Book reviews

John Horsfield, The Art of Leadership in War. The Royal Navy From the Age of Nelson to the End of World War II. Westport, Conn. and London: Greenwood Press, 1980. Pp. 240; £14.75.

John Joseph Timothy Sweet, Iron Arm: The Mechanization of Mussolini's Army, 1920–1940. Westport, Connecticut &; London: Greenwood Press. 1980. Pp. 207; £15.50.

Peter H. Merkl, The Making of a Stormtrooper. Princeton, N.J: Princeton U.P., 1980. Pp. 328; £8.60.

Greg Herken, The Winning Weapon: The Atomic Bomb in the Cold War 1945–1950. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980. Pp. 425; $15.00.

Geoffrey Smith and Nelson W. Polsby, British Government and its Discontents. New York: Basic Books, and London: Harper and Row, 1981. Pp. 202; £7.95.

Seweryn Bialer (ed.), The Domestic Context of Soviet Foreign Policy. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press and London: Croom Helm, 1981. Pp. 441; £14.95.

Jerry F. Hough, Soviet Leadership in Transition. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution and Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1981. Pp. 175; £12.00 (hb.) and £3.95 (pb.)

Edward F. Mickolus, Transnational Terrorism: A Chronology of Events 1968–1979. London: Aldwych Press, 1980. Pp. 967; £39.95.

Barry Rubin, The Great Powers in the Middle East, 1941–47; The Road to the Cold War, London: Frank Cass, 1980. Pp. 254; £14.50;

Daniel Heradstveit, The Arab‐Israeli Conflict; Psychological Obstacles to Peace. Oslo: Universittsforlaget, 1979. Pp. 234; £11.60;

Janice Gross Stein, and Raymond Tanter, Rational Decision‐making; Israel's Security Choices 1967. Columbus. Ohio; Ohio State University Press, 1980. Pp. 399; $35.     

Crime facilitation purposes of social networking sites: A review and analysis of the ‘cyberbanging’ phenomenon

There have been growing claims in media circles and law-enforcement settings that street gangs and criminal groups are turning to Internet-based social networking sites for various reasons ranging from the showcasing of their images and exploits to the suspected recruitment of members. The present study investigates whether such a trend is, in fact, in place. The presence of street gangs on these Internet sites is referred to as cyberbanging. While there is some anecdotal evidence suggesting that gangs are turning to social networking sites, there is little available research on exactly how street gangs and criminal groups use the Internet. Our main argument is that gang culture is in many ways an individualized phenomenon and this feature ties in directly with recent assessments of the Internet as a setting that is governed by a process of networked individualism. This theoretical link between the individualized gang setting and the presence of gang members on social networking sites helps us understand why recruitment is improbable even in a context where people are openly diffusing their image and exploits to a growing number of Internet users. The empirical segment of this research adds to this general outlook. Based on a keyword search of over 50 street gang names, the three main social networking sites (Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace) were monitored for street gang presence. Results illustrate that gang presence on social networking sites is linked primarily to promoting a general gang or street culture through individual displays. In regard to the visitors to such sites, there is no evidence that they are being tricked or manipulated in any way. They are, however, showing their curiosity in regard to such groups and, for those who share their comments and opinions, signs of support are evident. Thus, whereas criminal gangs are not proactively using the Internet to convert anyone into being gang members, social networking sites are creating a new venue for people who share or are sensitive to the values underlying street gang lifestyle to come together. These sites essentially create a new convergence setting for gang members to interact with a wider number of people who would probably never have been exposed to their lifestyles and exploits through physical interactions. The study's conclusion extends these findings toward further research in this area, as well as outlining the more relevant implications for law-enforcement monitoring of this growing phenomenon.     

When the Going Gets Tough… Monitoring Missions and a Changing Conflict Environment in Sri Lanka, 2002–2008

This article analyzes how the conflict environment in which a civilian monitoring mission is deployed influences the monitors' assessment of the operation. It draws on unique empirical material from the experience of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), deployed to oversee a ceasefire agreement in Sri Lanka 2002–2008. With material from a survey and in-depth interviews, experiences of the monitors are analyzed and changes over time are traced in relation to the monitors' assessment of the mandate and organizational set-up of the mission. The study points to the difficulty of monitoring missions to address escalation during an ongoing peace process. Its function is dependent on the goodwill of the parties. In essence, monitoring missions have the potential to strengthen peace when there is momentum in favor of progress, but when relations between the parties turn sour and the conflict escalates a civilian monitoring mission basically loses its potential. During the final stages of the war, which saw a very large number of civilian casualties, the war-torn areas were closed to international observers. Moreover, international pressure for a short-term ceasefire to alleviate the humanitarian situation was dismissed by the Sri Lankan government, which also saw the backing of several important actors, not the least China.     

COUNTRY SURVEY XX: DEFENCE SPENDING AND PEACEKEEPING IN URUGUAY

Uruguay is a country with a very unusual profile, since it has just 3.4 million inhabitants but is among the top ten troop contributors to the UN PKO (Peace Keeping Operations) and is the first contributor per capita. In 2002 and 2003 it was the seventh troop contributor to the UN, and by the end of 2005 it was eighth in the UN ranking. Uruguay has never had any imminent external threat to its security after its independence in 1828, and it has had no internal threat since the end of the urban guerrillas’ actions in the 1970s. The country has no defence industry, and has always had an all‐volunteer military service, which presently involves almost 1% of the total population, and about 2% of the labour force. The empirical evidence presented in this paper shows that, in the past decades, Uruguayan defence spending has been influenced mainly by internal factors, most of them of an economic nature. The high participation in PKO has not increased military expenditure and it has produced a positive impact on the country’s economy.     

A PRODUCTIVITY AND EFFICIENCY ANALYSIS OF THE SECURITY AND DEFENCE TECHNOLOGICAL AND INDUSTRIAL BASE IN SPAIN

This study analyses the performance of the productivity of the main industrial subsectors composing the security and defence technological and industrial base (SDTIB) in Spain from 1996 to 2009. Accordingly, we have used the non-parametric data envelopment analysis and bootstrapping techniques to compute Malmquist productivity indexes that allow us to split productivity growth into efficiency change and technical progress. The results obtained show productivity improvement in the SDTIB as a whole due mainly to advances in technology and to a lesser extent to the contribution of technical efficiency. The bootstrap approach yields further evidence, as for many cases, productivity growth or decline, is not statistically significant. This is the first time a study of this kind has been carried out on the production process of this sector in Spain.     

Rent seeking and defence expenditure

A plethora of arguments from the ‘public choice school’ suggest that public goods are ‘under‐supplied’ by comparison with public sector provision of more private goods. The implication is that rent seeking by the ‘military‐industrial complex’ serves, in some measure, to offset potential allocative inefficiency. In this paper a comparison of rent seeking by producers of public goods and producers of private goods identifies a bias that favours public good supply. The bias results from the different way in which collective demand for public goods and for private goods is expressed. The prospect of larger rents to the ‘military‐industrial complex’ implies greater rent‐seeking expenditures in this sector. The extent to which public goods (and, in particular, defence) are ‘under supplied’ is much exaggerated.     

SYMBIOTIC SPIES

Spying on the Nuclear Bear: Anglo-American Intelligence and the Soviet Bomb, by Michael S. Goodman. Stanford University Press, 2007. 295 pages, $50.