The impact of military expenditures on economic growth in the less developed countries∗

This paper presents the results of empirical research on the economic impact of military expenditure — milex — on the less developed countries. The hypothesis is that the impact on growth is a combination of three effects: (1) increased security — positive impact; (2) diversion of resources from productive investment — negative impact; and (3) pressure for more efficient government policies in response to the external threat — positive impact. The combination of these effects would produce a non‐linear relationship with the growth rate at first increasing as milex increased and then decreasing. For the full sample of 71 countries, we found the predicted relationship, however, it is not robust to changes in the sample. The robust conclusion is that there was no evidence of a negative impact of military spending on economic growth.     

“Made in China”: an emerging brand in the global arms market

Possession of a brand is a sine qua non for economic success, not least because it connotes trust in delivering the value promised. Although Western arms exporters offer branded systems whose sales are influenced by price, there is a plethora of other economic variables, such as offset requirements and life-cycle support. Entrants to the international arms market will struggle without such arms “packages.” China’s entry, however, goes beyond the traditional economic paradigm. A four-stage historical model offers the backdrop for identifying the drivers that have forged its market entry into 55 countries worldwide. The strategy initially focused on sales of rudimentary military equipment for political purposes, but recently it has begun to commercialize exports, repositioning them from a low- to a high-tech sales trajectory. A Sino “brand” is thus emerging, reflecting both competitiveness and diplomatic considerations, especially non-interference in client state domestic affairs.     

THE ACRS EXPERIENCE AND ITS RELEVANCE TO THE WMDFZ CONFERENCE

This article examines the arms control logic that was applied to the only regional arms control talks that have taken place in the Middle East to date: the Arms Control and Regional Security (ACRS) working group that was part of the multilateral track of the Madrid peace process in the early 1990s. It highlights both the successes and major constraints of the ACRS talks in an effort to assess what might be relevant to the weapons of mass destruction-free zone conference proposed for later this year. In addition to the basic arms control dilemmas that will continue to challenge this conference—as they did ACRS—the article suggests that current conditions in the Middle East are even less conducive to regional dialogue than they were in the earlier period, due to the internal upheavals in several key Arab states, and the specific challenge of Iran's move to develop a military nuclear capability.     

CONTRIBUTORS

ABSTRACT

Narratives about Brazil's nuclear program are distorted by supporters and critics alike. In Brazil, the national nuclear infrastructure is undergoing a period of expansion, with plans to build new nuclear power plants and industrial-scale fuel production facilities. While Brazil's leaders herald the nuclear sector as a triumph for indigenous science and technology, foreigners view the nuclear program as a dangerous legacy of the military regime. This discrepancy becomes even more apparent in discussions about the ongoing construction of Brazil's first nuclear powered submarine. Brazil's military touts the submarine as a symbol of political status, economic growth, and military might. But from abroad, the military's involvement in nuclear development is considered unnecessary, worrisome, and even irresponsible. These narratives—often incomplete or selective—have polarized discussions about Brazil's nuclear submarine program and caused considerable political antagonism during safeguards negotiations. This article works to dispel myths, highlight legitimate concerns, and explain historical perspectives that shed light on some difficulties that can be anticipated in future negotiations.     

From the sociology of the (military) profession to the sociology of (security) expertise: the case of European national defence universities

Few would disagree that European militaries have experienced dramatic changes since the end of the Cold War. Much of the discussion on these changes to date has referred to the concept of professionalism. However, this approach became outdated as professions in post-industrialist societies entered a state of crisis as a result of growing competition from a variety of competitors. The present study adapts a new framework from the sociology of knowledge literature – sociology of expertise – into one, sociology of security expertise, which is suitable for study of contemporary armed forces. Its utility is demonstrated through analysis of five European professional military education institutions. The analysis shows that European military organisations are transiting, albeit in various degrees, from one form of social organisation of military knowledge production – associated with the military education model common to traditional military colleges – toward another, which is related to the military education model of national defence universities. Hence it is highly probable that European military organisations lose, either voluntary or unintentionally, their professional character and can no longer be unquestionably assumed to be military professions. Hence, they should be analysed hereafter using the sociology of security expertise framework.     

信息化条件下的军备控制

军备控制的目的是维护国家的安全和减少国家安全威胁.随着现代科学技术的发展和世界经济一体化进程的加快,国家安全威胁的因素与国家军事能力同步增长.尤其是现代信息技术的快速渗透和发展,不仅带来了安全隐患的增加,也加速了武器装备的更新换代,对国际军备控制产生了广泛的影响.     

