The political economy of drones

This paper provides a political economy analysis of the evolution of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), or ‘drones’ in the USA. Focus is placed on the interplay between the polity and private economic influences, and their impact on the trajectory of political, economic, and military outcomes. We identify the initial formation of the drone industry, trace how the initial relationships between the military and the private sector expanded over time, and discuss present relationships. Understanding the historical evolution of UAV technology, as well as the major players in the industry today, is important for ongoing policy debates regarding the use of drones both domestically and internationally.     

The effect of deployment on first‐ and second‐term re‐enlistment in the US active duty force

Why should deployment affect re‐enlistment? In our model, members enter the military with naïve beliefs about deployment and use actual deployment experience to update their beliefs and revise their expected utility of re‐enlisting. Empirically, re‐enlistment is related to the type and number of deployments, consistent with the learning model. Non‐hostile deployment increases first‐term re‐enlistment but hostile deployment has little effect except for the Army, where the effect is positive. Both types increase second‐term re‐enlistment. Interestingly, first‐term members with dependants tend to respond to deployment like second‐term members. In addition, deployment acts directly to affect re‐enlistment, not indirectly through time to promotion.     

U.S.–RUSSIAN NUCLEAR COOPERATION AND THE CTBT

Post-Cold War “lab-to-lab” collaborations on unclassified scientific issues between U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons laboratories set the stage for bilateral cooperation in materials control and other nuclear areas. They also became the major element in a cooperative process initiated by a Presidential Decision Directive to ensure Russia's compliance with the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. These collaborations have always been highly favored by leaders of the Russian nuclear weapons complex—the same leaders who oversee Russia's participation in various government-to-government programs. This article reviews these collaborations and examines the possibility that U.S. rebuffs of Russian proposals and the U.S. failure to keep promises of expanded collaboration could contribute to Russia's reluctance in major programs and even lead to a return to nuclear testing by Russia. The author argues that a renewed U.S. commitment to the process should be an immediate goal of the Obama administration and is an essential step in re-engaging Russia to solve the nuclear problems remaining from the Cold War. Steps for doing so are recommended.     

Nuclear‐ and missile‐related trade and developments for selected countries,July‐October 1997

The material in this overview is drawn from selected abstracts that appear in the Center for Nonproliferation Studies’ nuclear and missile databases. Transactions of nuclear and missile technologies, parts, and materials are listed according o the recipient country. Other developments are listed according to the country where the event or development took place.     

Strategic terrorism: The framework and its fallacies

This article seeks to lay out a comprehensive framework by which those who utilize a campaign of strategic terrorism seek to attain their ends. It identifies a distinctive modus operandi: 1) disorientation: to alienate the authorities from their citizens, reducing the government to impotence in the eyes of the population; 2) target response: to induce a target to respond in a manner that is favorable to the insurgent cause; 3) gaining legitimacy: to exploit the emotional impact of the violence to insert an alternative political message. By elucidating the strategy of terrorism, the analysis also reveals its inherent limitations. Resting on the premise that a militarily more powerful adversary will in some way feel restrained from bringing the full force of its military superiority to bear, the strategy relies exclusively on the exploitation of the psychological effects of armed action, thereby rendering it vulnerable to those who are willing to view the resolution of clashes of interest principally in terms of the tangibles of military power.     

Book review

Steven L. Burg and Paul S. Shoup, The War in Bosnia‐Herzegovina: Ethnic Conflict and International Intervention.New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1999. Pp.xviii + 499, maps, tables, notes, biobliog., index. NP. ISBN 1–56324–308–3.     

Training US Army Peacekeepers

In Chechnya a protracted conflict only seemingly quieted down, but it still smolders and as the conflict is suppressed by coercion, it is inevitable that it will flare up at some time in the near future. The root causes of the conflict can be understood by use of globalization theory, which dialectically brings together the clashing forces from above and below. Civil society in Chechnya deteriorated, is politically curtailed, and has no resilience left. It thus results in a frozen conflict and an excluded and victimized society. Russian-style reconstruction does alleviate living conditions, but does not remediate the frozen conflict character of the present situation. The dynamics of the globalizing forces from below and above, summarized in the glocalization concept, not only explains the resistance by the Chechen people, for whom revolt, rebellion, and terrorism remain attractive options, but also serves as a model for other insurgencies. Reflecting on the two recent Chechen–Russian wars results in a paradigmatic case study.