近期美国海军南海地区活动态势分析

随着南海地区力量结构和美对华战略的转变,南海地区成为中美战略博弈的焦点。为围堵遏制中国的崛起,美国针对中国在南海实施了一系列海上挑衅行为。美国海军作为美国军事干预的主要力量,从兵力部署、演习演训、“航行自由”行动等着手,积极拉拢域内外盟友,展开并强化了在南海地区的军事活动。这些军事活动表现出极强的针对性和实战性,致使中美海上摩擦和竞争加剧。未来,美国为维护主导的全球秩序,将进一步提升美国海军在南海地区的威慑力。美国海军会借助并增加域内盟友的军事力量,继续维持高强度的装备平台活动及“航行自由”行动,推动海上力量合作。     

Deterrence of nuclear terrorism in the context of South Asia

Stability among the great powers during the Cold War is widely theorized in terms of nuclear deterrence. Rationality of States and their preference for survival are the basis of nuclear deterrence. The rationality of non-state terrorist groups is different from that of nation-states. Even though they are also rational actors with their own hierarchy of preferences, survival may not be their ultimate goal. Deterrence of nuclear terrorism is therefore different from deterrence against states. South Asia is more vulnerable to nuclear terrorism than any other region of the world for many reasons. This article analyzes the possibility of nuclear terrorism and the ways of deterrence against it in the context of South Asia.     

Western drones and African security

While unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become a standard element of modern armed forces, African countries have been reluctant to acquire remotely piloted aircraft for military purposes until recently. This is mainly due to a lack of industrial capabilities and, for military purposes so far, procurement policies that have concentrated on small arms and light weapons, more prestigious armoured vehicles and combat aircraft. Moreover, counter-insurgency strategies in Africa tend to focus on manoeuvre warfare, co-opting rebels or fighting them using armed proxies. As a consequence, international counterterrorism operations against fanatical and reckless groups like al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Boko Haram in sub-Saharan Africa are characterised by a strong dependence on Western forces providing UAV-based reconnaissance and, in some cases for the United States, military strikes by drones. This essay reviews some of the incentives and problems of the use of UAVs in the African context. Given the geographical and military conditions of asymmetric warfare in Africa, and potential problems concerning international law, ethical aspects of the use of arms, and civil–military relations notwithstanding, it is argued that African security forces should develop their own UAV capabilities by intensifying their cooperation with Western armed forces.     

A Reversal of Fortunes? Extended Deterrence and Assurance in Europe and East Asia1

ABSTRACT

The extended deterrence relationships between the United States and its allies in Europe and East Asia have been critical to regional and global security and stability, as well as to nonproliferation efforts, since the late 1950s. These relationships developed in different regional contexts, and reflect differing cultural, political and military realities in the US allies and their relations with the United States. Although extended deterrence and assurance relations have very different histories, and have to some extent been controversial through the years, there has been a rethinking of these relations in recent years. Many Europeans face a diminished threat situation as well as economic and political pressures on the maintenance of extended deterrence, and are looking at the East Asian relationships, which do not involve forward deployed forces as more attractive than NATO’s risk-and-burden-sharing concepts involving the US nuclear forces deployed in Europe. On the other hand, the East Asian allies are looking favorably at NATO nuclear consultations, and in the case of South Korea, renewed US nuclear deployments (which were ended in 1991), to meet increased security concerns posed by a nuclear North Korea and more assertive China. This paper explores the history of current relationships and the changes that have led the allies to view those of others as more suitable for meeting their current needs.     

Governmental Re-organization in Counterinsurgency Context: Foreign Policy Program Transfer and Operation Switchback in South Vietnam

Foreign policy program transfer, the shifting of implementation responsibility for a foreign policy program from one organization to another, is a ubiquitous, yet under-studied, counterinsurgency phenomenon. This article conceptually develops program transfer as an important object of study; analyzes, using archival sources, an empirical case of program transfer, Operation Switchback, drawn from US counterinsurgency practice in South Vietnam; and formulates two preliminary theoretical claims related to program transfer: (1) transferred programs will tend to be altered in accordance with the characteristics of the gaining organization, and (2) program transfer may act as a signal or early-warning indicator of foreign policy change.     

