A simple and untraditional analysis of western alliance burden‐sharing

The original Olson and Zeckhauser model of alliance burden‐sharing was based on the following four assumptions: (1) alliance defence is a pure public good; (2) allied nations make their security contribution decisions without consulting the other allies; (3) alliances produce only a single public good; and (4) alliance defence is produced with equal degrees of efficiency in all alliance nations. But while the first of these assumptions has received a great deal of attention in the alliance literature, the remaining ones have received comparatively less attention, particularly in terms of empirical analyses. This paper synthesizes a varied literature developed around these four assumptions, both substantively and theoretically, and shows that when these assumptions are brought closer to real world approximations, hypotheses regarding the potential for security cooperation with less free‐riding result. This article also provides a simple test of Western alliance burden‐sharing in the areas of military spending, development resources spending, and research and development spending that supports the hypothesis positing more equitable burden‐sharing.     

The Reluctant Atlanticist: France’s Security and Defence Policy in a Transatlantic Context

ABSTRACT

This article introduces the key tenets of French foreign and security policy during the Cold War, and illustrates the deep challenges to the French consensus raised by the emergence of a unipolar system. There is a growing gap between the rhetoric of French security policy, emphasizing ‘autonomy’ and ‘sovereignty’ out of habit from the Cold War, and the actual security practices showing a gradual embedding within the transatlantic security structures. In the absence of a new transpartisan grand narrative relevant for the contemporary international system, such embedding is easily portrayed in France as a ‘treason’ from a romanticized Gaullist foreign policy.     

A Reversal of Fortunes? Extended Deterrence and Assurance in Europe and East Asia1

ABSTRACT

The extended deterrence relationships between the United States and its allies in Europe and East Asia have been critical to regional and global security and stability, as well as to nonproliferation efforts, since the late 1950s. These relationships developed in different regional contexts, and reflect differing cultural, political and military realities in the US allies and their relations with the United States. Although extended deterrence and assurance relations have very different histories, and have to some extent been controversial through the years, there has been a rethinking of these relations in recent years. Many Europeans face a diminished threat situation as well as economic and political pressures on the maintenance of extended deterrence, and are looking at the East Asian relationships, which do not involve forward deployed forces as more attractive than NATO’s risk-and-burden-sharing concepts involving the US nuclear forces deployed in Europe. On the other hand, the East Asian allies are looking favorably at NATO nuclear consultations, and in the case of South Korea, renewed US nuclear deployments (which were ended in 1991), to meet increased security concerns posed by a nuclear North Korea and more assertive China. This paper explores the history of current relationships and the changes that have led the allies to view those of others as more suitable for meeting their current needs.     

Sweden and the issue of NATO membership: exploring a public opinion paradox

The past decade has seen substantial shifts in Swedish security policy and major change in the domestic debate about NATO. For the first time, all of the right-of-centre “alliance parties” are calling for a full NATO membership, and popular support for NATO has increased. Yet public opinion contains ambiguities and paradoxes that complicate the picture. At the same time as support for NATO has increased, the public is overwhelmingly for continued military non-alignment. Drawing on previous research, longitudinal data from national surveys, and other sources on defence and security issues, this article aims to increase our understanding of the development and change in Swedish public opinion on NATO. A key argument is that Erving Goffman’s theatre metaphor, combined with neo-institutional decoupling theory, to a large degree can help understand the public opinion paradox.     

农村公共产品供给与农民增收的关联研究

目前我国城乡差距突出表现为公共产品差距,公共产品有效供给不足已成为当前制约农民增收的瓶颈。无论从理论分析还是从国内外实践看,公共产品的有效供给与农民的增收呈现正相关关系。因此,提高公共产品的有效供给是促进农民增收的有效途径,针对公共产品供给实践中存在的影响农民增收的问题而采取相应的对策是当前促进农民增收的理性选择。     

Guns and butter? Military expenditure and health spending on the eve of the Arab Spring

We examine the validity of the guns-versus-butter hypothesis in the pre-Arab Spring era. Using panel data from 1995 to 2011 – the eve of the Arab uprisings – we find no evidence that increased security needs as measured by the number of domestic terrorist attacks are complemented by increased military spending or more importantly ‘crowd out’ government expenditure on key public goods such as health care. This suggests that both expenditure decisions were determined by other considerations at the government level.     

服务职能视域下的公安边防部队思想政治教育

服务职能是思想政治教育的一项基本职能。公安边防部队思想政治教育要服务于社会、服务于边防部队和官兵个人,以增强思想政治教育的完整性和实效性,提高边防部队的凝聚力和战斗力。在对目前公安边防部队思想政治教育服务职能的现状及原因进行分析的基础上,从坚持以人为本教育理念、紧贴现实更新教育内容、充分利用教育资源和现代手段、完善考评监督保障机制四个方面,提出了加强服务职能的对策。     

Does military spending promote social welfare? A comparative analysis of the BRICS and G7 countries

Whether military spending is capable of promoting social welfare is currently a controversial issue. The aim of this paper is to investigate how military spending affects the input and output of social welfare (i.e. social welfare expenditures and social welfare index). A panel cointegration analysis and an impulse response function are conducted with multi-country panel data, over two time periods, 1998–2011 and 1993–2007. In addition, to extend a comparative analysis over different economies, BRICS (i.e. Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) and G7 (i.e. the US, Japan, Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Canada) countries are selected as representatives of emerging economies and developed countries, respectively. The empirical results show that military spending enhances social welfare expenditures in developed countries, while the effect is ambiguous in emerging economies. Also, military spending is capable of promoting the social welfare index based on the FMOLS estimation. The comparative analyses indicate that unlike in the G7, the effect of the growth of military spending on the growth of social welfare expenditures is negative and shorter in the BRICS.     

自动消防系统在大型聚集场所火灾中的应用

分析大型公共聚集场所(如商场、会展中心、写字楼、公共娱乐场所等)火灾事故特点,并有针对性地说明了自动消防系统的作用,着重阐述了在火灾抢险救援中如何充分利用这些设施,以减少人员伤亡和财产损失,提高灭火成效。     

Estimating defence budget saving from disarmament: the United States’ case

Probing the technology in the production of US national defence by using a dynamic cost‐function model with adjustment costs, this paper evaluates the effect of reducing the level of national defence on the defence budget saving. Our inquiry involves estimating the defence production structure without output data for non‐market goods that are normally unavailable. Our findings include: (i) the United States behaves rationally to minimize cost in the production of national defence; (ii) the adjustment costs are larger in disarmament than in military build‐up; (iii) due to the adjustment costs peculiar to disarmament, the defence budget saving from disarmament appears small, but cutbacks allow great savings on the defence budget.