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.     

近年来军事法学若干基础理论问题研究述论

军事法学基础理论研究水平的高低,直接反映了这一学科理论创新发展的程度.基础理论研究的不断深化,有助于促进学科理论体系趋于成熟和完善.近年来,军事法学基础理论研究不断深入发展,在诸多方面取得了重要研究成果.军事法学研究者围绕军事法的概念与调整范围、军事法的独立部门法地位、军事权、军事法体系以及军事法学研究方法等学科基础问题进行了富有成效的创新研究,有力提升了军事法学理论研究的学术水准,将军事法学研究推进到新的发展阶段.     

矛盾及其化解：军事法的部门法地位解析

中国特色社会主义法律体系业已形成,军事法的部门法地位问题却再度引发热议,我国法律体系相关理论构建过程中未及解决和完善的各种理论缺陷和逻辑谬误再度显现.理论上的矛盾需要化解,在我国特殊的宪政体制已经预设了军事法体系独立地位的前提下,军事法的部门法地位应当得到普遍认同.而为了达到这一目标,我国社会主义法律体系理论的完善成为必需,对军事法部门法地位的逻辑解析成为必要。     

公安现役部队遂行非战争军事行动训练规律

公安现役部队遂行非战争军事行动训练规律,是指客观存在于部队训练诸要素之间的本质的必然联系.其主要包括：任务牵引、理论先导、科技强训、以人为本、训战结合规律.认识部队军事训练规律、遵循军事训练规律,对于加强公安现役部队军事训练工作,提高部队军事训练盾量,不断推动部队军事训练发展,具有重要的现实意义.     

Witchcraft and African development

Impressive investment and growth figures and commercial write-ups enthusing about ‘Africa rising up’, ‘the continent of the future’, and so on, obscure the poverty, illiteracy, poor health and other hardships afflicting the vast majority of African people. Why has massive so-called development and technical ‘aid’ not created the expected dynamic, autonomous economic progress? A blind eye is delicately being turned to the decisive role of people – more specifically, the cultural element. Notwithstanding good intentions, outsiders seeking to promote development assume that black Africans think and act like they only need more education, training and finance in order to ‘catch up’. Outsiders easily forget that since time immemorial, Africans have developed and cherished worldviews and cultures of their own. While these are by no means immutable and do adapt to changing needs and outside influences, Africans refuse to cast off overnight the heritage that makes them the people they are. This paper examines the impact of witchcraft as an integral feature of traditional culture on African existence, notably community life, religion, politics, the law, and economic practice. It stresses the significance of traditional society's powerful egalitarian impulses as well as its profound conviction that all things – goods, wealth, well-being and life force – are in a strictly limited supply that cannot be increased, but can only be redistributed by force or through magical manipulation. While modern life gradually weakens the influence of witchcraft beliefs – in Europe these flourished well into the 18th century – the exasperation associated with Africa's headlong urbanisation actually bolsters these beliefs.     

The Determinants of Arms Production

This study analyzes the determinants of arms production in 15 countries using annual panel data from 1997 to 2002. The results suggest that real GDP per capita, military expenditures, arms exports, and arms imports are positively related to arms production.     

Factors influencing the modernization of military-investment economic appraisal systems

Budgetary restrictions resulting from the present international economic crisis have tightened the need to improve efficiency in defense spending, leading to the armed forces having to undertake their duties with fewer resources. Previous reports on the subject have looked into the determining factors and effects of military spending but very few studies have analyzed the determinants for the modernization of the methodology for assessing efficiency. Thus, using a multiple regression statistical model, we have analyzed the appraisal systems in place in 28 countries to identify factors that influence the development of economic assessment of military expenditure. Our findings have revealed three factors that may favor the improvement of appraisal systems with regard to military expenditure: the quality of governance, size of the armed forces, and unemployment levels.     

Political Military Competition and Size and Composition of Government

This paper uses a formal model to analyze the effects of political military competition among states on the size and composition of state. Great economies of scale in warfare, even distribution of military capability among contestants and greater value of contested resources generate higher level of military capacity and growth of government. If there is decreasing return to scale in state revenue generating function and provision of public intermediate inputs, then there will be an increasing size of civilian public sector relative to that of military. The paper finally studies how waves of military revolutions affected international political military competition and the size and composition of government in history.