Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society
Volume 2008 (2008), Article ID 286836, 18 pages
doi:10.1155/2008/286836
Research Article
The Long-Run Dynamic of the Nexus between Military Strength and
National Power: An Econometric Analysis
Department of Geography, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210-1361, USA
Received 23 December 2007; Accepted 8 August 2008
Academic Editor: Xue-Zhong He
Copyright © 2008 Emilio Casetti. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
A number of literatures suggest that military strength has been losing centrality
and importance to nonmilitary factors of national power. In this paper, logistic regressions and
data from the Correlates of War (COW) project are used to investigate whether over the 1820–2000
time horizon, for the great powers and their proximate contenders, the importance of military
capabilities to national power has declined vis-à-vis that of economic capabilities. Estimation
was carried out using generalized estimating equations (GEEs). The overall picture that emerges
from the analysis is that of a transition in progress from a systemic state in which military capabilities
were the dominant determinants of national power to a state in which economic capabilities will
become the dominant ones. The analysis is concerned with
long-run trends, and its results are not necessarily applicable to specific countries
and circumstances.