Does Military Spending Really Matter for Economic Growth in China and G7 Countries: The Roles of Dependency and Heterogeneity

This study revisits the causal linkages between military spending and economic growth in China and G7 countries (i.e. Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the USA) by focusing country-specific analysis for the period 1988–2010. The panel causality analysis, which accounts for both cross-country dependency and heterogeneity across countries, is employed in this study. Our results find evidence of the neutrality hypothesis for Italy, France, and Germany, the military spending–growth detriment hypothesis for both Canada and the UK, and one-way Granger causality running from economic growth to military spending for China. Furthermore, we find a feedback between military spending and economic growth in both Japan and the USA. Thus, our results do not support that one size fits all.     

The African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crisis: conceptual breakthrough or anti-imperialist phantom?

The creation of an African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crisis (ACIRC) is a sign of Africa's willingness to take its destiny into its own hands. Presented as a reaction to the slowness of the development of the African Standby Force (ASF), it is also a response to some of the ASF's conceptual weaknesses. This decision reflects a wish to establish an instrument better equipped to deal with the challenges Africa is facing. Departing from the (sub)regional logic of the ASF results from a desire to take into account the transnational nature of threats, while its enlarged mandate is meant to offer Africa the capacity to intervene in all kinds of conflicts, including by undertaking peace enforcement activities. But the obstacles on the road towards the actual creation and mobilisation of this capacity should not be underestimated. These include material difficulties, but also political tensions, between ‘small’ and ‘big’ states as well as between the African Union and subregional organisations. The risk then is high that the ACIRC, whose announcement came as a reaction to France's intervention in Mali, ends up joining the ranks of the many ‘anti-imperialist’ phantoms haunting the history of the Organization of African Unity/African Union (OAU/AU). Confronted by events considered ‘neocolonial’ initiatives, African actors have indeed traditionally reacted by launching grand projects that never got off the ground. However, by actually establishing this new instrument, they may also demonstrate that times have definitively changed.     

Japan as a Seapower: Strategy,Doctrine, and Capabilities under Three Defence Reviews, 1995–2010

Abstract

This article draws upon previously unavailable document materials to question views pointing to a degree of stagnation in Japanese maritime thinking. It similarly reviews claims about trends to compensate the decline of national military power with the build-up of projection capabilities. The article’s main argument is that Japanese seapower is not declining. The Japanese Navy is evolving to combine enhanced capabilities to retain sea control in the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea with extended operational reach and flexibility, including an expeditionary component to meet alliance and diplomatic commitments in East Asia and beyond its confines.     

The Kashmir conflict in South Asia: voices from Srinagar

This article looks at the Kashmir conflict in South Asia, which has been going on since 1947, when India and Pakistan became independent from British colonial rule. After looking at some historical background, the article looks at both the external dimension as well as the internal dimension of the conflict. The external dimension tends to focus on Indo-Pak relations over Kashmir and the internal dimension looks at India's repressive state policies within the state of Kashmir. This article uses Mary Kaldor's “New War” thesis as a theoretical framework to understand the situation and pays special attention to the conflict's very complex and multifaceted nature. The article argues that although the levels of violence have differed from time to time in the region since 1947, today the conflict seems to have less to do with Indo-Pak relations or the external side of things and has more to do with the internal dimension and India's undemocratic ways within Kashmir. Today, Kashmir is one of the most militarised conflict zones in the world. The stationing of the Indian military and paramilitary forces in the region has only exacerbated the situation since it is the security personnel who cause much of the problem. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act gives these security forces extraordinary powers in the region, which they often abuse. The armed forces have no real understanding of the local culture or sympathy for local religious sentiments. Poverty, corruption, administrative failure, police brutality, identity politics and human rights abuses are some of the key features associated with this conflict. Methodologically, a number of interviews were carried out with the local people in the region recently. From the data gathered through the interviews, it is very obvious that the people still feel very oppressed and that the situation is still very volatile, fraught with uncertainty. Finally, after making an assessment of the situation, the article tries to suggest methods of peaceful building and conflict management as the way forward.     

