Missile Strategy in a Post-Nuclear Age

While the arrival of nuclear weapons coincided roughly with the development of short, medium, intermediate, and eventually intercontinental missiles, the contribution of missile technology to the deterrence equation is often lost. If nuclear weapons were eliminated, even new generation missiles with conventional payloads could struggle to render effective deterrence. But some of the physical and psychological effects commonly ascribed to nuclear weapons could still be in play. And in a world without nuclear weapons, thinking about the use and control of force from the nuclear age would also deserve renewed attention.     

A DYNAMIC PANEL DATA MODEL FOR ANALYZING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MILITARY EXPENDITURE AND GOVERNMENT DEBT IN THE EU

This paper examines the impact of military spending on general government debt in the enlarged European Union (EU) countries. For this purpose, we use panel data analysis and provide estimates from a dynamic Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) panel model. The dynamics are found to be important and the results suggest that military expenditures do have a large positive impact on the share of general government debt in the EU.     

Military Expenditure,Economic Growth and Heterogeneity

This paper examines the impact of military expenditure on economic growth on a large balanced panel, using an exogenous growth model and dynamic panel data methods for 106 countries over the period 1988–2010. A major focus of the paper is to consider the possibility group heterogeneity and non-linearity. Having estimated the model for all of the countries in the panel and finding that military burden has a negative effect on growth in the short and long run, the panel is broken down into various groupings based upon a range of potentially relevant factors, and the robustness of the results is evaluated. The factors considered are different levels of income, conflict experience, natural resources abundance, openness and aid. The estimates for the different groups are remarkably consistent with those for the whole panel, providing strong support for the argument that military spending has adverse effects on growth. There are, however, some intriguing results that suggest that for certain types of countries military spending has no significant effect on growth.     

直接序列扩频通信抗干扰性能分析

简述了直接序列扩频通信基本原理,讨论了直接序列扩频通信的特点,对直接序列扩频通信系统的抗干扰能力进行研究,最后提出了几种用于提高该通信系统抗干扰能力的具体方法。     

Development and conflict in the Balkans: Catch-up and military expenditure

This paper analyses the convergence between countries in relation to the catch-up hypothesis concerning the level of total productivity. The catch-up hypothesis claims that poor countries tend to grow faster than rich countries through the international diffusion of knowledge and technology. We test this hypothesis for the Balkan countries and investigate the effect of military expenditure in the region on productivity growth. The aim is to investigate empirically whether productivity growth has been greater in countries with lower military expenditure, in line with theory. The results obtained show that, overall, improvements in technological change co-exist with deteriorating technical efficiency change and that there is a negative correlation between military expenditure and either total productivity growth and technological change, and a positive, but statistically insignificant, relationship with technical efficiency change. We conclude that economic growth is the key to regional development and that too great a diversion of resources to military commitments can lead to overstretch.     

How old is too old? An economic approach to replacing military aircraft

The US Air Force is asking when to replace its aging aircraft. We develop a framework to identify economically optimal replacement strategies that recognizes cost trade-offs and incorporates age effects. We also preview a stochastic methodology. We use the framework to identify an optimal strategy, defined by the replacement age, for a generic fleet and conduct a sensitivity analysis. Quantitative illustrations show that the range of strategies that provides close-to-optimal outcomes widens as the operating and support (O&S) cost growth rate decreases and the ratio of the acquisition price to the initial O&S cost increases. A wider range implies more decision-making leeway.     

Country survey V: Poland and its arms industry

This study — which is a country survey — deals with basic problems of the functioning of the Polish arms industry in the conditions of systemic transformation, that has taken place in Poland since 1989. It also reflects new political and military conditions and changes in the economic system, commonly called marketization. The study is focused on reasons for the bad economic state of the enterprises engaged in military production, which include a drastic drop in demand on home and foreign markets. The study discusses the main direction of activities that are planned to reshape and adjust military production to the new, changed conditions covering such problems as ownership and organization changes as well as prospects for conversion.     

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.     

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。