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This paper aims to explore to what extent can the Saudi–US alliance endure, given the several challenges it has faced over the past decade. Using a conceptual framework from the alliance theory, the paper will trace the historical evolution of the alliance between the two countries, then will identify some of the challenges that have faced the alliance on both the regional and bilateral levels, and finally will assess the impact of these challenges on the resilience of the Saudi–US alliance.

This paper will use the alliance theory literature to analyze the challenges and the resilience of the Saudi–US relations.

The Saudi–US alliance has encountered several challenges in the past decade such as the Arab spring, the Iranian nuclear deal and the Civil War in Syria and Yemen. However, this alliance proved to be resilient, and the strategic partnership between the two countries managed to overcome these challenges.

The importance of this paper stems from the fact that the USA and the Saudi Arabia are two pivotal countries, and their relationship affects regional and international dynamics. The paper contributes to the literature on the Saudi–US bilateral relations as well as their views on recent regional issues such as the Arab Spring, the civil war in Yemen and Syria. Assessing the limits and potentials of the alliance between the two countries could also help us understand the future of regional developments in the Middle East.

The purpose of this paper is to unveil the main changes in the UAE’s policy towards Iran since its foundation in 1971. The UAE favored strategic hedging, extending its commercial and diplomatic relations with Iran, in addition to developing its military capabilities and maintaining military/security alliances with Saudi Arabia and the USA. However, the UAE started to reorient its policy towards Iran by adopting some sort of balancing strategy in the aftermath of the Arab Spring of 2011. This paper examines how and why the UAE had to change course and explores whether it would revert back to strategic hedging with Iran.

The study will be carried out based on a theoretical framework drawn from strategic hedging theory, a new structural theory in international relations, to examine the shifts in UAE policy towards Iran. Previous literature suggests that small states prefer hedging over balancing or bandwagoning. The authors also undertake a descriptive analysis and deploy a longitudinal within-case method to investigate changes in UAE policy towards Iran and identify the causal mechanisms behind these changes. That method allows investigating the impact of a particular event on a case by comparing the same case before and after that event occurred.

The main finding of this study is that the UAE hedging strategy towards Iran allowed maximizing the political and economic returns from the cooperation with Iran and mitigating the long-range national security risks without breaking up the consistent and beneficial ties with other regional and global powers. Hedging achieved the desired outcome, which is preventing direct military confrontation with Iran. Hard balancing, adopted by Abu Dhabi after the 2011 Arab Spring, has proved to have some negative effects, most importantly provoking Tehran. Some recent indicators suggest, though that the UAE may revert back to its long-established hedging policy towards Iran.

Strategic hedging is a new structural theory in international relation, although hedging behavior in states’ foreign policies is far from new. It is new enough, thus, not have been researched sufficiently, strategic hedging still needs theorizing and comparison. This paper highlights the importance of strategic hedging as the most appropriate strategy for small states. It provides an important contribution to the application of the theory to the case of UAE policy towards Iran. The paper also assesses the conventional wisdom that small states prefer hedging over balancing in the light of the changes in the UAE foreign policy since 2011.

In the context of constructing an integrated national strategic system, collaborative innovation among enterprises is the current social focus. Therefore, in order to find the interest relationship between multiple game subjects, to explore the influencing factors of collaborative innovation of civil-military integration enterprises. This paper constructs a collaborative innovation mechanism for military–civilian integration involving four game subjects (military enterprises, private enterprises, local governments, and science and technology intermediaries). It aims to solve and reveal the evolutionary game relationship among the four parties.

To explore the mechanism of military–civilian collaborative innovation involving four players, this study employs game theory and constructs an evolutionary game model for collaborative innovation with the participation of military enterprises, civilian enterprises, local governments, and technology intermediaries. The model reveals the evolutionary game patterns among these four entities, analyzes the impact of various parameters on the evolutionary process of the game system, and numerical simulation is used to show these changes more specifically.

The research findings demonstrate that active government subsidies promote cooperation throughout the system. Moreover, increasing the input-output ratio of research and development (R&D), the rate of technological spillovers, and the R&D investment of civilian enterprises all facilitate the tendency toward cooperation within the system. However, when the government chooses to actively provide subsidies, increasing R&D investment in military enterprises may hinder the tendency toward cooperation. Furthermore, central transfer payments, government punishment from the central government, and an increase in the information conversion rate of technology intermediaries may suppress the rate of cooperation within the system.

Most of the previous studies on the collaborative innovation of military–civilian integration have been tripartite game models between military enterprises, private enterprises, and local governments. In contrast, this study adds science and technology intermediaries on this basis, reveals the evolution mechanism of collaborative innovation of civil-military integration enterprises from the perspective of four-party participation, and analyzes the factors influencing the cooperation of the whole system. The conclusion of this study not only enriches the collaborative innovation evolution mechanism of military–civilian integration enterprises from the perspective of multiple agents but also provides practical guidance for the innovation-driven development of military–civilian integration enterprises.