A branch‐and‐price approach for the stochastic generalized assignment problem

In this article, we address a stochastic generalized assignment machine scheduling problem in which the processing times of jobs are assumed to be random variables. We develop a branch‐and‐price (B&P) approach for solving this problem wherein the pricing problem is separable with respect to each machine, and has the structure of a multidimensional knapsack problem. In addition, we explore two other extensions of this method—one that utilizes a dual‐stabilization technique and another that incorporates an advanced‐start procedure to obtain an initial feasible solution. We compare the performance of these methods with that of the branch‐and‐cut (B&C) method within CPLEX. Our results show that all B&P‐based approaches perform better than the B&C method, with the best performance obtained for the B&P procedure that includes both the extensions aforementioned. We also utilize a Monte Carlo method within the B&P scheme, which affords the use of a small subset of scenarios at a time to estimate the “true” optimal objective function value. Our experimental investigation reveals that this approach readily yields solutions lying within 5% of optimality, while providing more than a 10‐fold savings in CPU times in comparison with the best of the other proposed B&P procedures. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 61: 131–143, 2014     

兵团高校大学生赴基层单位就业现状分析——以石河子大学为例

党的十八大和十八届三中全会提出"健全鼓励高校毕业生到基层工作的服务保障机制"的工作任务,基层就业成为大学生就业的重要渠道之一。为深入了解兵团高校大学生赴到兵团基层单位就业的状况,以石河子大学为个案,通过分析和梳理石河子大学毕业生到兵团基层就业情况及存在问题,尝试构建高校毕业生到兵团基层单位就业新机制,以期更好的为兵团基层发展提供智力支持和人才保障。     

美国网络安全战略管理体系分析

文章从美国政府颁布的政策文件、法律法规和各机构部门的职能三个方面,对美国网络安全战略管理体系进行了介绍和分析。     

科学管理、精益管理与精确作战工程保障研究

设计是作战行动筹划的重要步骤,精确工程保障需要对工程保障行动进行精密的设计和精确管理与控制。科学管理采用科学实验的方法,通过劳动方法标准化和差别计件工资制度,有效提高了工作效率,其基本原理经过百余年的实际检验,被证明是一个成熟有效的管理方法。借鉴科学管理理论,需要对工程保障行动进行动作研究,进而研究工程保障行动的作业标准,以期提高其保障效率。精益管理是在科学管理在新的历史时期的发展与改进,它使用了准时制、零库存、均衡生产、持续改进等先进的管理理念和六西格玛管理、成组技术等先进技术,为基于信息系统体系作战的工程保障能力生成提供了有益的借鉴,可加深我们对精确工程保障的理解,促进精确工程保障研究的可操作性。     

试论科技进步与中国国际责任的现实担当

当代科技进步不仅影响着世界格局的变革,也深刻影响着国家的外交行为。随着中国经济实力和科技实力的快速发展,中国更为主动、自信地以大国身份融入国际社会,在几乎所有重要的全球性国际机制中都发挥着积极作用,遵守和履行相应的规则和义务,承担为国际社会提供公共产品以及维护正常合理的国际秩序等国际责任。但随着全球问题的不断增多,国际社会对中国承担更多国际责任的期待也在增多,有些西方国家甚至要求中国承担超出能力的国际责任。面对错综复杂的新形势,中国应该清醒认识自身的国际角色定位,在确保自身崛起的前提下,以科技实力和综合国力承担起力所能及的国际责任,为中国的和平发展提供更广泛的认同基础。     

推进国防动员军民融合深度发展的对策思考

军民融合式发展是实现富国与强军相统一的必由之路,也是增强国防动员潜力、提高国防动员能力的有效途径。在新的形势下推进国防动员建设,必须进一步强化军民融合观念,完善军民融合机制,提高军民融合层次,增强军民融合实效,努力促进动员潜力随经济实力同步增长、动员能力随需求拓展不断提升,实现经济效益、社会效益与国防效益有机统一。