Small countries and the consolidation of the European defence industry: Portugal as a case study

In this paper, we analyse the dilemma confronted by a small country in relation to the consolidation taking place in the European defence industry. Assuming that Portugal must maintain its armed forces, and must retain a minor defence industry, this industry must be competitive in small niches. Competitiveness must be based on, amongst other elements, technical efficiency and technological change. We investigate this issue, first characterizing the threats faced by the Portuguese defence industry, then investigating its present efficiency and finally, we discuss its role in the consolidation of the European Industry. We conclude that the Portuguese defence industry has no alternative but to opt for innovation and European partnership, which are complementary policies, but which require the active involvement of the stakeholder (i.e. the Government) in effecting these fundamental shifts in direction and emphasis. If this strategy does not succeed, the defence policy should be based on offsets.     

The Impact of Military Spending on Economic Growth: The Case of North Cyprus

The present study aims at investigating the causal relationship between defence expenditures and economic growth in the case of North Cyprus using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to cointegration and Granger causality tests for the period from 1977 to 2007. The results suggest that the variables in question are in a long-run equilibrium relationship and that there exists a strong, positive unidirectional causality running from defence expenditures to economic growth.     

DOES DEFENCE SPENDING STIMULATE ECONOMIC GROWTH IN INDIA? A REVISIT

This study reinvestigates the effect of defence spending on economic growth using Zivot and Andrews and Lee and Strazicich, structural unit root tests and the autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing approach to cointegration in augmented version of Keynesian model for India. Study confirmed long run relationship among variables studied show that economic growth is positively affected by defence spending (also negative impact after a threshold point), investment and trade openness while negatively by interest rate. Granger causality analysis revealed bidirectional causal relationship between defence spending and economic growth as probed by variance decomposition approach.     

BUTTER,GUNS AND ICE‐CREAM THEORY AND EVIDENCE FROM SUB‐SAHARAN AFRICA

This paper is intended to complement the existing literature on civil wars. First, it presents a simple theoretical model of conflict that defines a two‐sector economy. In a contested sector, two agents struggle to appropriate the maximum possible fraction of a contestable output. In an uncontested sector, they hold secure property rights over the production of some goods. Agents split their resource endowment between ‘butter’, ‘guns’ and ‘ice‐cream’. Following the theoretical insights the empirical analysis focuses on the relationship between civil wars and different sectors of the economy. In particular, a panel probit specification shows that the incidence of a civil war decreases in the size of manufacturing sector.     

Country survey XII: South Africa

This article examines the relationship between defence expenditure and economic performance in South Africa, both prior to and after that country's first fully democratic election in 1994. Prior to 1994 defence expenditure decisions were largely dominated by non‐economic factors; since then defence spending has declined in reaction to, inter alia, the need to address a number of socio‐economic inequities.

After 1975 in particular, military industrialisation in South Africa placed a disproportionately high burden on the country's industrial resources and natural economic and technical capabilities. However, although this suggests that the opportunity cost of domestic arms production has been fairly high, the country's poor economic and development performance since the mid‐1970s is a function of underlying structural deficiencies and institutional constraints rather than the consequence of inordinately high defence spending levels.     

Life cycle costs for decision support ‐ a study of the various life cycle costs used at different levels of defence policy and management∗

Debates on many aspects of defence economics ‐ on the scale of defence expenditure, on the allocation of that expenditure to various military capabilities, and on the selection of equipment offering the best value for money ‐ are bedevilled by misunderstandings and misconceptions about the costs of defence equipment. This paper seeks to improve understanding of defence equipment costs by defining a hierarchy of defence equipment within which the direct and indirect life cycle costs of defence equipment may be allocated at different levels. Having reviewed the direct and indirect components of the life cycle cost, this paper then shows how different costing studies for different purposes require different approaches to life cycle costing, and that there is no unique life cycle cost which can be assigned to one particular item of defence equipment. There is instead a range oflife cycle costs, each of which is appropriate for a particular study, and it is important that a quoted cost of an item of defence equipment should be used only in the pertinent circumstances. The paper is written from a UK perspective and accordingly uses British nomenclature, but its principles should be relevant to defence cost studies in other nations.     

作战任务总量的迭代收敛性

为降低作战任务的复杂度,提高任务执行效率,研究了作战任务总量及其迭代收敛问题.首先,采用图形和设计结构矩阵,阐明反导作战子任务的复杂联系.再引入任务转移矩阵建立任务总量模型,总结迭代收敛条件.最后,综合考虑资源和时间约束,规划子任务优先级并优化作战资源配置.结合实例分析了任务总量迭代收敛规律的可行性和有效性,为反导作战任务规划提供了理论指导.     

改进型JDL模型在武警部队院校信息化建设中的构建

在武警部队院校的网络信息化水平迅速发展的今天,由于各功能模块缺少统一的接口规范和能够协调各部门信息共享的机制,使得建成的各个功能模块之间无法共享信息,造成了数据库中信息的大量冗余和重复。结合数据融合技术的基本原理、发展现状和应用前景,对数据融合技术进行了介绍;针对武警院校信息融合的需求,提出了改进型JDL模型,分析了武警院校信息融合网络的服务架构层次,对信息融合网络中的核心问题信息共享、接口规范、数据融合进行了研究;利用模块化设计的思路,对原型系统进行了分析,对实验数据进行了重组,并提出了数据优化方案。     

Influence of shaped charge structure parameters on the formation of linear explosively formed projectiles

The research of LEFP (linear explosive forming projectile) is of great value to the development of new warhead due to its excellent performance. To further improve the damage ability of the shaped charge warhead, a special shell overhanging structure was designed to increase the charge based on the traditional spherical charge, in which case the crushing energy of LEFP could be guaranteed. LS-DYNA was used to simulate different charge structures obtained by changing the number of detonation points, the length of shell platform, the radius of curvature and the thickness of liner. The RSM (response surface model) between the molding parameters of LEFP and the structural parameters of charge was established. Based on RSM model, the structure of shaped charge was optimized by using multi-objective genetic algorithm. Meanwhile, the formation process of jet was analyzed by pulsed X-ray photography. The results show that the velocity, length-diameter ratio and specific kinetic energy of the LEFP were closely related to the structural parameters of the shaped charge. After the optimization of charge structure, the forming effect and penetration ability of LEPP had been significantly improved. The experimental data of jet velocity and length were consistent with the numerical results, which verifies the reliability of the numerical results.     

导航对抗技术分析

从信息对抗的角度来看,导航战是指对立双方为争夺导航信息的控制权而展开的斗争。从进攻与防御两方面探讨了导航战对相关技术的需求。