Hard Balancing in the Age of American Unipolarity: The Russian Response to US Ballistic Missile Defense during the Bush Administration (2001–2008)

One of the central debates in contemporary international relations scholarship concerns the issue of whether balancing has occurred in response to US-based unipolarity, and if it has, how this should be characterised. Existing research has seen analysts argue that major power responses to unipolarity can be placed in one of either three categories: an absence of balancing, soft balancing, and hard balancing. This article contributes to the scholarly literature by providing a case study of hard internal Russian balancing against the US’s development and deployment of Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) systems during the Bush Administration (2001–08). Russian hard balancing against the US has involved: (1) fielding new strategic nuclear and conventional weapons equipped with BMD countermeasures, and, relatedly, (2) making changes in military doctrine. As a result, security dilemma dynamics are increasingly in evidence in US relations with Russia.     

Defense Spending and Unemployment in France

France has received little attention in the literature of defense economics, despite some outstanding features of the country’s situation. This study attempts to partially fill this gap with new empirical evidence which evaluates the influence of military expenditure on the unemployment rate between 1975 and 2008. Our estimation is based on the ARDL approach to cointegration. The results reveal that both defense and non-defense spending exert a negative influence on unemployment but that defense spending has a higher negative impact.     

Middle Powers And The Demand For Military Expenditures

This paper identifies and classifies middle power nations through the use of broad political science definitions, the demand for military expenditures models and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. The latter is used as a simple quantifiable measure of relative and potential military power. The paper also develops and utilizes a threat variable that is applicable to middle power nations. The panel data analysis shows that the middle power nations react to threat variables that proxy global instability utilize foreign aid as a complementary policy tool along with military expenditures, and face significant trade-offs between military and non-military government spending.     

防空兵群(团)火力配系优化

首先阐明了防空兵群(团)火力配系优化的基本概念,然后,运用作战模拟的有关理论,分别建立了火力单位距目标的最佳配置距离(D)、防空兵群(团)对来袭目标的抗击率(Pk)和被保护目标的安全率(Pa)的优化模型。在此基础上,提出了防空兵群(团)火力配系优化的一般方法。最后通过一个实例,说明了防空兵群(团)火力配系的具体步骤。     

《国防科技》2020年发表文献和建设情况浅析

国防科技是具有基础性、引领性的战略工程,期刊聚焦于这一领域特色鲜明、使命艰巨.本文主要基于CNKI数据库和万方数据库,检索《国防科技》2020年发表的全部论文,对每篇论文的标题、作者、工作机构、基金项目和下载量等文献计量指标进行统计分析;同时,对本年度开展的质量建设相关工作进行回顾性定性阐述,旨在为2021年办刊工作提...     

Missile defense and strategic stability: Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) in South Korea

South Korea is threatened by its troubled relationship with North Korea. North Korea possesses a large cache of missiles as well as chemical and biological weapons, and the future potential to mount nuclear weapons on its missiles. The United States is also challenged because of its defense commitments to Seoul. As a countermeasure, the United States and South Korea decided to deploy Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defenses in South Korea. However, China has objected. Chinese scholars believe the THAAD radar would be able to track Chinese inter-continental ballistic missiles, thereby weakening their deterrent. A technical analysis does not support this assertion. However, it is vital for South Korea, given its proximity and economic interdependence, to reassure China. South Korea should highlight that THAAD will be deployed by the United States Forces Korea and is not a commitment by Seoul to become part of U.S.-led missile defenses in the Asia-Pacific.     

Defense spending and economic growth: evidence from China, 1952–2012

This paper examines whether defense expenditures contributed to economic growth in China for the 1952–2012 period. We examine the contribution of defense to economic growth using recently published official data on economic activity, defense, and government expenditures. We employ the Feder-Ram and augmented Solow models of economic growth to explore the defense-growth relationship. The Feder-Ram model appears to poorly explain economic growth in China. The augmented Solow model suggests, however, that a 1% increase in defense expenditures raises the economic growth rate by approximately 0.15–0.19%.     

POWER,INFLUENCE, AND HIERARCHY: DEFENSE INDUSTRIES IN A UNIPOLAR WORLD

The global defense‐industrial sector reflects the hierarchy of power in the post‐Cold War world. As in the larger international system, the United States plays the dominant role in the defense sector as well. It is a comparative advantage often used by US policymakers to influence the foreign policy behavior of other states. Curiously, the radical concentration of the world’s defense industrial sector, as described here, has received relatively little scrutiny from either academia or the media, even though it not only reflects the international order but provides the United States with considerable leverage in it.     

Stopping Suicide Attacks: Optimal Strategies and Unintended Consequences

We study the behavior of defense spending in Switzerland over 1975–2001. Our main interest is in determining how neutrality in international affairs (non‐membership in military alliances) affects defense spending. We find that neutrality is associated with a perception of lower levels of external threat; hence it confers economic benefits in the form of a smaller defense burden. However, neutrality does not fully insulate a country from variations in the level of external threat in the global system as perceived by members of military alliances. Swiss defense spending has tracked very closely the spending trends – but at a lower average level – of the United States and other NATO countries. To the extent that post‐Cold War threats, such as international terrorism, materialize primarily in the context of existing security alliances, Swiss military spending patterns observed in 1975–2001 are likely to remain the same in the future.