Using Indigenous Forces in Counterinsurgency Operations: The French in Algeria, 1954–1962

While the importance of indigenous forces for successful counterinsurgency operations has long been recognized by great powers fighting local insurgencies, the factors that determine the performance of such forces have attracted relatively little scholarly attention. This paper aims to contribute to our understanding of those determinants through an examination of the role and performance of auxiliary indigenous units in French counterinsurgency operations during the Algerian War (1954–62). The findings presented here suggest some important lessons for those seeking to recruit and deploy effective indigenous forces in counterinsurgency operations.     

Book reviews

The Political Economy of Military Spending in the United States, Alex Mintz (ed), London and New York: Routledge, 1992, pp x, 334; ISBN 0–415–07595–5

Penser La Guerre, Penser L'Economie, Christian Schmidt, (Paris: Odile Jacob, 1991), 350p.

Military Production and Innovation in Spain, Jordi Molas‐Gallart, Chur (CH): Harwood Academic Publishers, 1992, pp. vii, 212; ISBN 3–7186–5280–3     

Country survey VI: Australia

Australia is a geographically large country, with the world's longest national coastline to defend, but a relatively small economy of some 17.5 million people. Since World War II, Australia has faced the dilemma of how to structure defence policy in the absence of an identifiable threat. Its policy of self‐reliance aims to permit Australia to conduct defensive operations in the event of low/medium level threats without depending immediately on its allies. This is to be achieved through the technological sophistication of defence equipment, a highly professional but small defence force and local industry support.

The burden of defence, measured as the share of defence outlay in GDP declined from about 3% in 1971–72 to about 2.3% in 1993–94. It has been the Government's policy to encourage the development of local defence‐related industry, in particular in areas such as: electronics/optics; communications and information technology; aerospace; shipbuilding and repair, munitions; and land vehicles. However, defence procurement has a small impact on the Australian economy as a whole.     

Optimal versus required defence expenditure: The case of the Greek-Turkish arms race

The aim of this paper is to indicate the extent to which the arms race against Turkey, in which Greece and Cyprus have been entangled, imposes a defence expenditure burden that is tough for the two allies to bear. To do so we have resorted to evaluating the optimal military expenditure for the two countries, allied in the context of the Integrated Defence Doctrine, which is compatible with the constraints imposed by the resources of their economies. All experiments and scenarios examined lead to the conclusion that the current defence burden of the two allies seems to be driving their economies beyond capacity limits. The fact remains, however, that under the circumstances, a one-sided disarmament policy like the one currently followed by Greece, is a risky choice given that the long-term armament programmes pursued by Turkey, whose role in this arms race has been proven as leading, leave very small room to the Greek and Cypriot sides to reduce their own defence expenditure.     

Budgetary trade-offs of security expenditures in Turkey

This paper investigates the budgetary trade-off structure of security (defence+internal security) expenditures in Turkey for the period 1983-1998. A modified version of Todaro's distributive share index of social welfare is used to quantify the impacts on the growth of primary budget expenditures of Security, Education, Health, General Administration, Infrastructure, and Social Services. We find that defence expenditures dominate overall security expenditures and are less affected in times of bottlenecks in the economy. A systematic pattern of negative budgetary trade-offs of security expenditures in terms of other components is not identified. We also analyse the expenditures of the Defence Industry Support Fund in an attempt to find the cost of the modernisation program to the economy.     

Country survey XVI the defence sector in the economy of a declining superpower: Soviet Union and Russia, 1965-2001

The Soviet Union was able to develop a large military-industrial complex and become the world's second superpower despite deficiencies in its centrally planned economy because defence was given high priority status and special planning, rationing and administrative mechanisms were used to attain national security objectives. However, in the period 1976-85 the effectiveness of priority protection diminished and defence institutions experienced more of the problems typical of the shortage economic system. The heavy defence burden also created growing difficulties for the civilian economy. The attempts by the Gorbachev government to reform the defence sector and improve defence-economic relationships during perestroika (1985-91) uniformly failed. For most of the transition period, the Russian military-industrial complex has been adversely affected by its low priority status, cuts in defence spending, instability of the hybrid politico-economic system, and negative growth of the economy. The armed forces and defence industry have been reduced in size and their outputs of military services and equipment have fallen to low levels. Nevertheless, the Russian armed forces still have over one million troops, significant stocks of sophisticated conventional weapons, and a large nuclear arsenal. The government of President Putin has raised the priority of the defence sector, increased real defence spending, and adopted ambitious plans to revive Russian military power. It is likely, though, that tight resource constraints will hamper efforts to reform the armed forces and to upgrade weapons. By 2010 Russia will be an important, but not dominant, military power in Eurasia.     

Introduction: Symposium on defence economics

This study revisits the relationship between defence spending and economic growth via a Keynesian model in Pakistan using the autoregressive distributive lag bounds testing approach to cointegration. Empirical evidence suggests a stable cointegration relationship between defence spending and economic growth. An increase in defence spending reduces the pace of economic growth confirming the validity of Keynesian hypothesis in this case. Current economic growth is positively linked with economic growth of previous periods while a rise in non-military expenditures boosts economic growth. Interest rate is inversely associated with economic growth. Finally, unidirectional causality running from military spending to economic growth is found.     

The future of European defence policy: An economic perspective

European defence policy has been dominated by politics. This paper shows how economic principles can be used to derive guidelines for the formulation of European defence policy. The inefficiencies of the EU's existing defence arrangements are identified. It is shown that there is scope for efficiency improvements in the EU's Armed Forces and its defence industries.     

Country survey XVII: New zealand's defence policy

New Zealand's current defence strategy, first expressed in NZ Government (1991), is one of "self-reliance in partnership". We outline the country's defence policy in historical context, examine its current defence expenditure and capabilities, and document the genesis of recent major changes in security policy. We pay particular attention to the role of explicit economic analysis and advice in the formation of these policy changes.