Defense Economics: Achievements and Challenges: January 2007
Defense Economics: Achievements and Challenges: January 2007
Defense Economics: Achievements and Challenges: January 2007
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1. Introduction
Defence economics is a relatively new part of the discipline of economics. One of
the first specialist contributions in the field was by Hitch and McKean, The
Economics of Defense in the Nuclear Age (1960). This article presents an
overview of the achievements and challenges for defence economics. The
achievements are based on a review of papers published in the journal Defence
and Peace Economics, especially publications and progress since the tenth
anniversary issue. The focus is on coverage of topics, including Special Issues.
Major gaps in coverage are identified.
2. Achievements
2.1.Definitions
The definition of defence economics has evolved to reflect new threats and new
policy developments. During the Cold War and in its immediate aftermath,
defence economics was defined as the economic study of defence, disarmament,
conversion and peace. In the post-Cold War environment, the focus has been on
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This paper is reproduced from The Economics of Peace and Security Journal with kind
permission of the Editors.
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the economics of war and peace. Modern definitions embrace the study of wars
and conflicts both conventional and non-conventional conflict. Examples include
the economic study of civil wars, revolutions and terrorism (e.g. Brauer, 2003;
Barros and Sandler, 2003; Hartley, 2007; Hegre and Sandler, 2002).
Since the end of the Cold War and in the post-Cold War world, there have been
some new developments in defence economics. These reflected the end of the
Cold War, globalisation and new security threats in the form of international
terrorism (e.g. 9/11 attacks on the USA: see Sandler and Hartley, 2007). These
new developments include:
ii) The arms trade (e.g. Levine, Sen and Smith, 2000)
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2.2.1. Background
There have been numerous Special Issues. These include special, topical and
under-researched themes (e.g. terrorism; arms exports; defence R&D), tributes to
leading defence economists (e.g. Jack Hirshleifer), conference papers focusing on
a common theme as well as Issues designed to promote defence economics in a
specific country (e.g. Canada; Greece; Spain; Turkey). Each Special Issue
requires a Guest Editor who is responsible for the content of the Issue and the
quality of the articles. Proposals for Special Issues are made to the Editors who
will then commission the Issue, or the Editors might approach someone to take the
lead and develop a Special Issue.
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This section summarises the main findings of the review of coverage from 1990 to
2000. The top 10 topics covered were (figures in brackets show number of
articles):
In contrast, areas with relatively little coverage included articles on arms races,
the arms trade, disarmament and arms control, the military production function,
the nature of defence economics and defence budgets. In view of their importance
and topicality, the small number of articles on arms races and the arms trade was
surprising.
In 2000, various gaps in coverage were identified. These included game theoretic
analysis of defence; peace economic studies, including peacekeeping missions,
regional arms races and conflict resolution; contributions from related disciplines;
and good quality case studies of defence industries, projects and of conversion
(both successful and unsuccessful conversions).
The record of publications since the 10th Anniversary Issue enables an assessment
of the changing trends in defence economics. Since the 2000 Anniversary Issue
(2000/1), there have been 41 issues of the journal with 221 articles to end-2006
(2006/6). Table 1 shows the topics with the greatest coverage over this period.
In aggregate, these topics accounted for 87% of all topics published over the
period. Inevitably, there are problems of classification, especially with defence-
growth and defence expenditure studies as well as with personnel and military
production function articles. Nonetheless, compared with the 1990 – 2000
period, there are some new topics in the top list. These include conflict, arms
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Equally interesting are the topics which have received little coverage. These
included European defence policy, disarmament, conversion, security policy,
defence budget trade-offs, procurement, regional issues, public choice and the
nature of defence economics. The list of Special Issues is a further indicator of
developments in defence economics. Since 2000, there have been 16 Special
Issues reflecting new topics, new themes, conference proceedings and efforts to
promote defence economics in specific countries, namely, Canada, Greece, Spain
and Turkey. Table 2 shows the coverage of Special Issues since the Anniversary
Issue.
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Major gaps remain, some of which were identified in the Anniversary Issue.
