Credibility over Courage: NATO's Mis-Intervention in Kosovo

NATO officials have cited various reasons for conducting their air campaign in Kosovo. Though not emphasised as much, the concern that NATO's credibility was at stake stood out as the most paramount on the basis of logical comparison. In fact, NATO intervened in Kosovo primarily to maintain its credibility as the Trans- Atlantic's only multilateral security mechanism because its continued existence depended on it. While NATO's search for its new role in the post-Cold War strategic environment has been fraught with several problems, the inclination towards collective security and crisis management has placed it in a position of proactive military obligation. Predictably, NATO's venture in the Balkans this time around has had various implications on its future prospects as an organisation.     

America's regions and US foreign policy

Peter Trubowitz, Defining the National Interest: Conflict and Change in American Foreign Policy. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Pp.xvi + 353, biblio., figs, maps, index. $55 (cloth); $18.95 (paper). ISBN 0–226–81302–9.     

Alternatives for defense in the Post‐Soviet World: A guide for economists to the U.S. debate

The defense establishments of all major powers are changing to reflect changes in the foundations of national security strategy and resource allocation. The authors believe economists should play an active role in formulating these changes and offer an orientation to the U.S. debate, presenting three major alternatives: the “Base Force” (Bush Administration), Mr. Aspin's Force “C,” and the “Low” Alternative (Prof. Kaufmann and Dr. Steinbruner). These alternatives are compared using first‐order measures of capabilities, budgets and risk. Budgetary estimates are based on newly‐developed analytical tools.     

Optimal versus required defence expenditure: The case of the Greek-Turkish arms race

The aim of this paper is to indicate the extent to which the arms race against Turkey, in which Greece and Cyprus have been entangled, imposes a defence expenditure burden that is tough for the two allies to bear. To do so we have resorted to evaluating the optimal military expenditure for the two countries, allied in the context of the Integrated Defence Doctrine, which is compatible with the constraints imposed by the resources of their economies. All experiments and scenarios examined lead to the conclusion that the current defence burden of the two allies seems to be driving their economies beyond capacity limits. The fact remains, however, that under the circumstances, a one-sided disarmament policy like the one currently followed by Greece, is a risky choice given that the long-term armament programmes pursued by Turkey, whose role in this arms race has been proven as leading, leave very small room to the Greek and Cypriot sides to reduce their own defence expenditure.     

Budgetary trade-offs of security expenditures in Turkey

This paper investigates the budgetary trade-off structure of security (defence+internal security) expenditures in Turkey for the period 1983-1998. A modified version of Todaro's distributive share index of social welfare is used to quantify the impacts on the growth of primary budget expenditures of Security, Education, Health, General Administration, Infrastructure, and Social Services. We find that defence expenditures dominate overall security expenditures and are less affected in times of bottlenecks in the economy. A systematic pattern of negative budgetary trade-offs of security expenditures in terms of other components is not identified. We also analyse the expenditures of the Defence Industry Support Fund in an attempt to find the cost of the modernisation program to the economy.