Measuring the Impact of Military Spending: How Far Does a DSGE Model Deviate from Reality?

Dunne, Smith, and Willenbockel (2005) argue that the mainstream growth literature has not found military spending to be a significant determinant of economic growth, yet much of the defense economics literature has noted significant effects. This paper revisits this issue by using a DSGE-VAR approach, combining both theoretical and empirical methods. We present that the DSGE approach (estimated with the Bayesian technique) and the Bayesian VAR with the Minnesota Prior both lead to worse in-sample fit than our proposed DSGE-VAR framework. The DSGE-VAR approach reveals that a positive military spending shock boosts the U.S. economy, increasing per capita real GDP growth, consumption, inflation and interest rate. Our results are robust to alternative model specifications. Future investigations such as exploring an optimal military spending policy could adopt the approach in this paper to determine the best model – empirical, theoretical, or a combination of the two.     

Kinetic responses to global terrorism: Lessons from Africa

This essay recalls the immediate and longer-term responses of the US and its allies to the events of 9/11. It contends that the die for contemporary developments in transnational terrorism was cast in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 – in particular the launching of sustained ‘anti-terrorist’ military combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and more covert ‘kinetic’ operations elsewhere in the Middle East and Africa. The essay seeks specifically to expose the counter-productivity of using military operations as the primary antidote to transnational terrorism. Focusing on the African ‘laboratory’ and the spread of transnational terrorism and Islamic militancy, particularly in West and East Africa, the essay concludes that radical Islamists have mastered the ‘battle of the narrative’ and that the Western penchant for dispensing a kinetic brand of medication is feeding rather than fighting the virus of global terrorism.     

Risk communication within military decision-making: pedagogic considerations

Risk management is a decision-support process and a vital tool for military planning and decision-making. Today, several nations utilize risk-based approaches to analyze the level of security in military operations. There are both strengths and challenges in applying risk-based approaches to support military decisions. In this article, the challenges related to risk communication are investigated with the aim of describing how a military organization should train to create a good environment for effective risk communication. The analysis finds that it is important for the organization to define and consistently use a shared risk understanding. Such a shared risk understanding will need a systematic development process that focuses on the future decision makers’ and analysts’ education and training. To reach understanding, all involved parties must have the chance to identify the problem, reflect on its implications, test different solutions and develop a solution.     

What Sticks? The Evaluation of a Train-the-Trainer Course in Military Ethics and its Perceived Outcomes

Ethics training has become a common phenomenon in the training of military professionals at all levels. However, the perceived outcomes of this training remain open. In this article, we analyze the experiences of course participants who were interviewed 6–12 months after they had participated in a train-the-trainer course in military ethics developed by the Faculty of Military Sciences of the Netherlands Defence Academy. Through qualitative inductive analysis, it is shown how participants evaluate the training, how they perceive the development of their moral competence, and how they see the impact of the training on their own training practice.     

武警无人机应用发展研究

武警部队非战争军事行动不断延伸,为满足遂行多样化任务的需要,武警无人机发展势在必行。借助军民融合优势,强化已有机型功能,拓展研发适合各警种任务特点的新机型,分析并提出武警无人机未来发展方向,以期为提升各警种联合行动效能提供思路。     

基于CNKI数据的军民融合研究进展及未来趋势

军民融合是跨军地、跨部门、跨领域的复杂系统工程,是全面建成小康社会进程中实现强军和富国兼顾的必由之路,分析我国军民融合研究演化过程以及知识基础,可为我国军民融合提供理论支撑,对我国军事建设与经济发展具有重要意义。本文通过cnki数据库,搜集有关军民融合相关文献。从关键词、作者及研究机构等方面绘制相关知识图谱,理顺当前军民融合研究脉络,了解军民融合研究现状与发展趋势。按照绘制的军民融合知识图谱和相关数据,对军民融合研究进行总结,为将来军民融合研究提供参考。     

美关岛基地战略前景分析

关岛是美军在西太平洋地区的重要战略支撑点,既是战略轰炸机基地,又是海军在西太主要的作战、后勤保障中心,还是海军陆战队的集结基地,军力可有效辐射西太地区。对于美军来说,关岛具有政治可持续性、地理位置优越、自身规模适宜等自身优势,同时也面临着远程打击威胁增多、军力部署集中与分散两难、盟友顾虑被抛弃等问题。美国将持续加大对关岛的军事力量建设投入,进一步加强关岛在西太的军事核心地位。     

贯彻科技兴军战略,提高军事职业教育质量水平

发展军事职业教育是健全新型军事人才培养体系的重大举措。贯彻科技兴军战略,必须深刻认识提高军事职业教育质量水平的重大意义,清晰把握提高军事职业教育质量水平的内在要求,切实找准提高军事职业教育质量水平的重要抓手。     

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.     

论新疆教育改革与发展的战略重点和方向

新疆的教育事业与西部大开发战略的要求,存在着很大的差距。必须从新疆教育的现状出发抓住重点,明确方向,加大力度进行教育改革,以求与西部大开发相适应。