Development and conflict in the Balkans: Catch-up and military expenditure

This paper analyses the convergence between countries in relation to the catch-up hypothesis concerning the level of total productivity. The catch-up hypothesis claims that poor countries tend to grow faster than rich countries through the international diffusion of knowledge and technology. We test this hypothesis for the Balkan countries and investigate the effect of military expenditure in the region on productivity growth. The aim is to investigate empirically whether productivity growth has been greater in countries with lower military expenditure, in line with theory. The results obtained show that, overall, improvements in technological change co-exist with deteriorating technical efficiency change and that there is a negative correlation between military expenditure and either total productivity growth and technological change, and a positive, but statistically insignificant, relationship with technical efficiency change. We conclude that economic growth is the key to regional development and that too great a diversion of resources to military commitments can lead to overstretch.     

石河子农耕区不同林地地被昆虫群落结构研究

用"五点式"取样法对石河子农耕区不同林地地被中的昆虫群落结构多样性进行了调查,共采集到昆虫31种,分属8目14科,共计1099头。结果表明:杨树老林地被昆虫群落的丰富度最高(为23),幼榆林次之(为14),苗圃和葡萄的最低(均为7)。多样性指数幼杂林最高(为1.8613),苗圃次之(为1.6833),幼榆林最低,为0.8534。     

军机驾驶员通讯用语语音信号及其清晰度影响因素分析

建立了军机驾驶员通讯用语词汇库及与故障相关的通讯用语词汇库,并对其中的主要词汇进行了汉语语音语谱分析。对影响军机驾驶员语音清晰度(可懂度)的有关因素——喉头送话器、座舱噪声、塔台录音进行了较详细的分析,得出主要影响因素为喉头送话器和座舱噪声,指出应改进送话器的方向且不能采用常规的固定参数滤波器来滤除座舱噪声。     

The Anglo-American military relationship: Institutional rules,practices, and narratives

The Anglo-American military relationship is a vital yet neglected area of study. This article argues that the British military have actively cultivated a relationship with the U.S. military that has contributed to the longevity of the broader so-called “Special Relationship,” even in the Trump era. The article contends that the complexities of the military relationship can best be captured by the theoretical lens provided by Lowndes and Roberts that combines different strands of institutionalism to focus on rules, practices, and narratives. The intense linkages between the United States and United Kingdom have become routinized, enabling them to adapt their peacetime cooperation to conflicts, and thereby address post-Cold War security challenges. The article draws upon semi-structured interviews with senior British military officers as well as policy documents to explore how these patterns of collaboration have become ingrained in patterns of both thinking and behavior.     

BOOK REVIEWS

This study examines how young people who have joined the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) on the two-year Military Skills Development System (MSDS) contract experience military service, and the effect this has on their ability to readapt to civilian life. The first part of the study examines the theoretical debates associated with military socialisation and reintegration into civilian life. Hereafter, the findings are presented in terms of the experiences of MSDS privates serving in the infantry, those that have left, and the perceptions of employment agencies in terms of the marketability of military skills. The conclusion is reached that MSDS members experience their two years in the SANDF as life-changing, that this affects their ability to reintegrate back into civilian society, and that the skills acquired during military training is of limited market value. The conclusion is reached that more needs to be done to assist these young military veterans to adapt to civilian life and to augment their military experience with more marketable skills to enable them to find gainful employment.     

ARMS CONTROL CONTINUUMS

In July 2001, member states will gather in New York for the UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Arms in All its Aspects. It represents part of the effort to establish controls on small arms and light weapons. This article argues that it is possible that nuclear and conventional arms control represent two ends of a continuum, with common goals and a common set of mechanisms and processes at work. A decade after the end of the Cold War, it is not surprising that the international community is working on mechanisms to deal with conventional arms. The existence of a continuum and connections between conventional and nuclear arms control is less evident. The two arms control communities appear to function in isolation of each other. The return to the debate on small arms and light weapons echoes post-World War I and II periods. The fact that small arms control is back on the agenda within the context of the UN may signify recognition that any kind of arms control serves the same purpose—preventing and mitigating the effects and duration of, and bringing an end to conflict.     

Optimizing the allocation of components to kits in small-lot,multiechelon assembly systems

The kitting problem in multiechelon assembly systems is to allocate on-hand stock and anticipated future deliveries to kits so that cost is minimized. This article structures the kitting problem and describes several preprocessing methods that are effective in refining the formulation. The model is resolved using an optimizing approach based on Lagrangian relaxation, which yields a separable problem that decomposes into a subproblem for each job. The resulting subproblems are resolved using a specialized dynamic programming algorithm, and computational efficiency is enhanced by dominance properties devised for that purpose. The Lagrangian problem is resolved effectively using subgradient optimization and a specialized branching method incorporated in the branch-and-bound procedure. Computational experience demonstrates that the specialized approach outperforms the general-purpose optimizer OSL. The new solution approach facilitates time-managed flow control, prescribing kitting decisions that promote cost-effective performance to schedule. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons. Inc.     

