Military Change in Asia

Asia's growing share of the global economy provides one of the strongest themes in contemporary analysis of international affairs. The remarkable economic achievements of Japan, Korea, and Taiwan over the past 50 years have been compounded more recently by the rise of the Chinese and Indian economies. While the significance of this change in the way international wealth is shared was beyond doubt before the onset of the current global financial crisis, many commentators expect that when the world eventually emerges from the crisis Asia's share of the global economy will have grown even further.

This shift clearly has strategic importance: economic decisions made in Asia, whether by governments or business, are now more important for the rest of the world than they have been for centuries. If military power were moving in the same direction, and at the same pace, the strategic consequences would be even greater.

This paper examines trends in Asian military spending and modernisation. It begins with a summary of defence spending among Asian countries.1 In this paper the term “Asia” is used to include the 22 countries from Pakistan to Japan. It does not include Afghanistan or any of the countries of central Asia, or Russia, Australia, New Zealand, or the Pacific Island countries. As explained above, data is not equally available for all 22 countries. View all notes It next considers the nature of the capabilities and equipment they are acquiring, and comments on the way in which forces are being structured, commanded, and managed. It then comments on the range of different factors that are driving military spending and modernisation in Asia, and offers particular comment on China in this regard. The paper then concludes with brief comments on United States and Australian military spending and development.     

Parents, Friends, and Romantic Partners: Enmeshment in Deviant Networks and Adolescent Delinquency Involvement

Adolescent networks include parents, friends, and romantic partners, but research on the social learning mechanisms related to delinquency has not typically examined the characteristics of all three domains simultaneously. Analyses draw on data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (n = 957), and our analytic sample contains 51% male and 49% female as well as 69% white, 24% African-American, and 7% Latino respondents. Parents,’ peers,’ and partners’ deviance are each related to respondents’ delinquency, and affiliation with a greater number of deviant networks is associated with higher self-reported involvement. Analyses that consider enmeshment type indicate that those with both above average romantic partner and friend delinquency report especially high levels of self-reported involvement. In all comparisons, adolescents with deviant romantic partners are more delinquent than those youths with more prosocial partners, regardless of friends’ and parents’ behavior. Findings highlight the importance of capturing the adolescent’s entire network of affiliations, rather than viewing these in isolation, and suggest the need for additional research on romantic partner influences on delinquent behavior and other adolescent outcomes.

Parents and Peers as Social Influences to Deter Antisocial Behavior

Growth curve analyses were used to investigate parents’ and peers’ influence on adolescents’ choice to abstain from antisocial behavior in a community-based sample of 416 early adolescents living in the Southeastern United States. Participants were primarily European American (91%) and 51% were girls. Both parents and peers were important influences on the choice to abstain from antisocial behavior. Over the four-year period adolescents relied increasingly on parents as influences and relied less on peers as influences to deter antisocial behavior. Significant gender differences emerged and suggested that female adolescents relied more on social influences than did male adolescents but that as time progressed male adolescents increased the rate at which they relied on peers. Higher family income was associated with choosing peers as a social influence at wave 1, but no other significant income associations were found. Understanding influences on adolescents’ abstinence choices is important for preventing antisocial behavior.

Perceptions of Racism and Depressive Symptoms in African American Adolescents: The Role of Perceived Academic and Social Control

Experiences with racism are a common occurrence for African American youth and may result in negative self perceptions relevant for the experience of depressive symptoms. This study examined the longitudinal association between perceptions of racism and depressive symptoms, and whether perceived academic or social control mediated this association, in a community epidemiologically-defined sample of urban African American adolescents (N = 500; 46.4% female). Structural equation modeling revealed that experiences with racism were associated with low perceived academic control, which in turn was associated with increased depressive symptoms. Findings suggest that experiences with racism can have long lasting effects for African American youth’s depressive symptoms, and highlight the detrimental effects of experiences with racism for perceptions of control in the academic domain. Implications for intervention are discussed.

Does Humor Explain Why Relationally Aggressive Adolescents are Popular?