The COVID-19 crisis affects issues such as global health, globalisation, the economy, governance and leadership, labour, international cooperation and much more. But more specifically, at least five correlations can be made between the pandemic, on the one hand, and international security, arms control, and the role of the military, on the other hand, and can be considered among lessons for future action: the impact of the pandemic on arms control processes, the priority given to military spending over healthcare and other social needs, the realisation that disease could be used as a weapon, the need to rely more on science, and the superiority of multilateral and coordinated approaches over unilateralism.

The objective of this chapter is to discuss how different techniques in Regional Science and Peace Science and the emerging techniques in Management Science can be used in analysing Disaster Management and Global pandemic with special reference to developing countries. It is necessary for me to first discuss the subjects of Disaster Management, Regional Science, Peace Science and Management Science. The objective of this chapter is to emphasise that the studies of Disaster Management should be more integrated with socioeconomic and geographical factors. The greatest disaster facing the world is the possibility of war, particularly nuclear war, and the preparation of the means of destruction through military spending.

Today, many industries are implementing creative approaches in response to increasing environmental awareness. It is of great importance to answer the question of whether the military sector, one of the most important sectors, can support renewable energy (RE) adaptation. This study aims to examine how military spending affects the supply of RE in 27 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations as well as the regulatory function of factors such as innovation, international trade and oil prices between 1990 and 2021.

The study examines the effects of military spending, income, green innovation, international trade, oil prices and the human development index on the supply of RE using various econometric approaches, which are the cointegration test, moments quantile regression and robustness test.

The findings demonstrate that all factors, excluding military spending, quite likely affect the expansion of the renewable supply. Military spending negatively influences the RE supply; specifically, a 1% increase in military spending results in a 0.88 reduction in the renewable supply. In addition, whereas income elasticity, trade and human development index in OECD nations are higher in the last quantiles of the regression than in the first quantiles, the influence of military spending and innovation on renewable supply is about the same in all quantiles.

OECD nations must consider the practical implications, which are essential to assess and update the military spending of OECD countries from a green energy perspective to transition to clean energy. Based on the study’s overall findings, the OECD countries should incorporate the advantages of innovation, economic growth and international trade into their clean energy transition strategies to lessen the impact of military spending on renewables.

The study aims to fill a gap in the literature regarding the role of military expenditures in the RE development of an OECD country. In addition, the results of the methodological analysis can be used to guide policymakers on how military spending should be in the field of RE.

This paper aims to provide a case study of complex conflict management within the arms race on the Korean Peninsula. Exploring the complex nexus of nuclear weapons, asymmetry and a qualitative arms race, the study explains how the arms race between Seoul and Pyongyang has promoted stability on the Korean Peninsula.

Presenting the limits of arguments that the US security guarantee is the factor that saved the two Koreas from going to war again, this paper explores the utility of the inter-Korean arms race as a stabilizer that promotes indirect negotiations. While presenting Korean anomalies, this paper analyzes the three stages of the inter-Korean arms race – especially its nuclear weapons, its asymmetry and the nature of arms races – and provides extant explanations on the causes and consequences of the qualitative arms race. These key elements drive the states’ strategic motives.

Using the case of the inter-Korean qualitative arms race and US extended nuclear deterrence on the Korean Peninsula, the study shows the complexities of conflict management today. This paper identifies three contributing factors – US nuclear weapons, asymmetry and the qualitative characteristic of the arms race – to explain the enduring stability on the peninsula despite the arms race’s intensification. The paper finds that although US nuclear-extended deterrence plays a critical role, it does not capture the full context of the ongoing, dynamic inter-Korean arms race; a prolonged arms race between the two Koreas has become a new regularity; the qualitative characteristic of the inter-Korean arms race, which is driven by technological advancement, contributes to stability in the arms race; and as the constant mismatch in priority technologies becomes more severe, the changes to the existing asymmetry could increase instability.

This paper offers a diverse perspective to the literature on conflict management and captures the complexities of 21^st-century conflict management. Through a thorough examination of the inter-Korean arms race, it brings readers’ attention to the nested dynamics within the arms race and shows how an intensifying arms race can promote stability. Furthermore, the paper explains the implications for potential instability – fueled by the comprehensive mix of a dynamic qualitative arms race and the US extended nuclear deterrence – in the Indo-Pacific region.

A deteriorating security situation and an increased need for defence equipment calls for new forms of collaboration between Armed Forces and the defence industry. This paper aims to investigate the ways in which the accelerating demand for increased security of supply of equipment and supplies to the Armed Forces requires adaptability in the procurement process that is governed by laws on public procurement (PP).

This paper is based on a review of current literature as well as empirical data obtained through interviews with representatives from the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration and the Swedish defence industry.

Collaboration with the globalized defence industry requires new approaches, where the PP rules make procurement of a safe supply of defence equipment difficult.

The study's empirical data and findings are based on the Swedish context. In order to draw more general conclusions in a defence context, the study should be expanded to cover more nations.

The findings will enable the defence industry and the procurement authorizations to better understand the requirements of Armed Forces, and how to cooperate under applicable legal and regulatory requirements.

The paper extends the extant body of academic knowledge of the security of supply into the defence sector. It serves as a first step towards articulating a call for new approaches to collaboration in defence supply chains.