The US NATO and military burden sharing: post-Cold War accomplishments and future prospects

NATO burden sharing has become an especially timely issue in the past several years as a result of a number of factors, including Russian annexation of Crimea and destabilization of eastern Ukraine in 2014. This article argues that alliance unity among the great democracies of Europe and North America is indispensable to peace and stability on the Eurasian continent. A fractured NATO, and especially, a large divide in purposes or commitments as between the United States and its European security partners, invites aggression and the possibility of inadvertent escalation. Past successes and failures in US-involved multinational peace and stability operations, within and outside of Europe, show that mission accomplishment requires give and take, including the occasional acceptance of unequal costs and benefits among the members, in order to achieve peace and security objectives.     

Accounting for Lebanese Muslims’ perspectives on the Islamic state (ISIS): religious militancy,sectarianism and personal attributions

This article seeks to determine the correlates of Lebanese Muslims perceptions of the Islamic State (ISIS) which are measured using the hypotheses that commitment to political Islam, young age, education and occupational status would predict approval of ISIS. In view of the accentuated polarisation between Sunnis and Shiis along sectarian lines, it is proposed that dislike for the Shiis would enhance the level of support for ISIS. The study was based on a cross-sectional survey Lebanese Muslims (N?=?302) administered during the fall of 2015.The suggestion is that adherence to the tenets of political Islam, sectarianism and educational attainment are major predictors of endorsement for ISIS.     

美军装备建设投入历史规律多维分析

作为国防和装备建设的血液,美国防预算及装备经费投入的变化是表征美国防及装备建设方向重点和资源投向投量的基本指标。本文对美国朝鲜战争以来国防预算和装备预算数据进行梳理分析,从国防部预算、装备预算、各军种装备预算等多个层面,以及预算性质、预算阶段、预算类别等多个维度进行分析,从一个较长历史维度描绘了美国防预算的变化情况,总结了美装备经费投入的特点规律。     

Regaining Strategy: Small Powers,Strategic Culture,and Escalation in Afghanistan

Abstract

In Western operations in Afghanistan, small European powers escalate in different ways. While Denmark and the Netherlands have contributed to Western escalation through integration with British and US forces, Norway and Sweden have done so by creating a division of labour allowing US and British combat forces to concentrate their efforts in the south. These variations in strategic behaviour suggest that the strategic choice of small powers is more diversified than usually assumed. We argue that strategic culture can explain the variation in strategic behaviour of the small allies in Afghanistan. In particular, Dutch and Danish internationalism have reconciled the use of force in the national and international domains, while in Sweden and Norway there is still a sharp distinction between national interest and humanitarianism.     

How to Last Alone at the Top: US Strategic Planning for the Unipolar Era

This article investigates how key actors within the US defence policy community realigned their interests to forge a new consensus on the redirection of US defence strategy following the ‘peace shock’ they faced with the collapse of bipolarity. This consensus centred on the idea that achieving US security in the ‘age of uncertainty’ demanded overwhelming US military power, which was widely interpreted as necessitating military capabilities to fight multiple major theatre wars simultaneously against regional ‘Third World’ adversaries. This helped to preserve many of the principal pillars of US Cold War defence policy through deflecting calls for more radical organisational changes and deeper cuts to defence budgets.     

Morts pour la France: Demographic or Economic Factors?

This article offers a comprehensive analysis of the database ‘Mémoire des hommes’, which is a record of more than 1 million French soldiers officially recognized as dead during the World War I (WWI). Integrating this source with the 1911 census, we evaluate the potential numbers of recruits by French regional department. From this, a model identifies the factors affecting the number of deaths. While demographic factors are the principal determinants, adding significant economic, political and spatial factors reduces the unexplained variance between regions and significantly improves the explanation of the disparity in the number of deaths by region.     

Unblocking inertia: US-Russian nuclear arms control and missile defenses

The United States and Russia, in the aftermath of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and destabilization of Ukraine, seem to have ditched entirely the “reset” in their political relations. Despite this odor of Cold War redux, there remain the opportunities and necessities for renewed attention to strategic nuclear arms control as between the two governments. US and NATO missile defenses as planned for European deployment figure into this equation, although in somewhat unpredictable ways, given technological uncertainties in existing and foreseeable defenses, as well as the possibility of improved delivery systems for offensive conventional or nuclear weapons.     

Diversionary Tactics and the Ethiopia–Eritrea War (1998–2000)

Diversionary theories of war suggest that leaders may engage in bellicose foreign policies to divert the public’s attention from domestic problems and capitalize on a ‘rally around the flag’ type of effect. The evidence regarding diversionary theory is quite mixed. More recently, scholars have focused on situations that create opportunities for diversionary behavior, such as international rivalry and territorial disputes. This paper adds to the growing literature on diversionary conflict by considering the Ethiopia–Eritrea case and applying an opportunity-based approach. We assess whether the Ethiopia–Eritrea War (1998–2000) is consistent with diversionary explanations for the war, as many have previously claimed.     

Dissolution of an Empire: Insights from the İstanbul Bourse and the Ottoman War Bond

During the transformation period of the Ottoman Empire leading to the Republic of Turkey, many conflicts took place between 1918 and 1923. These conflicts interrupted the servicing of the Ottoman war bond. The reimbursement likelihood of this bond was related to the outcomes of First World War and the hostilities. This paper analyses the impacts of First World War and hostilities on the risk assessments regarding the Ottoman war debt, using manually collected data on the price of the Ottoman war bond traded at the ?stanbul bourse between 1918 and 1925. The empirical results imply that the defeat of the Bulgarian army and the peace offer of Austria-Hungary were associated with the increasing premium demanded by investors of the bond. The victories of the Turkish National Movement and the peace offer of the Allies to end the hostilities by 1922 positively affected the likelihood of the servicing of the debt.     

《孙子兵法》谋略思想对武警部队执勤、处突的启示

中国人民武装警察部队（以下简称武警部队）作为我国的一支重要武装力量,担负国家赋予的安全保卫和维护社会稳定任务。在当前日益复杂的斗争形势中,完成执勤、处突任务不仅要具备过硬的军事技能,而且也要善于运用谋略。《孙子兵法》中所蕴涵的“道义”、“庙算”、“知彼知己,百战不殆”等谋略思想,对武警部队执勤、处突具有很强的借鉴意义。