Who Really Dictates What an Existential Threat Is? The Israeli Experience

National security conception or securitization theory frames threats and conceptualizes the responses towards them. But in many cases, and especially in the Israeli context, there is a tendency to blur the nature and essence of different threats; security threats become strategic threats and then existential threats. In the Israeli context, because the broad concept of security is perceived, in most cases, as equivalent to military security, the meaning of the strategic threat will be framed, mostly, militarily, derived from military thought.

The article examines the nature of existential threats in the Israeli context and seeks to find the implications of securitization theory in this regard by analyzing the unique role of the military establishment and the influence of the military thought on strategic thought in Israel. The article also deals with the centrality of ‘military wisdom’ in the Israeli ethos and the sense of insecurity embedded in the Israeli narrative that leads to an ‘intellectual symbiosis’ between the political and the military echelons and finds this phenomenon as one of the major explanations for the influence of the military establishment on defining the nature of security threats as well as on the crucial decision to launch wars.     

Economic Development and Military Effectiveness

Abstract

What makes some states more militarily powerful than others? A growing body of research suggests that certain ‘non-material’ factors significantly affect a country's ability to translate resources into fighting power. In particular, recent studies claim that democracy, Western culture, high levels of human capital, and amicable civil-military relations enhance military effectiveness. If these studies are correct, then military power is not solely or even primarily determined by material resources, and a large chunk of international relations scholarship has been based on a flawed metric. The major finding of this article, however, suggests that this is not the case. In hundreds of battles between 1898 and 1987, the more economically developed side consistently outfought the poorer side on a soldier-for-soldier basis. This is not surprising. What is surprising is that many of the non-material factors posited to affect military capability seem to be irrelevant: when economic development is taken into account, culture and human capital become insignificant and democracy actually seems to degrade warfighting capability. In short, the conventional military dominance of Western democracies stems from superior economic development, not societal pathologies or political institutions. Therefore, a conception of military power that takes into account both the quantity of a state's resources and its level of economic development provides a sound basis for defense planning and international relations scholarship.     

自尊在军校大学生感戴与亲社会行为间的中介作用

军校大学生的感戴状况处于中等水平,军校大学生的亲社会行为处于中等偏上水平,且感戴与亲社会行为各维度之间均存在显著正相关,感戴能够直接预测亲社会行为,也能通过自尊影响个体的亲社会行为,即自尊在感戴与亲社会行为间起一定的中介作用;高感戴的军校大学生其亲社会行为较高,而自尊是亲社会行为的保护因素,个体自尊水平越高,更容易有亲社会行为。     

论传统军事法律文化在培育当代军人法治理念中的实践价值

中国传统军事法律文化是在数千年军事法律实践中形成的,其独特的法律品格对培育古代军人“以礼治军”的宗法理念、维护军队的统一稳定起到了重要作用。年轻军人法律信仰和服从意识的缺失是值得重视和深思的问题。因此,用优秀传统军事法律文化培育当代军人法律信仰、强化当代军人国防意识、增强当代军人自律素质,都具有十分重要的实践价值。     

军事指挥类期刊对军事学术研究的透视

军事指挥类期刊主要依靠各级军事指挥员,服务于部队全面建设。在军事学术研究队伍不断发展壮大的今天,军事指挥类期刊为部队“能打仗、打胜仗”军事理论研究服务,但军事学术研究存在着研究群体优势和合成作战理论优势发挥不够的问题。因而,要高度重视军事学术研究人才培养,加大经费投入,强化军兵种之间合成作战理论研究的力度。     

兵团团场中小学教师队伍现状调查与分析

兵团团场教师队伍结构性矛盾突出、教师编制紧张、城乡（团）收入差距较大、教师流失较严重。要通过优化教师结构、创新教师补充机制、提高教师待遇、提升教师素质,稳定团场教师队伍,促进兵团义务教育均衡发展。     

Attitude,Aptitude, and Testing in the Efficient Mobilization of Military Manpower

Militaries commonly require recruits to pass a test that measures aptitude for military service. In this paper, we show that such tests may also act as a device for screening out low-motivation recruits, even if it is assumed that motivation is not measured by such tests and is not correlated with aptitude.     

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.     

分段线性凸费用网络流的两个算法

本文讨论了分段线性凸费用网络流问题,推广了线性费用网络流中的负回路方法和最小费用路方法,从而得到了求分段线性凸费用网络的最小费用流的两个算法。     

On the optimal detection of an underwater intruder in a channel using unmanned underwater vehicles

Given a number of patrollers that are required to detect an intruder in a channel, the channel patrol problem consists of determining the periodic trajectories that the patrollers must trace out so as to maximized the probability of detection of the intruder. We formulate this problem as an optimal control problem. We assume that the patrollers' sensors are imperfect and that their motions are subject to turn‐rate constraints, and that the intruder travels straight down a channel with constant speed. Using discretization of time and space, we approximate the optimal control problem with a large‐scale nonlinear programming problem which we solve to obtain an approximately stationary solution and a corresponding optimized trajectory for each patroller. In numerical tests for one, two, and three underwater patrollers, an underwater intruder, different trajectory constraints, several intruder speeds and other specific parameter choices, we obtain new insight—not easily obtained using simply geometric calculations—into efficient patrol trajectory design under certain conditions for multiple patrollers in a narrow channel where interaction between the patrollers is unavoidable due to their limited turn rate.© 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2011