Civil–Military Relations in India: The China Crisis and After

The pattern of civil–military interaction in India is informed by the notion that civilians should refrain from involvement in operational matters. The emergence of this trend can be traced back to the defeat against China in 1962. In its aftermath, the belief that the debacle occurred because of civilian interference took hold. Thereafter, politicians restricted themselves to giving overall directives, leaving operational matters to the military. The Indian ‘victory’ in the subsequent war with Pakistan was seen as vindicating this arrangement. This essay argues that the conventional reading of the China crisis is at best misleading and at worst erroneous. Further, it contends that the subsequent war with Pakistan actually underscores the problems of civilian non-involvement in operational issues. The historical narrative underpinning the norm of civilian abstention is at the very least dubious.     

The RAF staff college and the evolution of British strategic bombing policy, 1922–1929

This article borrows from the work of Clausewitz to posit two general approaches to the pursuit of limitation in war, one being political and the other technical. The political approach seeks to control escalation via consensual arrangements with the adversary, while the technical approach seeks to forestall escalation by peremptorily destroying the enemy's military capability. It is argued that the 'Revolution in Military Affairs' (RMA) instantiates the second, technical, approach to war limitation. By exploiting advanced technology, the US armed forces hope to limit the costs of war by defeating their adversaries in a rapid, decisive manner. The problems associated with this approach are discussed in relation to the nature of the conflicts that the US is likely to face in the foreseeable future. The article concludes by suggesting that such conflicts will require that more attention be paid to the political sources of limitation in war.     

Dealing with disputes in Afghanistan: principles and rules for the tactical level

This article addresses the principles that should guide commanders, and the rules they must adhere to, when dealing with community disputes in Afghanistan. An important feature of these principles and rules is that they have been developed to ensure that coalition forces minimize the harm caused to the local population; and that members of the coalition do not violate their own laws and policies. The principles and rules have also been developed to be consistent with counterinsurgency guidance as practiced in Afghanistan. The article concludes with a number of ‘Dos and Don'ts’ concerning dispute settlement that are relevant for coalition forces dealing with disputes at the tactical level. The article also has two appendices, which are intended to guide commanders to better understand dispute settlement systems in Afghanistan.     

Economic impact and the notion of compensated procurement

The paper consists essentially of two parts. In the first part a linear economic impact model is presented whose structure is based on subcontracting flows. The structural coefficients are defined in terms of flows per area. The model is derived from two identities that are analogous to the income and expenditure identities of national income accounting. The parameters are prime contracts and when one or several of the prime contracts are changed, the model determines the impacts of such changes on the various regions that have been selected. The impacts can be combined with regional multipliers to derive changes in regional income and regional employment. Fragmentary data for this kind of model have been collected on a one-time basis by DOD in 1965 and some results based on the data are presented. The second part of the paper is concerned with normative economics. A scheme is suggested, called compensated procurement, that outlines how the Department of Defense might employ the impact model in a macroeconomic setting. The basic idea is that a stabilization fund be established to finance an array of potential projects which are contracted for to balance sudden shifts in defense demand. Only short-run stabilization is advocated.     

The Royal Navy's Polaris lobby, 1955–62

This article examines the background to the Royal Navy's acquisition of Polaris. The conventional wisdom is that the Navy had little interest in Polaris, which was foisted on it upon the cancellation of Skybolt. Extensive use of files in the Public Record Office is made to mount the contrary argument, that the Admiralty had been interested in the submarine-launched ballistic missile since at least 1955, that there was widespread support for it among the Naval Staff, that a substantial amount of preparatory work was undertaken with the assistance of the US Navy, and that the naval staff were prepared to accept the deterrent role. Naval tactics – to play a waiting game and feign indifference – have contributed to the establishment of the orthodox interpretation, as has the view that the Navy was handicapped by the lack of a body of doctrine within which the deterrent role could be accommodated. The article shows that the orthodox account cannot be sustained by the evidence, which points to a naval triumph in terms of Whitehall politics and inter-service competition.     

