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Fiscal-military hubs were cities characterized by the clustering of specific expertise and resources, which became centres where states, and semi-state and non-state actors arranged the transfer of war-making resources in early modern Europe. Using this concept enables the study of the business of war to shift the locus beyond the state towards a transnational history, while integrating political, military, economic, and cultural aspects that have generally been studied separately. By examining the hub, we can untangle the full complexity of this business, and reveal its actors, networks, assets, prices, routes, culture, and rules of conduct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under its Common Foreign and Security Policy the European Union has adopted a series of criteria to guide Member States' decisions when deciding whether to grant an export licence, to minimise the evil effects of arms sales. The article reviews the history and substance of these criteria, their place within the unique EU constitutional structure, their implementation, possible enforceability at national and Union level and practical effectiveness. It advocates strengthening the criteria with specified additions and concludes, broadly, that the relationship between the central authority and the Member States, which is particularly complex and fluid in relation to matters coming under the CFSP, combined with countervailing economic and political considerations, have limited the effectiveness of the criteria, though not neutered them entirely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term 'military Keynesianism' refers to economic policies in which the government devotes large amounts of spending to the military in order to foster economic growth. In this article, a number of crucial distinctions are made between different forms of military Keynesian policy, providing a more sophisticated picture of the practices of US and EU governments. It is argued that a form of military Keynesianism can be said to be operating even where it is not the primary means for regulating the business cycle. And the particular effects of externalised military Keynesianism, in which the state encourages other countries to purchase arms from domestic manufacturers, are considered. As Keynes's ideas are revived in response to the financial crisis, this article concludes by asking what a genuinely ecological alternative to military Keynesianism would look like. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]