Australian defence procurement

This is the first study ever undertaken of the policies of Australian governments towards the acquisition of weapons for the armed forces. The growth of the Australian defence budget in recent years and the burgeoning cost and complexity of modern armaments have made this subject of considerable interest, not only to those who plan and carry out the policies, but to all concerned as to how a large slice of national income is being spent. The study covers the period from the early fifties to the present day, but naturally lays emphasis on the much expanded defence purchases of recent years, including the F - l l l . Future prospects are examined and, in particular, there is a discussion of the chances for success of the new philosophy of greater Australian self-sufficiency in defence materiel. The tables of expenditure collate for the first time figures derived from a variety of published sources, some rather obscure, in an attempt to present a detailed continuous picture of the shape of Australian defence spending

Deaths among Iraqis due to the war : 2003 - present day.

Calls for an inquiry into the death toll of Iraqis caused by the 2003 war have become more insistent recently. Deaths fall into three categories: those uniformed Iraqis killed in the period between March and May 2003; civilians killed during the same period, and in the period since; and civilians (mainly) dying prematurely as a result of the breakdown of civil infrastructure from March 2003 to the present day. This article deals only with the middle category. Using the Richardson scale - an exponential measure similar to the Richter scale - and historical analogies, this statistical analysis seeks to estimate the Iraqi civilian death toll during the Coalition's bombing campaign

Uncertain allies.

The coalition against terrorism, if by that is meant an alliance between states to combat attacks like those on the United States, coming from the same source or a similar one, is a strange creature. For it is not at all clear why Washington should have any interest in assembling such an alliance, nor why any other state should be interested in joining it

Accounting for Army Recruitment : White and Non-White Soldiers and the British Army.

A statistically based enquiry into recruitment into the British Army over the period 1987-2000 shows that two factors tend to induce young men to enlist: high levels of unemployment in the civilian sector and positive signals from the authorities that the Army is in a recruiting phase. The same result obtains, broadly speaking, in the context of both white and non-white (ethnic minority) recruitment, although the willingness of ethnic minority young men to contemplate an Army career is only about a quarter of that of white men, other things being equal. Correspondingly, the Army shows no signs of reaching the target agreed with the Commission for Racial Equality in 1997 for a 1 percentage point increase annually in the percentage of recruits being drawn from the ethnic minorities. This article has something to say about how the Army might improve its performance in this regard by offering more in-service training and education to otherwise underqualified recruits and concentrating recruitment effort on regions of high ethnic minority unemployment

Terrorism: Facts from figures.

If international terrorism is on a rising trend, an important source of confirmation or refutation of this is time-series data on terrorist activity. Using chiefly data collected by the RAND/MIPT consortium we show using basic statistical analysis that in the period 1968-2005 the yearly number of all international terrorist incidents shows no trend over time, but fluctuates year on year in a random manner. On the other hand some indicators do show a definite trend over time, principally the steady rise in the number of incidents that are death-dealing in nature. A further conclusion is drawn, showing that the proportion of these incidents leading to deaths above a given level is virtually fixed. 1 This research is supported by the US Institute of Peace (USIP). The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this article are those of its author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the USIP. Data employed in this article can be obtained in their raw form from the author on request