Public opinion: A powerful predictor of U.S. defense spending

Public opinion survey responses regarding the desirability of changes in defense spending can be compressed into a single variable, the public opinion balance, which, when accompanied by a control variable measuring the proportion of responses in the “residuum” (no opinion or keep the status quo), permits an accurate prediction of subsequent changes in the rate of change of U.S. defense outlays from the mid‐1960s through the 1980s. This finding cannot be interpreted as a simple case of “the public got what it wanted,” however, because public opinion was not autonomous or spontaneous, and defense decision makers themselves played a central role in shaping public opinion.     

The real exchange rate Enigma: A safe haven solution from the cold war era

In this paper I shift the focus of real exchange rate analysis from conventional macroeconomic variables, which have failed to explain changes in floating real dollar exchange rates, to military security variables, which show an uncanny ability to explain the pattern of floating real exchange rate changes among NATO‐area floating currencies from early 1973 through the failed Soviet coup of August, 1991.     

Territorial contestation and repressive violence in civil war

This study models the structural sources of variation in the use of selective (discriminate) repression within 89 civil wars fought between 1981 and 2005. The severity of repressive violence is modeled as a function of the amount of territory being contested by the insurgents. This idea is operationalized using measures of the location, size, and density of insurgency violence. The analysis finds evidence that the repressive behavior of both governments and rebel groups is linked to conflict geography. Governments violate physical integrity rights more frequently and kill more civilians the greater the overall amount of territory under contestation. Rebels kill more civilians in highly dispersed insurgencies that lack a clear epicenter.     

What Goes Up Must Come Down: Military Expenditure and Civil Wars

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of civil war on military expenditure. We employ two measures of military expenditure: the share of military expenditure in general government expenditure and the logarithm of military expenditures. We would reasonably expect a priori that military expenditure as a share of general government expenditure increases during a civil war and that such increases would taper off over the duration of a civil war. We also explore whether the termination of a civil war induces a decline in the share of military expenditure as a share of the general government expenditure in the short-run. We find evidence the of share of military expenditure increases during a civil war and falls in the year succeeding the end of a civil war, and, in particular, if a war ends in a peace treaty. The level of military expenditures, however, rises during civil wars and does not appear to decline in the short-term after the end of a civil war.     

SOUTH AFRICA'S ANTI-TERROR LAW

This article argues that whereas the waves of democratization which enveloped the continent in the early 1990s following the collapse of Eastern European one-party socialism genera ted expectations of a ‘new dawn’ for ‘good governance’ and sustainable human development on the continent, one wave after another appears to have suffered serious setbacks. Indeed, a decade later, some of the most articulate pro-democracy leaders, who came into office on the crest of the democratic waves of the 1990s have sought to manipulate their countries' constitutions in order to perpetuate their presidential tenure. Such undemocratic behaviour will only fuel speculation in the industrialized world that the New Partnership for Africa's Development is just another decorative blue-print drawn up by beleaguered African despots in order to obtain new resource inflows at a time the international community under the hegemonic leadership of the Uni ted States will be wholly preoccupied with rebuilding post-Saddam Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian roadmap.     

The Soviet Biological Weapons Program: A History

The Soviet Biological Weapons Program: A History. by Milton Leitenberg and Raymond A. Zilinskas (with Jens H. Kuhn), Harvard University Press, 2012. 921 pages, $55.     

THE HARD CASES

Many countries received Soviet-origin highly enriched uranium (HEU) for civilian nuclear research purposes. Because of inadequate nuclear security at a number of the research sites, U.S. policy has sought to remove or otherwise safely dispose of their HEU stocks as quickly as possible. Although the pace of HEU disposition has accelerated significantly in recent years, several sites have posed formidable technical, economic, and political challenges. This article identifies the major obstacles to HEU removal at two key installations—Kharkiv in Ukraine, and Sosny in Belarus—and recommends a strategy for overcoming these impediments. Key components for a successful disposition strategy include: treating these cases with the urgency they deserve, expanding potential compensation packages, explicitly addressing the institutional and political issues involved, engaging high-level political leaders, working with third parties, and promoting these efforts as part of a nondiscriminatory initiative to phase out HEU in the civilian nuclear sector globally.     

INTRODUCTION: THE DYNAMICS OF NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

Decisionmaking processes leading to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by democratic states have served as the basis for theories about nuclear proliferation. In contrast, less is known about how a totalitarian regime responds to immense external pressure to abolish unconventional weapons it considers crucial for its security and survival. This article will analyze how we can explain Iraq's behavior after the passing of Resolution 1441 and during the United Nations inspections in 2002–2003.