An Unlikely Alliance: Portuguese and South African Airpower in Angola, 1968–1974

The war that Portugal was obliged to fight in Africa began in 1961 and immediately stretched the resources of its armed forces. Nowhere was this thinness more apparent than in policing the vast territory of Angola. The east and southeast of Angola were particularly vulnerable, as the area was a vast, sparsely populated region characterised by enormous featureless plains or chanas covered in tall grass and broken by an extensive river system and mountainous forests. The only military solution to policing these immense spaces was aviation and specifically the helicopter that could carry troops into battle, protect them with a gunship and bring them home when the operation was concluded. The immediate problem for the Portuguese Air Force (Força Aérea Portuguesa or FAP) in Angola and elsewhere was a scarcity of helicopters. The solution was an alliance with South Africa, which had a strong inventory of Alouette IIIs, to help in policing the east. This move was likewise in the interest of South Africa, as its threat came from Zambia through south-eastern Angola. This article examines the strategic and tactical development of this unusual, cross-cultural alliance and the symbiotic relationship that resulted in destruction of the enemies of both in Angola.     

A case study of redundant defence workers

In this article, the influence of conflict on the economies of neighbouring countries is discussed. The results from previous papers show a strong negative effect for an entire area around a country suffering from conflict, but this paper reaches a different conclusion, by using more recent data and adjusting the methodology previously employed. Additionally, a new type of contiguity matrix is constructed and used in the actual analysis. The final analysis consists of a large number of regressions and concludes that conflict actually has two opposing effects. First, like conflict countries themselves, directly contiguous countries actually suffer from the negative effects of proximate conflict. Secondly, however, there is also a positive spillover of conflict, which affects non‐contiguous countries and this effect is larger for countries that are closer to the conflict country. The results from the paper predominantly hold for the most violent kind of conflict.     

CONSOLIDATING DEMOCRATIC CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS

Children have special protection under the South African constitution, including the right to safety, health and an environment conducive to their wellbeing and optimal development. Yet, firearms contribute significantly to the high incidence of deaths and injuries among South African children and in young males in their late teens. This case study is about the participation of the Child Health Policy Institute (CHPI) in a law reform process ultimately aimed at reducing firearm injuries and deaths in the country by exercising stricter gun control through legislation and other reforms. This feature briefly describes the political context in which the project was initiated, the research on firearm injuries and deaths in children conducted by the CHPI, and the dissemination of the research findings. The role of the CHPI as an academic institution within the Gun Control Alliance is also examined as are the lessons learnt in trying the bridge the gap between research and law reform.     

Corporate performance and military production in South Africa

With the end of the Cold War and apartheid, a process of demilitarisation and dramatic cuts in military spending has marked the transition to democracy in South Africa. Between 1989 and 1997 the South African defence budget was cut by more than 50% in real terms, with most of the cuts coming from the procurement budget, which was cut by nearly 70% in real terms during the same period. These cuts have had a significant impact on the country's defence industrial base. However, there has been surprisingly little research on the changes to defence companies that have taken place since the late 1980s. This paper makes a start at rectifying that deficiency by providing an analysis of the restructuring of the major defence‐dependent companies over the period 1988–97. It uses a number of financial ratios and other measures of corporate performance to compare their experience with non‐defence companies in the rest of the South African economy during the same period.     

Peace as an international public good: An application to Southern Africa

This paper reviews the basic economic concepts relevant to international public goods production and applies them to the case of security and peace in southern Africa. To this end, it extracts from the literature a set of fundamental features that help determine the likelihood of success of any collective action and applies these features to the current southern African context.