缘优势有利于大国的崛起，而地缘缺陷则制约着大国的崛起，导致其崛起失败或难以崛起。印度是正在崛起的新兴大国。然而，印度所处的地缘环境存在明显缺陷，这是制约印度崛起的重要因素。印度只有对自身的地缘缺陷进行合理改造，扬长避短，才能顺利实现崛起目标。     

谈国人视野中的中国崛起

随着中国的快速发展,中国正在崛起已成为国内外有目共睹的事实。一些西方学者把中国崛起看成是对世界和平与发展的"威胁",中国人民则根据中国崛起所带来的巨大变化,把中国崛起看成是对人类文明的重大贡献。对中华民族而言,中国崛起造福13亿中国人,使中国人民基本过上了幸福的小康生活;对全人类来说,中国崛起惠及全世界,推动了世界经济的发展乃至人类文明的进步。     

Shifting power,preventive logic,and the response of the target: Germany,Russia, and the First World War

If a declining state has incentives for preventive war, the rising state should have incentives to delay a confrontation until it is stronger. We develop the theoretical paradox and examine the July 1914 crisis. Why did Russia, rising relative to Germany, not adopt a buying-time strategy? We argue that although most Russian leaders hoped to avoid a confrontation, they feared that the failure to support Serbia would lead to a loss of Russian credibility and a significant setback to Russia’s position in the Balkans, one that could not easily be reversed, even with Russia’s expected increase in relative military power.     

It Takes Two to Tango: Autocratic underbalancing,regime legitimacy and China’s responses to India’s rise

What factors do autocracies evaluate when responding to perceived threats and why might they fail to balance appropriately? I posit that autocratic leaders may choose greater exposure to an external threat if, by doing so, it preserves regime legitimacy. Specifically, the desire to promote a positive image to one’s domestic public creates incentives to publicly downplay a rival’s military progress, which then affects the state’s ability to mobilize resources to respond to the growing threat. I test this theory in the case of China’s response to India’s military rise. This research contributes to balancing theory and empirical work on East Asian security.     

温升热源条件油气热着火关键因素探究

通过对影响油气受热着火的关键因素进行研究,为发展主动防护技术提供理论依据。基于系统的实验和分析,探究了快速氧化现象、热源加热速度、热源面积与爆燃空间比例对热着火发生时临界浓度、着火概率和着火延迟期的影响,提出了温升热源条件受限空间能否发生热着火的综合判据。该判据认为：如果油气体积分数低于2.4％,受限空间体积与热源面积比值小于0．64m,那么即使温度达到873K,湿度降低到18％～21％,着火也不会发生。     

National restrictions in multinational military operations: A conceptual framework

Recent scholarship in security studies has started to explore the causes and consequences of various forms of national restrictions in multinational military operations (MMOs). This article makes a conceptual contribution to this literature by developing a theoretical framework of national restrictions in MMOs that distinguishes between structural, procedural, and operational restrictions. I argue that these types of restrictions are governed by different causal mechanisms. Structural restrictions are relatively stable over time and effect deployment decisions irrespective of other factors. Procedural restrictions, on the other hand, can constitute veto points against deployment only in combination with distinct political preferences. Finally, operational restrictions directly affect the rules of engagement of troop contributing countries. The article illustrates the three types of restrictions and their interaction with empirical examples from a range of countries and sketches their impact on MMO deployment decisions and mandates.     

EU Global Strategy in a changing world: Brussels’ approach to the emerging powers

The world is entering a period of power transition, at the outcome of which some new form of global order (or disorder) is likely to emerge. Critical to this process is the interaction between the established powers, the USA and the European Union (EU), and the emerging powers, particularly China, Brazil, India and Russia. Many analysts have classified the EU as a declining power, a perception that has been enhanced with the triple crises of sovereignty that have rocked the Union since the mid-2000s (money, borders and defence). In this context, the publication of the EU Global Strategy was an opportunity for the EU to state clearly the nature of its ongoing and future relations with the rest of the world. This article argues that, in reality, Europe as a bloc (as opposed to its member states severally) has very limited purchase with the other major powers, and an ambivalent or ill-defined grasp of how to engage with them. They, for their part, have difficulty in knowing how to understand the EU as an actor and prefer to deal bilaterally with its key member states.