Population-centric counterinsurgency and the movement of peoples

The theory of population-centric counterinsurgency rests upon the untenable premise that the population within a theater of operations is fixed in place. By showing that people tend to move away from contested rural areas towards the relative safety and prosperity of counterinsurgent-controlled areas, this article demonstrates that this crucial premise is empirically false. Furthermore, a theory of counterinsurgent resource deployment, population movement, and incumbent strategic ineffectiveness is presented. Ultimately, the application of counterinsurgency resources actually dislocates the population from their place of residence and causes them to move into cities. When the urban areas' ability to absorb newcomers is overwhelmed, localized negative externalities emerge and can give rise to crime and insecurity. Such increased insecurity then creates an incentive for the counterinsurgency to retrench its resource use into the cities. As more physical territory is conceded to the insurgency, the relative strategic effectiveness of the counterinsurgency declines.     

ARMY RE‐ENLISTMENT DURING OIF/OEF: BONUSES,DEPLOYMENT, AND STOP‐LOSS

In 2004, stretched by wartime deployments, the US Army countered declining retention by increasing re‐enlistment bonuses and implementing stop‐loss to prevent soldiers from separating at the end of their enlistment. We estimate the effects of bonuses, deployment, and stop‐loss on re‐enlistment between FY 2002 and 2006. We estimate that the baseline propensity to re‐enlist fell by 20%. However, we find that deployed soldiers are more likely to re‐enlist and that the estimated effects of re‐enlistment bonuses are similar to those estimated in peacetime. We evaluate the reasons for our findings, and calculate the cost effectiveness of re‐enlistment bonuses.     

Themes in defence manpower economics and challenges for the future

Raising and maintaining military forces have posed enormous challenges for the United States and its allies. Economists have made significant contributions to understanding of how to recruit and manage such forces. This paper highlights key past contributions and discusses challenges for future research. Rapid changes in the roles and missions of military personnel, technology, and the civilian labor market pose serious challenges for future military manpower policy and will challenge economists to develop new approaches to military recruiting and personnel management. Yet the body of past research can continue to provide insight and guidance in making decisions about defense manpower.     

WARFARE IN A NEW DOMAIN: THE ETHICS OF MILITARY CYBER-OPERATIONS

While most normative evaluations of military cyber-operations have emerged from the legal community, this article assesses the legitimacy of such operations from a philosophical-ethical perspective. After reviewing the relationship between rights forfeiture and the jus ad bellum and jus in bello criteria of the just war tradition, it applies these criteria to several aspects of cyber-operations, including responses to cyber-activities, the use of cyber-capabilities affecting combatants and civilians, and the use of these capabilities by contractors. Finally, it briefly addresses the legitimacy of limiting rights to privacy and anonymity in service of preventing cyber-harm.     

Military Expenditures,Income Inequality,Welfare and Political Regimes: A Dynamic Panel Data Analysis

The goal of this paper is to investigate the relationship between type of welfare regimes and military expenditures. There is a sizeable empirical literature on the development of the welfare state and on the typology of the welfare regimes. There appear to be, however, no empirical studies that examine welfare regimes with special attention to military spending. This study aims at providing a comprehensive analysis on the topic by considering several different welfare regime typologies. To do so, we use dynamic panel data analysis for 37 countries for the period of 1988–2003 by considering a wide range of control variables such as inequality measures, number of terrorist events, and size of the armed forces. We also replicate the same analyses for the political regimes. Our findings, in line with the literature, show that there is a positive relationship between income inequality and share of military expenditures in the central government budget, and that the number of terrorist events is a significant factor that affects both the level of military expenditure and inequality. Also, the paper reveals a significant negative relationship between social democratic welfare regimes and military expenditures.