经济视野的新时期军事安全战略

经济全球化深刻影响和改变了世界经济、政治、军事安全形势,促使我们探索新时期的国家军事安全战略。本文试图由经济视角透视新时期军事安全战略,简要分析了经济全球化背景下我国军事安全面临的挑战,强调经济安全是新时期军事安全战略的立足点和重要战略目标,并探讨了经济软实力作为非战争军事斗争方式的运用及经济全球化影响下的新时期军事安全战略的特征。     

Military expenditure and economic development in China: an empirical inquiry

Increases in military spending have a big impact on the socioeconomic conditions in any country. However, there is no consensus as to whether the rising military expenditure is beneficial or detrimental to economic growth. The present study chose China as a case study to empirically examine a complex relationship between military expenditure and economic development. The findings from the Johansen cointegration test indicated that there existed a long-run relationship between China’s military spending and economic growth. Furthermore, the Granger causality test detected a unidirectional causality from economic development to military expenditure. These results were further confirmed by the findings from the impulse response function. This means that China represents an example of a developing economy where the size of military expenditure expands in the process of economic transformation.     

Small world,big guns: globalization,interstate security networks and conventional weapons imports

With the burgeoning influence of emerging markets in Asia, a tectonic shift is taking place in the global security landscape. Asian states are concomitantly arming as their economic clout grows. In light of these developments, security analysts would benefit from a formal means of placing these arms acquisitions in a structural context. Are arms acquisitions on par with the expectations of Asian states, given their structural dispositions, or are recent acquisitions beyond anticipated levels? By using a dynamic panel regression of 187 states from 1950 to 2011, this research predicts arms import volume using the degree of interstate arms linkages, the size of a state's military, and its level of economic development. The technique offers analysts a formal means of distinguishing orthodox behavior in importing conventional weapons from extraneous security motivations. The article concludes by generating near-term forecasts of Asian arms imports and discussing the implications of the technique.     

军事工程渗漏检测技术及设备研究

研究军事工程渗漏检测技术及设备,对保证部队官兵的战备训练和生活、武器装备和军需物资的安全存储、军事功能的发挥以及军事任务的完成,具有十分重要的军事、经济意义。比较分析了军事工程渗漏检测技术与方法,确定电磁波技术法为军事工程渗漏检测设备的基本检测原理。分别从检测与传输、智能处理与分析、机械设计与合成、工程实验与验证4个主要分系统对军事工程渗漏检测设备的研制进行了阐述。应用军事工程渗漏检测设备进行了工程实践,解决了已建工程渗漏检测、新建工程防水、防渗漏工程质量验收的技术难题。     

How viable is international arms control for military artificial intelligence? Three lessons from nuclear weapons

Many observers anticipate “arms races” between states seeking to deploy artificial intelligence (AI) in diverse military applications, some of which raise concerns on ethical and legal grounds, or from the perspective of strategic stability or accident risk. How viable are arms control regimes for military AI? This article draws a parallel with the experience in controlling nuclear weapons, to examine the opportunities and pitfalls of efforts to prevent, channel, or contain the militarization of AI. It applies three analytical lenses to argue that (1) norm institutionalization can counter or slow proliferation; (2) organized “epistemic communities” of experts can effectively catalyze arms control; (3) many military AI applications will remain susceptible to “normal accidents,” such that assurances of “meaningful human control” are largely inadequate. I conclude that while there are key differences, understanding these lessons remains essential to those seeking to pursue or study the next chapter in global arms control.     

Civil—military relations in Africa: Navigating uncharted waters

“Perception is a second reality!”

This essay discusses the military as a part of wider society and the interactions between the two. It argues that civil—military relations are complex and not always harmonious. In its focus on Africa, the essay describes some differences in the development of African militaries and civil—military relations on the continent as compared with the West, but argues that the differences are merely a matter of degree. As civil—military relations on the continent have been strongly influenced by its colonial history, which caused fear and even dislike of the colonial military, it still impacts on these relations in the post-colonial era. After examining the relationship between the armed forces, democracy and politics in the politically turbulent African environment, it is concluded that a simplistic definition of civil—military relations is difficult to arrive at. The essay identifies the key principles of democratic civil—military relations and, although admitting that these principles are not always easy to adhere to, argues that as Africa develops civil—military relations, African militaries have moved and will move closer to observing these principles. To enhance this process it is essential for African militaries to include civic education programmes at all levels of education and training in order to gain a better understanding of and commitment to these principles.     

Simultaneous determination of production and maintenance schedules using in‐line equipment condition and yield information

In many manufacturing environments, equipment condition has a significant impact on product quality, or yield. This paper presents a semi‐Markov decision process model of a single‐stage production system with multiple products and multiple maintenance actions. The model simultaneously determines maintenance and production schedules, accounting for the fact that equipment condition affects the yield of each product differently. It extends earlier work by allowing the expected time between decision epochs to vary by both action and machine state, by allowing multiple maintenance actions, and by treating the outcome of maintenance as less than certain. Sufficient conditions are developed that ensure the monotonicity of both the optimal production and maintenance actions. While the maintenance conditions closely resemble previously studied conditions for this type of problem, the production conditions represent a significant departure from earlier results. The simultaneous solution method is compared to an approach commonly used in industry, where the maintenance and production problems are treated independently. Solving more than one thousand test problems confirms that the combination of both features of the model—accounting for product differences and solving the problems simultaneously—has a significant impact on performance. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2008     

