The Demand for Turkish Defence Expenditure

Although a number of studies concerning Turkish defence-growth relation have been published in recent years, little attention is given the demand for Turkish defence expenditure. This is an important issue for understanding which variables contribute to the determination of the demand for military expenditure. However, it is difficult to develop a general theory or a standard empirical approach for the determination of the demand military expenditure. This study models and estimates the demand for Turkish defence expenditure for the period 1951-1998 using autoregressive distributed lag approach to cointegration (ARDL) following the methodology outlined in Pesaran and Shin (1999). This procedure can be applied regardless of the stationary properties of the variables in the sample and allows for inferences on long-run estimates, which is not possible under alternative cointegration procedures. The findings suggest that Turkish defence spending is determined by NATO's defence spending, Greece's defence spending and some security considerations.     

Epidemics,national security,and US immigration policy

What are relationships between epidemics, national security, and US immigration policy? This question is important because it sheds light on transnational or nontraditional security areas, American immigration policy, and a pressing issue for US leaders who have recently faced epidemics such as the West Africa Ebola outbreak that began in 2013. This article answers it and lays ground in the area by reviewing epidemics in world history, using International Relations and Security Studies works to specify dangers of contagions for states, and identifying three general immigration measures that American leaders have utilized from the seventeenth century to the present day to protect against contagions, which are (1) policies restricting entrance of foreigners thought to carry specified diseases, (2) the isolation or quarantining of immigrants with contagious disease, and (3) delegating the President with authority to stop immigration in the event of an epidemic abroad. This study has implications for research and contemporary US immigration policy.     

Some new results on the preservation of the NBUE and NWUE aging classes under the formation of coherent systems

We consider the classical problem of whether certain classes of lifetime distributions are preserved under the formation of coherent systems. Under the assumption of independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) component lifetimes, we consider the NBUE (new better than used in expectation) and NWUE (new worse than used in expectation) classes. First, a necessary condition for a coherent system to preserve the NBUE class is given. Sufficient conditions are then obtained for systems satisfying this necessary condition. The sufficient conditions are satisfied for a collection of systems which includes all parallel systems, but the collection is shown to be strictly larger. We also prove that no coherent system preserves the NWUE class. As byproducts of our study, we obtain the following results for the case of i.i.d. component lifetimes: (a) the DFR (decreasing failure rate) class is preserved by no coherent systems other than series systems, and (b) the IMRL (increasing mean residual life) class is not preserved by any coherent systems. Generalizations to the case of dependent component lifetimes are briefly discussed.     

Moving the techno-science gap in Security Force Assistance

This paper looks at the impact of military technology diffusion on military assistance operations (MAO), in the United States known as Security Force Assistance or SFA. The discussion looks conceptually at the role of technological change and how it interacts with martial cultures in military assistant operations. I argue that growing trends in science and technology suggest potential conflicts between culture and technology. Relying on a culture-technology model drawn from anthropology, the paper contends that new technologies will present increasing challenges for the emerging MAO landscape. The paper will illustrate that the techno-science gap will continue to grow as innovations such as robotics, sensors, and networks continue to develop. Finally, the paper will look at ways to overcome this conflict between culture and technology.     

Late Medieval Lance Use: Mounted Combat and Martial Arts in Western Europe from the 14th to the 16th Century

Despite the lance’s status and the amount of attention the couched lance has received in historiography, study of its martial art has been neglected. The various lance types and techniques used by western European cavalry have only recently begun to receive scholarly attention. Additionally, Medieval European lance use has too often been studied in isolation, without an adequate understanding of the idiosyncratic and asymmetrical dynamics of mounted combat. Although the charge with the couched lance was a valid tactic, it was only one of many. Light and heavy lances were used in one hand or two to trip, block, unhorse, and wrestle. These techniques were governed by the harsh laws of distance, speed, impact, iron, and asymmetry. By utilizing the surviving Fechtbücher and several Peninsular and Near Eastern sources, a brief foray into the diverse techniques of lance use and their purposes has been attempted here.     

Optimizing submarine berthing with a persistence incentive

Submarine berthing plans reserve mooring locations for inbound U.S. Navy nuclear submarines prior to their port entrance. Once in port, submarines may be shifted to different berthing locations to allow them to better receive services they require or to make way for other shifted vessels. However, submarine berth shifting is expensive, labor intensive, and potentially hazardous. This article presents an optimization model for submarine berth planning and demonstrates it with Naval Submarine Base, San Diego. After a berthing plan has been approved and published, changed requests for services, delays, and early arrival of inbound submarines are routine events, requiring frequent revisions. To encourage trust in the planning process, the effect on the solution of revisions in the input is kept small by incorporating a persistence incentive in the optimization model. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 44: 301–318, 1997.     

Book reviews

Use of Force: The Practise of States by A. Mark Weisburd, Penn: Penn State Press, University Park, 1997, ISBN 0-271-01679-5 (hbk), $65.00/£58.00, ISBN 0-271-01680-9 (pbk), $25.00/£22.50

Late Breaking Foreign Policy: the News Media's Influence on Peace Operations by Warren P. Strobel, Washington DC: United States Insititute of Peace Press, 1997, ISBN 1-878379-68-2 (hbk), £23.25, ISBN 1-878379-67-4 (pbk)

The Reluctant Sheriff: The United States After the Cold War by Richard N. Haass, New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1997, 148pp, index, ISBN 0-87609-201-6 (hbk), $24.95

The UN, Peace and Force edited by Michael Pugh, London: Frank Cass, 1997, ISBN 0-7146-4795-4 (hbk), £29.50, ISBN 0-7146-4320-3 (pbk), £15.00

Confidence-Building in South East Asia by Malcolm Chalmers, Oxford: Westview Press, 1996, ISBN 1-85143-116-0 (pbk), £19.95

Britain's Strategic Nuclear Deterrent: From Before the V-Bomber to Beyond Trident by Robert H. Paterson, London: Frank Cass, 1997, ISBN 0-7146470-3 (hbk), £35.00, ISBN 0-7146-4297-5 (pbk) £18.00

OSS in China: Prelude to Cold War by Maochun Yu, London: Yale University Press, 1997, ISBN 0 300 06698-8 (hbk), £25.00

Preventing Violent Conflicts: A Strategy for Preventive Diplomacy by Michael S. Lund, Washington DC: US Institute of Peace Press, 1996, ISBN 1-878379-52-6 (pbk), £11.75     

A note on scheduling parallel machines subject to breakdown and repair

In this paper we consider n jobs and a number of machines in parallel. The machines are identical and subject to breakdown and repair. The number may therefore vary over time and is at time t equal to m(t). Preemptions are allowed. We consider three objectives, namely, the total completion time, ∑ C_j, the makespan C_max, and the maximum lateness L_max. We study the conditions on m(t) under which various rules minimize the objective functions under consideration. We analyze cases when the jobs have deadlines to meet and when the jobs are subject to precedence constraints. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2004.