The article analyzes the evolution of French defense spending through the lens of President Macron’s declaration of a transition to a “war economy” following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Despite the adoption of the 2024–2030 Military Programming Law, which entails a historically large nominal increase in defense spending, France’s budgetary trajectory remains constrained by long-standing fiscal pressures and lags behind most European peers in relative growth. While recent budgets prioritize equipment modernization and industrial adaptation, they largely preserve the existing force structure, thereby limiting gains in mass and resilience. The defense industrial base has begun to scale up production, notably in ammunition and major platforms, but adaptation remains gradual and largely industry-driven. At the same time, high operational tempo and persistent overseas and domestic deployments generate risks of overstretch and declining readiness. France is risking a long-term erosion of its defense model and credibility within NATO.

The trajectory of Belgian defence spending from the end of the Cold War in 1990 to the present day is a compelling case study of how a small, highly globalized nation navigates its defence policy in response to shifting economic, security, and political landscapes. In this article we provide both a historical overview of Belgian defence spending after the Cold War and a comparison with other countries. It is a narrative of decline, stagnation, and a recent dramatic reversal. The period from 1990 to 2014 was defined by the economic imperative of fiscal austerity, which allowed governments to utilize the "peace dividend" to divert resources from defence to other government spending. This trajectory was altered by the geopolitical realities of 2014 and, most notably, 2022. Russia's invasion of Ukraine served as the catalyst that realigned the three key determinants, i.e., economic, political, and security, in favour of increased military expenditure. Moreover, Belgium not only increased military spending quantitatively but also qualitatively reaching NATO’s 20% major equipment and associated research and development investment benchmark. Keywords: Defence spending, burden sharing, NATO

Understanding the scale and dynamics of U.S.–Mexico firearms trafficking has been hampered by severe restrictions on access to firearm trace data. This article updates empirical knowledge of the illicit cross-border gun trade by assembling and analyzing more than 28,000 firearm records drawn from leaked Mexican government trace data, official Mexican seizure records, and U.S. trafficking court cases. Using capture-recapture techniques, meta-estimation, and econometric analysis, it is estimated that roughly 85,000–135,000 firearms are trafficked from the United States into Mexico annually. There is a positive relationship between trafficking flows and homicide rates in Mexico, evidence of circular causation between police arms purchases and illegal gun seizures, and the continued concentration of trafficking among a small subset of U.S. dealers. Together, these findings refine prevailing estimates of trafficking volumes and illuminate the feedback mechanisms linking legal gun markets, illicit flows, and violence.

Most firearms recovered from crime scenes in Mexico originate in legal U.S. retail markets, yet little is known about whether federal enforcement constrains this diversion. This article examines how compliance citations issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) affect subsequent firearms trafficking from U.S. Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) to Mexico. ATF inspection-violation records are merged with more than 12,000 firearms traced from Mexican seizures and U.S. trafficking court cases, exploiting within-dealer variation over time. Across multiple model specifications, ATF citations are strongly associated with reductions in trafficking—each additional citation corresponds to a 20–44% decline in trafficked firearms, and cited dealers contribute substantially fewer trafficked guns than comparable uncited retailers. These results suggest that even limited regulatory enforcement can meaningfully disrupt illicit firearms supply chains upstream of cross-border smuggling.

Many countries, including India, promise ambitious climate goals. Yet global institutions and national incentives often make these promises hard to keep. This article examines the “Climate Security Paradox”, the gap where policy commitments and security outcomes diverge. It questions how India’s climate commitments interact with incentive structures, finance, and equity within global climate governance and finds three interlinked barriers. First, short-term growth incentives often favor continued coal use and infrastructure choices that keep emissions high. Second, climate finance remains uncertain and slow, which delays state-level adaptation projects and local resilience investments. Third, resource allocation often sidelines vulnerable groups, reducing trust and disengages from climate programs. By introducing an analytical triad, “incentives, finance, equity”, and presenting the trade-offs between sovereignty, development, and global cooperation—a clear, practical framework is created for analyzing climate-policy failure in developing countries. Reshaping national incentives, securing predictable finance, and embedding fairness are each necessary to narrow the paradox and specific policy steps are suggested: phased responsibilities, stable finance mechanisms, and stronger local institutions. It also calls for predictable loss-and-damage funds and targeted investments to protect local livelihoods in climate hotspots urgently. These measures can help India and similar countries align commitments with measurable climate security outcomes.

The cost of the Gaza war for Israel, as estimated by the Israeli Minister of Finance and Bank of Israel, does not consider a wide range of expenses, which have not been disclosed to Israeli taxpayers. This study examines the true cost of the Gaza war for Israel using Stiglitz and Bilmes’s (2008) approach. The findings indicate that the true cost of the war, based on our calculations, is more than twice the budgetary costs estimated by the Israeli Ministry of Finance and Bank of Israel. We also demonstrate that the ultimate cost could be higher owing to substantial future obligations on the Israeli economy. Keywords: Gaza War, Economic Cost, Accounting Cost, Bank of Israel, Israeli Ministry of Finance

While studies of trade do consider conflict as a factor in gravity models, they do not consider the converse impact of peace. Using the Global Peace Index this article considers the case of trade between Pakistan and its neighbours which, despite considerable potential, remains very low. It considers whether introducing a measure of peace into a gravity model better explains the patterns of trade. The empirical analysis suggests that it does, and while Pakistan’s bilateral trade flows are mainly affected by the economic size of trading countries and a common border, distance had a significant role only in the presence of peace between trading partners.

Smith wrote instructively about the unaffordability and inadequacy of defense spending in the U.K. and the difficult challenges facing the Strategic Defense Review committee. Some of the challenges facing the U.S. resemble those of the U.K., others are of the same ilk but differ in their intensity, still others are unique. This article describes the current state of budgeting for defense in the U.S., focusing on key changes in the last few decades. Such changes are organized into three categories, (a) the strategic, political, and fiscal context for defense budgeting, (b) the allocation to defense and the distribution within that budget, and (c) core processes in both the Pentagon and in Congress. The article ends with some thoughts about the consequences of those changes, considering the needs of the military to effectively implement strategy and the recommendations of the Congressional Committee on Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution Reform.