There is a need for good quality analytical and critical case studies of conflict,
defence industries, projects and conversion (both successful and failed
conversions). Examples include the Iraq war and experience with major weapons
projects such as aircraft carriers, combat aircraft (e.g. F-22; JSF; Typhoon) and
submarines. There is also scope for more articles from policy-makers, the armed
forces and from industry.
3. Challenges
3.1. The Defence Economics Problem
Interestingly, the end of the Cold War has made no difference to unit cost
escalation: it has continued. For example, the UK cannot afford a successor to
Typhoon combat aircraft; attack helicopters are becoming unaffordable so that
there is a future for main battle tanks; and by the time UAVs are as capable as
manned aircraft, they will be equally as expensive and hence just as unaffordable
(Pugh, 2007).
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France, some 8 years ahead of Germany and about 12 years ahead of Sweden.
The result is that the US defence industry has an international competitive
advantage reflected in its defence export performance. But the US advantage
comes at a price. Its lead over the UK involves an annual defence R&D budget
which is five times that of the UK (Middleton, et al, 2006).
There are a variety of responses to the defence economics problem. These include
‘equal misery’ affecting all the armed forces and involving less training, fewer
attrition buys, some project cancellations and delays in delivering new equipment
(i.e. shifting the new equipment programme to the right). Alternatively, there
could be a defence review involving a major shift in a nation’s defence
commitments (e.g. abandoning some capabilities; role specialisation); or nations
could seek to improve efficiency in procurement through competitive purchasing
and military outsourcing. For European nations, an EU defence policy is a further
option.
Economic theory also offers some policy guidelines and principles for formulating
defence policy. First, the principle of final outputs. This requires a focus on the
final outputs of defence in terms of peace, security and protection or more
realistically in terms of defence capabilities. For example, it might be that a
nation’s defence budget provides the capability to be involved in a major conflict
as part of an international coalition (e.g. UK in Iraq and Afghanistan) or to be
involved in, say, three small to medium scale operations (e.g. peacekeeping).
Such an approach shows the limitations of focusing on inputs. Typically, debates
about defence policy focus on the implication of budget cuts for the size of the
army, navy and air force (e.g. cuts in the numbers of infantry regiments, tanks,
warships and combat aircraft squadrons). This is the wrong focus. Instead, the
key question is what contribution do these inputs of soldiers, warships and aircraft
make to the final outputs of peace and security and what would be the impact of
marginal changes in these inputs (e.g. reducing the size of the navy by 5% and
increasing the size of the army by 5%)?
The second economic principle is that of substitution. This recognises that there
are alternative means of achieving protection. For example, there are substitution
possibilities between civilians and military personnel; between reserves and
regulars; between attack helicopters and tanks; between cruise missiles/UCAVs
and manned combat aircraft; between air power and land forces; and between
nuclear and conventional forces. Some of these substitution possibilities affect the
traditional monopoly property rights of the armed forces. It might mean cruise
missiles operated by the army and navy replacing manned combat aircraft
operated by the air force.
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Interestingly, the first specialist defence economics text book was entitled The
Economics of Defense in the Nuclear Age (Hitch and McKean, 1960). Some 45
years later, the UK is considering whether to replace its Trident strategic nuclear
force. This decision will be controversial involving political, military and moral
issues. But economics cannot be ignored since costs are involved.
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Typhoon illustrates the opportunities for in-depth case studies of major equipment
projects and for the economic evaluation of such programmes. Economic theory
suggests guidelines for an efficient defence industrial policy in an alliance and
these can be used to assess the efficiency of the Typhoon programme. Efficient
programmes are characterised by gains from trade based on specialisation by
comparative advantage; by gains from economies of scale and learning; and by
reduced duplication of costly R&D. Typhoon fails on gains from trade since its
work-sharing arrangements are not based on comparative advantage between
partner nations. Instead, work is allocated on the basis of juste retour reflecting
the size of national orders and the desire of each nation for a share of the high
technology on the programme and for national final assembly lines. However,
Typhoon scores more highly on gains from scale and learning through combining
all national orders into one large-scale order; but it loses some economies of
learning through duplicate final assembly lines (but final assembly is 3-5% of
production cots). Finally, there are some gains for Typhoon from reduced
duplication of costly R&D programmes (e.g. four nations choosing one R&D
programme).
