Suchergebnisse

AbstractPolitical economy infuses the process that generates military power, notably including weapons acquisition. In the United States, defense acquisition follows a dynamic balance of interests among the private companies that design and build weapons, the military services that use weapons, and the legislators that appropriate money to pay for weapons. That process belies the simplistic conventional wisdoms that explain acquisition as a direct result of strategic need or as dictated by a unified military-industrial complex. A political economy approach that recognizes the complexity of interests—public and private, expert and political—best explains what weapons get built, by whom, where, and when.

The US defense innovation system enjoys tremendous advantages that other countries cannot readily replicate. It has accumulated capabilities over decades of funding and experimentation that dwarf other countries' efforts, and the incentives to innovate in the United States are not easily replicable elsewhere. The unique US political system favors substitution of technology for labor, openness to new ideas, and competition among decentralized organizations to solve national security challenges. The constant worrying that the United States is losing its defense innovation advantages is simply part of the politics that keep the United States far, far ahead of its potential rivals.