The association between relational aggression and popularity during early adolescence is well established. Yet, little is known about why, exactly, relationally aggressive young adolescents are able to achieve and maintain high popular status among peers. The present study investigated the mediating role of humor in the association between relational aggression and popularity during early adolescence. Also considered was whether the association between relational aggression and humor varies according to adolescents’ gender and their friends’ levels of relational aggression. Participants were 265 sixth-grade students (48 % female; 41 % racial/ethnic minority; M _age = 12.04 years) who completed peer nomination and friendship measures in their classrooms at two time points (Wave 1: February; Wave 2: May). The results indicated that Wave 1 relational aggression was related to Wave 1 and 2 popularity indirectly through Wave 1 humor, after accounting for the effects of Wave 1 physical aggression, ethnicity, and gender. Additional analyses showed that relational aggression and humor were related significantly only for boys and for young adolescents with highly relationally aggressive friends. The results support the need for further research on humor and aggression during early adolescence and other mechanisms by which relationally aggressive youth achieve high popular status.     

The Pivotal Role of Adolescent Autonomy in Secondary School Classrooms

Student engagement is an important contributor to school success, yet high school students routinely describe themselves as disengaged. Identifying factors that alter (increase) engagement is a key aspect of improving support for student achievement. This study investigated students’ perceptions of autonomy, teacher connection, and academic competence as predictors of changes in student engagement within the classroom from the start to the end of a course. Participants were 578 (58% female) diverse (67.8% White, 25.2% African American, 5.1% Hispanic, 1.2% Asian American) high school students from 34 classrooms who provided questionnaire data both at the start and the end of a single course. Novel results from a cross-lagged model demonstrated that students who perceived their classrooms as allowing and encouraging their own autonomy in the first few weeks increased their engagement throughout the course, rather than the typical decline in engagement that was demonstrated by students in other classrooms. This finding is unique in that it extended to both students’ perceptions of engagement and observations of student engagement, suggesting a fairly robust pattern. The pertinence of this finding to adolescent developmental needs and its relationship to educational practice is discussed.     

The Younger Siblings of Childbearing Adolescents: Parenting Influences on Their Academic and Social-Emotional Adjustment

The younger siblings of childbearing adolescents have poorer school outcomes and exhibit more internalizing and externalizing problems compared to their peers without a childbearing sister. We test a model where living with an adolescent childbearing sister constitutes a major family stressor that disrupts mothers' parenting and well-being, and through which, adversely affect youths' adjustment. Data came from 243 Latino younger siblings (62% female, M age 13.7 years) and their mothers, 121 of whom lived with a childbearing adolescent sister and 122 of whom did not. Individual fixed-effects models controlled for earlier measures of each respective model construct, thereby reducing omitted variable bias from pre-existing group differences. Results show that, for boys, the relationship between living with a childbearing adolescent sister and youth outcomes was sequentially mediated through mothers' stress and parenting (i.e., monitoring and nurturance). For girls, however, the relationship was mediated through mothers' monitoring only. Findings elucidate the within-family processes that contribute to the problematic outcomes of youth living with childbearing adolescent older sisters.     

Do Peers Matter in the Development of Self-Control? Evidence from a Longitudinal Study of Youth

According to Gottfredson and Hirschi??s self-control theory, child and adolescent variation in self-control results primarily from variations in parental socialization. Although much research reveals a link between parenting and self-control, many recent studies indicate that the etiology of self-control is more complex than what has been theoretically specified. In further considering this issue, the current study first presents a theoretical model that emphasizes the role that peers may play in the development of self-control, even when accounting for the influence of parents. Next, we empirically assess the extent to which peer behavior influences self-control during childhood. The data come from a sample of U.S. families (n?=?776); 48% of the subjects are male, their age was 9?years, and non-Hispanic whites represented 84% of the sample. The analysis revealed that peer behavior is significantly associated with subsequent self-control, even after accounting for differences in parental socialization, prior self-control, and other potential sources of spuriousness. The implications of the findings for theory and future research are discussed.