The Demand for Military Expenditure in Europe: The Role of Fiscal Space in the Context of a Resurgent Russia

A variant of established work on the demand for military expenditure is developed based on a practical concept of fiscal space from the perspective of short-term government choices concerning public expenditures. A new indicator, referred to as fiscal capacity, is defined and used as a candidate explanatory variable in an empirical model of European defence spending over the 2007–2016 period. Fiscal capacity is found to outperform simpler measurements of economic conditions, notably GDP growth forecasts, in explaining changes in defence spending efforts as a share of GDP. Regarding security environment variables, the results suggest that Russia has recently come to be seen as a potential military threat by European nations, leading to defence spending increases, the more so the shorter the distance to stationed or deployed Russian forces, and particularly so by those European nations that have a land border with Russia. A prospective exercise is then carried out in order to assess the capacity of EU member states that are also members of NATO to reach NATO’s 2% goal for defence spending over a mid-term horizon.     

The economic effects of international trade in armaments in the major western industrialized and developing countries†

We have used the Michigan Model of World Production and Trade to assess the impact of exports and imports of armaments (based on 1980 data) on sectoral trade and employment and other economic variables in the major Western trading countries. If the United States were to place a unilateral embargo on its arms exports and imports, we calculate that it would experience a comparatively small amount of employment displacement in the aggregate and that most of this displacement would occur in the transport equipment and electric machinery sectors. If all the major Western countries were to place a multilateral embargo on their arms trade, the sectoral effects on the United States would be similarly small. But the sectoral effects in several other industrialized and developing countries measured as a percentage of sectoral employment, would be larger, indicating potential short‐run adjustment problems in labor markets in some cases.     

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EXTERNAL DEBT,DEFENCE EXPENDITURES AND GNP REVISITED: THE CASE OF TURKEY

This paper contributes to the continuing debate on the economic effects of military expenditure by undertaking a case study of Greece. Within Europe Greece provides a particularly interesting object of study. It has the highest military burden in Europe and NATO, is the only European Union country situated in the unstable environment of the Balkans, faces a military threat from Turkey, and has a very weak economy. After some background analysis of the economy and military expenditure, the paper investigates the determinants of Greek military expenditure as well as whether the high military burden has played an important role in Greece's poor economic performance over the period 1960–1996. It estimates a Keynesian simultaneous equation model with a supply side, which allows the indirect effects of military expenditure to be captured explicitly. It concludes that the major determinants of Greek defence spending are not economic but strategic (the threat of war) and that the direct effect of defence spending on economic growth as well as the indirect effects through savings and trade balance are all significantly negative. On the basis of such strong results, the paper concludes that defence spending is harmful for the Greek economy.     

Externalities in Military Spending and Growth: The Role of Natural Resources as a Channel through Conflict

This investigation re-examines the potential sources of positive externalities for the relationship between military spending and economic growth using recent advances in panel estimation methods and a large data-set on military expenditure. The investigation provides a new analysis on the relationship between conflict, corruption, natural resources and military expenditure and their direct and indirect effects on economic growth. The analysis finds that the impact of military expenditure on growth is generally negative as in the literature, but that it is not significantly detrimental for countries facing higher internal threats and for countries with large natural resource wealth once corruption levels are accounted for.     

基于复杂适应系统理论的一体化联合作战研究

复杂适应系统理论为我们研究军事系统提供了崭新的视角,避免了传统的基于还原论方法研究军事系统机械分隔忽略系统要素之间相互作用的问题,可以得到军事系统全面准确的认识,对于深入研究一体化联合作战的本质内涵、基本特征和主要方法,尽快形成一体化联合作战的理论体系具有重要意义。文章通过分析军事系统特点得出军事系统是复杂适应系统的结论,在此基础上,从复杂适应系统理论的角度分析了一体化联合作战的内涵及提高军事系统一体化联合作战能力需要重点解决的四个问题。     

Sovereign debt,deficits and defence spending: the case of Greece

Abstract

The outbreak of the sovereign debt crisis at the end of 2009 in Greece led to a severe recession, and constant economic problems. This paper investigates military expenditure among others as a potential factor to the growth of sovereign debt in Greece over the period 1960 until currently. Our empirical findings suggest that high deficits, inflation and military spending have been the primary causes of debt growth in Greece. The structural break models reveal a much higher effect of deficits and inflation in the post-1990 period while the threshold switching regression, based on the level of sovereign debt, indicate that for levels of debt-to-GDP ratio above 90% deficits, inflation and military expenditures had significantly more pronounced effects on government debt changes.     

The comparison of military budgets of the eastern and central European countries

The evolutions of military expenditures in Eastern and Central European countries are difficult to estimate and to compare, due to the lack of available data for these states. Some results of the extent of cuts in defence spending since 1990 are interesting to interpret, but it is difficult for econometricians to use these figures even carefully. The structures of national military expenditure have been modified to the detriment of arms equipment. Thus, the disarmament process needs a special analysis of the arms industry.