Military Spending and Economic Growth in the Middle East Countries: Bootstrap Panel Causality Test

This study revisits the causal relationship between military spending and economic growth in 10 Middle East countries via a panel causality analysis that accounts for cross-sectional dependence and heterogeneity across countries. Our results indicate unidirectional causality from military spending to growth for Turkey; one-way causality from economic growth to military spending for Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, and Syria; bidirectional causality for Israel; and no causality in either direction for Jordan, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. The empirical evidence does not provide consistent results regarding the causal relationship between defense expenditure and economic growth in these countries.     

The causal nexus between military spending and unemployment in the G7: a bootstrap panel causality test

We revisit the causal relationship between military spending and unemployment in the G7 countries applying a bootstrap panel causality analysis that accounts for both cross-sectional dependence and for heterogeneity across countries. Using per capita real GDP as a controlled variable, we found a unidirectional causality running from military spending to unemployment for Canada, Japan, and the US, one-way causality running from unemployment to military spending for France and Germany, and bidirectional causality for Italy and the UK. The empirical evidence does not seem to provide consistent results regarding the causal relationship between military spending and unemployment in G7 countries.     

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.     

Military spending and economic growth in South Africa

This paper undertakes an empirical analysis of the economic effects of military spending on the South African economy. It estimates a neo‐classical model common in the literature at the level of the macroeconomy and at the level of the manufacturing sector. An attempt is made to improve upon the model by allowing the data to determine the dynamic structure of the model through an ARDL procedure. No significant impact of military spending is found in aggregate, but there is a significant negative impact for the manufacturing sector. This suggests that the cuts in domestic military procurement that have occurred since 1989 could lead to improved economic performance in South Africa through their impact on the manufacturing sector.     

An informal framework to aid the analysis and design of military posture

The design of military posture is an exercise in confronting potential enemies’ capabilities within the context of geographic, technological, temporal, political and economic constraints. No formal model is capable of encapsulating the essentials of so complex an environment for closed or simulated analysis, but it is useful to have an informal framework within which to reason interactively within these dimensions.

This paper presents such a scaffolding, patterned on the notion of a military posture as the output of an economic process whose structure reflects important determinants of the characteristics and extents of weaponry and expenditures that are appropriate to the environment within the feasibility set determined by the constraints. The analysis remains at an abstract level, but it does highlight the important shifts toward preparation for littoral warfare, greater reliance on reserve rather than active forces, and necessary changes in missions among military departments.     

From Civil War Victor to Cold War Guard: Positional Warfare in Korea and the Transformation of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, 1951–1953

This article analyses the impact of the Korean War on the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), particularly the period of positional warfare from 1951 to 1953. In the war of movement between October 1950 and June 1951, the PLA relied on its civil war era weapons and experience, including the doctrine of ‘battle of annihilation’. Operations in early 1951 suggested that the civil war legacies of the PLA no longer applied to the realities of combat in Korea. Based on both Soviet aid and domestic mobilisation, the PLA managed to build the material foundation for positional warfare and rapidly improved its logistics. Operationally, on the defensive, the PLA developed combined operations integrating infantry, artillery, and armoured forces. The PLA learned the lessons of the Korean War and strengthened its ties with the Soviet armed forces in order to modernise itself. The Korean War thus transformed the PLA from Civil War victor to Cold War guard.     

‘Second-Class’: The Grievances of Sunni Officers in the Syrian Armed Forces

The defection of a significant number of Sunni officers amidst the ongoing turmoil in Syria created a unique opportunity to get access to original data on the Syrian armed forces. This study draws on extensive fieldwork to probe the sectarian question in the Syrian officer corps. On the basis of a series of interviews conducted throughout the summer of 2014, I investigate the politics and consequences of sectarian stacking in the Syrian military as well as the root causes of Sunni officers’ grievances and alienation. My conclusions draw on an original database that compiles the sectarian affiliations of 81 prominent officers who occupied the most senior military positions under Bashar al-Asad.     

Military Innovation Under Authoritarian Government – the Case of Russian Special Operations Forces

Russian Special Forces saw significant changes to both organization and doctrine in the years after 2008. The special forces of the General Staff’s Main Intelligence Directorate were reduced in number, the organization’s institutional autonomy and rationale were changed, and an entirely new Special Operations Command was established in March 2013. This article seeks to assess the nature, scope and purpose of these changes, and to explain them by drawing on scholarship on military innovation. In particular, the article looks at military innovation in the context of a non-democratic political regime.