MILITARY EXPENDITURE AND GRANGER CAUSALITY: A CRITICAL REVIEW

A large literature has used tests for Granger (1969) non‐causality, GNC, to examine the interaction of military spending with the economy. Such tests answer a specific although quite limited question: can one reject the null hypothesis that one variable does not help predict another? If one can reject, there is said to be Granger causality, GC. Although the limitations of GNC tests are well known, they are often not emphasised in the applied literature and so may be forgotten. This paper considers the econometric and methodological issues involved and illustrates them with data for the US and other countries. There are three main issues. First, the tests may not be informative about the substantive issue, the interaction of military expenditure and the economy, since Granger causality does not correspond to the usual notion of economic causality. To determine the relationship of the two notions of causality requires an identified structural model. Second, the tests are very sensitive to specification. GNC testing is usually done in the context of a vector autoregression, VAR, and the test results are sensitive to the variables and deterministic terms included in the VAR, lag length, sample or observation window used, treatment of integration and cointegration and level of significance. Statistical criteria may not be very informative about these choices. Third, since the parameters are not structural, the test results may not be stable over different time periods or different countries.     

用EA求解非固定时间轨道转移和拦截问题

随着航天任务需求的多样化 ,对航天器拦截和轨道转移问题不但提出了最省燃料的要求 ,而且提出了最小时间的要求。文中用EA算法解决了这一组合优化问题 ,仿真结果证明了算法的有效性     

Performance measurement in military operations: information versus incentives

We explore the impact of strategic assessment efforts on military organizations at war. To do so, we construct a model to explore the impact of a principal’s choice among imperfect performance metrics for a military operation. In doing so, the principal must consider both the incentivizing and informational properties of the metric. We show the conditions under which uncertainty regarding the nature of the agent, as well as uncertainty regarding the operational environment, drives a metric choice that induces pathological behavior from the agent. More specifically, a poor metric choice can create an overly optimistic assessment and end up prolonging the conflict. We illustrate the model’s insights in the cases of World War II and the Vietnam War.     

浅谈现代军事物流及其发展趋势

随着我国社会主义市场经济的蓬勃发展和世界新军事革命的兴起,我国军事物流日益引起人们的重视。同时,也面临着历史性的机遇和挑战。本文结合我国军事物流建设现状,就现代军事物流的科学内涵、地位作用、理想形态及发展趋势进行了论述,旨在为新时期军事物流的建设与发展提供理论依据。     

军用卫星的发展趋势分析

给出了军用卫星未来的发展趋势 ,包括成像侦察卫星、预警卫星系统、通信卫星系统和导航卫星系统的发展趋势 ,指出了小卫星应用的发展方式 ,归纳了卫星组网的设计方法和应用现状 ,最后分析了小卫星编队飞行的应用特点。     

Military Spending and Economic Growth in South Asia: A Panel Data Analysis

Despite the large number and variety of studies addressing the relationship between military spending and economic growth, a consensus regarding the exact nature of any relationship between the two has proven elusive. This study uses a panel co-integration approach to examine the relationship between military spending and economic growth in the five South Asian countries of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh over the period of 1988–2007. It finds that a 1% increase in military spending increases real GDP by only 0.04%, suggesting that the substantial amount of public expenditure that is currently directed towards military purposes in these countries has a negligible impact upon economic growth.     

Think again – supplying war: reappraising military logistics and its centrality to strategy and war

This article argues that logistics constrains strategic opportunity while itself being heavily circumscribed by strategic and operational planning. With the academic literature all but ignoring the centrality of logistics to strategy and war, this article argues for a reappraisal of the critical role of military logistics, and posits that the study and conduct of war and strategy are incomplete at best or false at worst when they ignore this crucial component of the art of war. The article conceptualises the logistics–strategy nexus in a novel way, explores its contemporary manifestation in an age of uncertainty, and applies it to a detailed case study of UK operations in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001.     

美军武装直升机电子战设备的现状与发展趋势

介绍了武装直升机在现代战场上面临的种种威胁,重点介绍了美军武装直升机目前装备的电子战设备和尚处于研制中的新一代综合性电子战设备,分析了美军武装直升机电子战设备的发展趋势。     

Intellectual spring cleaning: it’s time for a military “Do Not Read” list; and some sources that should be on that list

Military reading lists, intended to promote professional reading and in turn enhance education and develop critical thinking skills and sound judgement, recommend key texts to military personnel. This is a noble intent but the lists themselves, while generally good, are not flawless. Critiques of military reading lists often focus on what sources they are missing. This article offers its own critique but from a different perspective. It does so by analysing why some sources, which have become outdated, are based on faulty or incomplete research, have been thoroughly disproven, or some combination of the above, nevertheless linger on military reading lists. It then offers a short list of such sources, which it recommends be either removed from existing reading lists or accompanied by other sources that place the original source in appropriate historical context. Where applicable, it also recommends alternative sources that provide insights into the same subject matter. In so doing, this article is intended generate debate and to assist militaries to achieve a better balance between evaluation, induction and retention of valid knowledge on one hand, and rejection of outdated or flawed knowledge on the other.     

War and rumours of war,do improvements in space technologies bring space conflict closer?

Combat in near-Earth orbit is emerging as a more realistic possibility. The argument here is that changes in space technologies combined with a sea change in political rhetoric is bringing the possibility of military conflict in space technologies. This movement reflects a generational shift as the original decisions regarding military conflict in space are now being reassessed by a generation who did not experience World War II or the Cold War. For these, the sanctuary approach to space activities is not as persuasive and new enhanced space technologies bring the possibility of victory or at least survival possible during a conflict in space.