The Economics Of Defence Policy

Defence policy is of continuing interest and concern to all nations. There are armed conflicts and new threats. Difficult choices cannot be avoided. This book has three aims. First, to identify the typical questions raised by economists when studying defence policy. Second, to show how simple economic analysis can be used to answer these questions and contribute to our understanding of defence issues. Third, to provide a critical evaluation of defence policy.

A contemporary and comprehensive analysis of national and supranational defence governance in an uncertain and increasingly dangerous world. This book will appeal to policymakers, analysts, graduate students and academics interested in defence economics, political economy, public economics and public policy.

This major reference work is a comprehensive critical guide to the large and growing literature on the economics of defence, disarmament and peace. It covers the cost of defence spending and its effects on growth, investment, unemployment, technical change and other aspects of a nation's economic performance. It includes material on the determinants of defence spending namely defence budgets, programme budgeting and procurement policy. It also deals with the economic impact of arms limitation, disarmament and the conversion from military production to products with peaceful uses.

This Element introduces students, policy-makers, politicians, governments and business-people to this new discipline within economics. It presents the recent history of the subject and its range of coverage. Traditional topics covered include models of arms races, alliances, procurement and contracting, as well as personnel policies, industrial policies and disarmament. Newer areas covered include terrorism and the economics of war and conflict. A non-technical approach is used and the material will be accessible to both economists and general readers.

This book makes an original contribution to our knowledge of the world’s major defence industries. Experts from a wide range of different countries – from the major economies of North America and Western Europe to developing economies and some unique cases such as China, India, Singapore, South Africa and North Korea – describe and analyse the structure, conduct and performance of the defence industry in that country. Each chapter opens with statistics on a key nation’s defence spending, its spending on defence R&D and on procurement over the period 1980 to 2017, allowing for an analysis of industry changes following the end of the Cold War. After the facts of each industry, the authors describe and analyse the structure, conduct and performance of the industry. The analysis of ‘structure’ includes discussions of entry conditions, domestic monopoly/oligopoly structures and opportunities for competition. The section on ‘conduct’ analyses price/non-price competition, including private and state funded R&D, and ‘performance’ incorporates profitability, imports and exports together with spin-offs and technical progress. The conclusion explores the future prospects for each nation’s defence industry. Do defence industries have a future? What might the future defence firm and industry look like in 50 years’ time? This volume is a vital resource and reference for anyone interested in defence economics, industrial economics, international relations, strategic studies and public procurement.

As the recent fighting in Serbia illustrates, the technology of modern warfare is in constant evolution, with implications spanning a wide range of public policy areas - from the broad dimensions of alliance strategy to the specific confines of defence investment, production, and trade. For the past several years, technological innovation in the arms industry of the world's leading states has been proceeding in relation to the phenomenon of "globalisation" in the civilian sector. Although the combined impact of the postulated "revolution in military affairs" and the globalisation of industry has been felt in all Western states, it has been of particular concern in two NATO countries - Canada and the United Kingdom - as each is located on the margins of a continental market in defence goods. Both have established a set of privileged linkages and interests with this market although they have retained a certain strategic, political, and economic "distance." Security, Strategy, and the Global Economics of Defence Production features contributions from a broad range of policy analysts and practitioners in Canada and the United Kingdom whose primary concern is to identify and analyse the major challenges that Ottawa and London will be facing in the coming decade. Among the issues and challenges considered are understanding the changing nature of threat and risk to security interests, devising appropriate means of harnessing and responding to technological change in warfare, and assessing the relative merits of regional defence-industrial groupings as opposed to trans-Atlantic arrangements. The contributors also discuss developments in policy respecting the procurement and export of arms as well as the enhancement of the quality of bilateral defence co-operation and trade. David G. Haglund is director of the Centre for International Relations, Queen's University. S. Neil MacFarlane is director for the Centre of International Studies and Lester B. Pearson Professor of International Relations at Oxford University.

After more than ten years of effort by many states to control and redress conflicts in the Balkans, Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere, Canadian political and military leaders are still struggling to adjust defence policies and to build armed forces relevant to the international security situation Canada faces today. But the unending demand of what on the surface seem to be disparate operations and the absence of any overarching description of strategic reality confounds these efforts. Policies drawn from theories appropriate to the cold war era and "classic" peacekeeping missions are out of step with the demands of the past ten years and the future and make it difficult to develop new ways of thinking about defence policy and force development to deal with the world we live in. In Campaigns for International Stability the authors see a new pattern emerging from ten years of experience and seemingly different operations. "The post-cold war era" has been superceded by the stability campaign - a continuous diplomatic and military endeavour by states in various types of coalitions to halt conflicts, disarm belligerents, and police lawless regions around the world to bring "peace, order and good government" to international affairs. Armed force, and sometimes deadly force, is the central and necessary component of this campaign, but what type of force and what type of policies are appropriate to this new era? The authors address this question in a discussion of defence policy and management in Canada since 1989 and their relation to the needs of the stability campaign. They describe policy making in a Canadian context, political and other domestic factors that shape Canada's military capabilities, and the influence of the defence budgeting process on policy choices. Finally, the authors set out a new defence-policy framework for rebuilding and transforming both policy and the Canadian Armed Forces over the next ten years to meet the challenges of the stability campaign.

Defence procurement remains a relatively under-researched area, mostly focusing on the USA. This revealing book looks at defence procurement from the point of view of smaller countries such as Israel, Australia, Poland and Spain.