Typhoon supports some 100,000-105,000 jobs directly and indirectly in over 400
European companies. In 2006, these jobs were distributed: Germany and Italy
with 20,000 each; Spain with 25,000; and the UK with 40,000 jobs. Many of these
are highly-skilled and high wage jobs in development, production and support.
Many of Typhoon’s labour skills are highly transferable (e.g. to motor car and
electronic industries; and to Airbus 380 work).
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3.3.2. A critique
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The Typhoon programme offers some lessons for future collaborations. First,
work-shares need to be based on efficiency and competitiveness criteria rather
than political bargaining and equity between the partner nations. Second,
collaboration needs a single prime contractor subject to the risks of a fixed price
or target cost incentive contract. Despite its recent problems, Airbus is an
example of a successful collaboration.
The need for change in the Armed Forces means that they have to address radical
solutions and depart from the traditional ways of doing business. For example,
the substitution principle with, say, a greater use of reserve forces and more
military outsourcing has to be addressed in an era of defence budget constraints
and a preference for social welfare spending. But the search for efficiency
improvements in the Armed Forces is limited by their lack of private market
incentives in the form of competition, the profit motive and the policing role of
capital markets (i.e. threats of takeovers and bankruptcy).
There remains a massive research agenda based on traditional and new topics.
Traditional areas include the scope for further analytical and empirical work on
the military production function and the efficiency with which the Armed Forces
convert inputs into military outputs. Here, there is scope for the international
comparison of labour-capital relationships in such forms as the numbers of
military personnel per warship, tank unit and combat aircraft squadron. Military
outsourcing also provides a check on the internal efficiency of various activities of
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the Armed Forces and questions arise about the optimal extent of such
outsourcing (e.g. combat units).
Data problems remain, but the collection of reliable data provides a public good
subject to free-riding and this is not an attractive route to fast promotion in the
economics profession! Two examples illustrate the challenges. First, there is a
need for more data on the defence industrial base for each nation in the world.
China is an obvious data gap. Also, there is a lack of data on defence R&D,
especially its inputs of scarce scientists and engineers. Second, new studies of
the economics of conflict require data on the costs of conflict. Such data are
difficult to obtain. There are military costs and civilian costs to be considered.
Ideally, data are needed on the planned military costs and final outcomes,
including the impact of conflict on all participating nations. Even the apparently
simple task of obtaining data on the military costs of the conflict and peace-
keeping phases of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq are fraught with difficulties.
There remains scope for a proper costing of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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References
Brauer, J. (ed) (2003) Economics of conflict, war and peace in historical
perspective. Defence and Peace Economics, Special Issue, 14(3), pp.151 – 236,
June.
Barros, C.P. and Sandler, T. (eds) (2003) Internal and external threats: Defence
economic analysis. Defence and Peace Economics, Special Issue, 14(6), pp.385 –
474, December.
Hartley, K. and Sandler, T (eds) (2000) Special Anniversary Issue of defence and
peace economics. Defence and Peace Economics, 11(1), pp.1 – 126.
Hegre, H. and Sandler, T. (eds) (2002) Economic analysis of civil wars. Defence
and Peace Economics, Special Issue, 13(6), pp.429 – 496, December.
Levine, P., Sen, S. and Smith, R (eds) (2000) Arms exports, controls and
production. Defence and Peace Economics, Special Issue, 11(5), pp. 443 - 548
Middleton, A and Bowns, S with Hartley, K and Reid, J (2006) The effect of
defence R&D on military equipment quality. Defence and Peace Economics,
17(2), pp.117 – 139.
Pugh, P. (2007) Retrospect and prospect: Trends in cost and their implications for
UK aerospace. Defence and Peace Economics, forthcoming.
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