航空发动机自适应模拟退火遗传算法建模

以阶跃输入响应进行模型的检验,提出了航空发动机状态模型的建立方法:在抽功法所建立的状态空间模型的基础上,利用自适应模拟退火遗传算法对A、C矩阵元素进行寻优,解决了状态空间模型的响应与非线性模型不能够很好吻合的难题。仿真表明,得到的状态空间模型无论是动态过程还是稳态过程都能取得较高的建模精度,为航空发动机分布式控制的研究奠定了强有力的基础。     

论刑法一般原则在军事刑法中的实现

军事刑法是普通刑法的特别法,因而,刑法的一般原则对军事刑法具有当然的指导意义,但是这些原则在军事刑法中会有特殊的体现。军事刑法保护的是国防利益、国家军事利益。但是,为了保护国防利益、国家军事利益而不当的牺牲个人权利是罪刑法定原则不允许的。法律面前人人平等原则要求,对任何人犯罪,在适用法律上一律平等。但是,由于军人具有特殊的身分,刑法对军人和非军人加以区别对待。罪刑相适应原则要求,刑罚的轻重,应当与犯罪分子所犯罪行和承担的刑事责任相适应。战时缓刑是刑罚个别化原则在军事刑法中的体现。     

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY ON THE ROAD TO NUCLEAR ZERO

The disappointingly slow pace of progress on efforts to prevent proliferation, reduce nuclear weapons, and eliminate nuclear risks has many causes. The factor that might be easiest for individuals in the arms control and nonproliferation community to change stems from their own ambivalence about major questions that must be addressed on the road to reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world to zero. This essay explores how ambivalence about four key issues—strategic stability, alliance relations, institution-building, and nuclear energy—often leads community members to take positions that play well at home and within their like-minded group but raise unintended impediments to achieving their own long-term goals. The author suggests alternative ways to handle these questions to improve the prospects for domestic and international agreement on practical measures that would eliminate, not perpetuate, nuclear risks.     

A critical look at the U.S. deceased‐donor organ procurement and utilization system

The U.S. system for procuring and utilizing deceased‐donor organs for transplantation has been studied and written about in many articles. The purpose of this paper is to examine the interactions between the elements that comprise this system, and point out improvement opportunities that may be affected through operations research/management techniques. The authors demonstrate the need for developing data‐driven and analytic tools. In fact, data is used to generate hypotheses and support claims throughout the paper. The paper also points out the need to fully leverage data that is available to researchers, and to seek data that is currently not deposited in a centralized archive.     

Security assurances and proliferation risks in the Trump administration

Comments that Donald Trump made while campaigning to be U.S. president have raised concerns that his administration will pull back from U.S. alliance commitments and encourage countries such as Japan and South Korea to acquire nuclear arms. The new article by Frühling and O’Neil outlines an institutional framework that can be helpful in assessing the risks that Trump administration policies will lead to nuclear proliferation. An institutional perspective shows that important elements of U.S. security assurances will continue to function, and this reduces the chances that President Trump’s actions or statements will trigger proliferation by U.S. allies. The greatest risk to global non-proliferation efforts posed by a Trump administration in fact lies elsewhere, in the possibility that President Trump will seek to abrogate the Iran nuclear deal.     

Armed Conflict,Military Expenses and FDI Inflow to Developing Countries

This paper investigates the relationship between military expenditure and FDI inflow conditioning on the exposure of a country to armed conflict in the long run. We apply the band spectrum regression estimator, and the maximal overlap discrete wavelet transform, to a panel of 60 developing countries, for the years 1990 to 2013. The estimated results indicate that military expenditure, in the absence of armed conflict, reduces FDI inflow. However, the negative effect is mitigated by increased military expenditure, in the presence of armed conflict. We also show that the effect of military expenditure on FDI is time sensitive, in that it takes time for military expenditure to affect FDI inflow. FDI inflow in response to higher military expenditure is higher for the country that faces higher armed conflict than the country that faces lower armed conflict. The findings are robust in the case of overall as well as internal conflict. These results are also robust to the alternative specification, subsample analysis with different armed conflict thresholds, and the estimation using the time variant long-run models.     

When is greedy module assembly optimal?

Many coherent systems are configurations of identically structured modules, each consisting of a number of different components. The objective is to assemble the modules out of a collection of available components, and to install the modules in the system in a way that maximizes reliability. The greedy assembly rule builds one module out of the best available components, another out of the best remaining components, and so on. This article shows that greedy assembly is optimal whenever the modules have a series structure, no matter what the structure of the system in which the modules will be used might be, provided that the modules, once assembled, are installed in the system in an optimal way. The article also demonstrates that series modules are unique in this regard.     

Numerical and experimental study on the response characteristics of warhead in the fast cook-off process

The response characteristics of the warhead under thermal stimuli conditions are important to the safety improvement. The goal of this study is to obtain data on the warhead in the fast cook-off process. In this paper, a numerical calculation method is proposed, whose reliability is supported by comparison with experimental results. Through the numerical calculation, the temperature distribution, temperature change, and ignition time are acquired. The numerical results show that the ignition time is 76 s after the warhead started to burn and that the maximum temperature of the explosive's outer surface is 238.3 C at the ignition time. The fast cook-off experiment of the warhead is implemented so as to get the flame temperature and reaction grades that are not available through numerical calculation. The experimental results show that the overpressure fails to reach the preset minimum value which is equivalent to 6 kg of TNT and that the reaction grade is deflagration. The research results have reference value for the design of the warhead and the reduction of detonation risks.