Declining Defense Budgets Research Articles

A COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH TO SURVIVABILITY ASSESSMENT IN NAVAL SHIP CONCEPT DESIGN

Alongside deploying weapons and sensors what makes a warship distinct is its survivability, being the measure that enables a warship to survive in a militarily hostile environment. The rising cost of warship procurement, coupled with declining defence budgets, has led to cost cutting, often aimed at aspects, such as survivability, which may be difficult to quantify in a manner that facilitates cost capability trade-offs. Therefore, to meet ever-reducing budgets, in real terms, innovation in both the design process and the design of individual ships is necessary, especially at the crucial early design stages. Computer technology can be utilised to exploit architecturally orientated preliminary design approaches, which have been conceived to explore innovation early in the ship design process and the impact of such issues as survivability. A number of survivability assessment tools currently exist; however, most fail to integrate all the constituent elements of survivability (i.e. susceptibility, vulnerability and recoverability), in that they are unable to balance between the component aspects of survivability. Some of these tools are qualitative and therefore less than ideal in specifying survivability requirements, others are aimed towards the more detailed design stages where implementing changes is heavily constrained or even impractical. This paper presents a survivability assessment approach combining various tools used by UCL and the UK Ministry of Defence, as well as a new approach for recoverability assessment. The proposed method attempts to better integrate and quantify survivability in early stage ship design, which is facilitated by the UCL derived, architecturally focused, design building block approach. The integrated survivability method is demonstrated for a set of naval combatant concept designs and for two replenishment ship studies to test the robustness of the proposed approach.

British World Policy and the Projection of Global Power, c.1830–1960. Edited by T. G. Otte (New York, Cambridge University Press, 2019) 326 pp. $29.99

This book, published in honor of the late Keith Neilson, tackles the issue of Britain’s world power status, and its decline, from a variety of interesting angles. Its scope is more ambitious than the dates in the title suggest, as both Otte’s chapter about the Foreign Office (fo) and Kathleen Burk’s about Britain’s economic networks in South America deal with the period since 1800. The geographical coverage extends beyond “the British world” to include Japan as well as Russian views of Britain. Some, although by no means all, of the twelve chapters engage directly with Neilson’s work. For example, John H. Maurer, in his assessment of the British response to Imperial Germany’s naval expansionism before 1914, concludes, “As Keith Neilson argued, Britain was no weary titan but a formidable Great Power, fully capable of competing in the international rivalries of that troubled age and beating back challengers, its leaders committed to playing the leading role on the world stage” (172).One of the volume’s strengths is the way in which the contributors negotiate the balance between recognizing the reality of Britain’s long-term relative decline and acknowledging the ways in which the country continued to exercise its muscle even as its options shrank. Douglas E. Delaney’s chapter about the Imperial General Staff and the Dominions in the interwar years is especially illuminating in this respect. This was an era of financial stringency when the Empire was also subject to forces that weakened Whitehall’s (already limited) control. Yet although Dominion politicians had little appetite to continue the burden sharing of World War I in time of peace, inexpensive and politically opportune techniques continued to facilitate coordination of the various armed forces, including the sharing of information, exchanges of officers, and intelligent use of Staff Colleges. Thus, “in spite of the near-breakneck demobilization that followed the First World War, widespread war-weariness, declining defence budgets, and growing dominion autonomy, the British general staff managed to keep some long-proven strands of military cooperation intact” (228). This situation was of value when war came again in 1939.Such an approach is useful because historians’ attention can often be monopolized by episodes of drama and crisis at the expense of the study of the workaday or routine behavior that underpinned the successful projection of power. Otte’s chapter about the fo, which is exemplary in this respect, deals with the fo’s internal procedures surrounding the accumulation of policy-relevant knowledge. On the one hand, it developed a reasonably efficient system for processing paper, but on the other, as business grew in both speed and volume, the organization was sometimes stretched to its breaking point. Enormous backlogs piled up. Moreover, as one civil servant sagaciously observed in 1891, “You cannot invent a machine into which documents can be put at one end and conclusions ground out at the other by turning a handle” (99).The same is true of the writing of history; happily, all the authors in the book succeed in applying common sense and wisdom to the fruits of their archival industry. They do not, however, engage in any methodological reflection or interdisciplinary inquiry. Because historians are prone to assume that the use of archives is well understood and without need of explicit justification, they sometimes undersell their own work. In her chapter, “Views of War, 1913 and 1949: Second Thoughts,” Zara Steiner (who died not long after this book was published), however, remarks about changing assumptions within the historical profession since she first approached the topic of attitudes about the outbreak of World Wars I and II in a seminar paper of 1972: “The original paper was critically received; many members of the seminar believed that historians should not deal with the issue of public opinion” (174). In this way, the book obliquely raises the interesting question of what aspects of current historical practice will look strangely antiquated in fifty years’ time.

Deep cooperation by Belgian defence: absorbing the impact of declining defence budgets on national capabilities

Despite tight budgetary constraints, the number of military interventions in which Belgium participated is substantial. The Belgian air force and navy were able to retain their basic war fighting capabilities after the Cold War. The land forces lost and are losing capabilities because of a lack of strategic anchoring. The most important Belgian contribution to international and European defence thinking has to be found in the innovative approach with respect to Belgian–Dutch naval cooperation. The latter could be an example for Europeanizing and generating the use of military capabilities in order to make the EU a strategic actor in the multipolar world.

More for Less? Exploring the Economic Dimensions of Multilateral Collaboration in Military Aerospace Projects

More for Less? Exploring the Economic Dimensions of Multilateral Collaboration in Military Aerospace Projects Faced with declining defence budgets and spiralling weapon costs, international collaboration in military production appears both a sensible and attractive ‘value for money’ solution. International collaboration offers in theory the opportunity for both cost- and risk-sharing between members of the collaborating group, making military projects feasible that could not be entertained (financially or perhaps technologically) by one country or one company.

How Smart is Smart Defense? A Review of NATO’s Smart Defense Proposal

IntroductionSince 2008, the world has experienced a severe economic crisis, one that has led to many austerity measures, including deep in defense spending in many countries. As Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has argued, maintaining a capable and effective Alliance in this era of financial crisis presents a real and pressing challenge for NATO.1 In response to these challenges, at the Munich Security Conference in February 2011 Rasmussen launched a proposal for Defense. This proposal aims to examine how NATO can help nations to build greater security with fewer It emphasizes the need to better by prioritizing, specializing, and seeking multinational solutions.2This article will examine and analyze the proposal for Smart Defense with a view to assessing its value in helping surmount the fiscal challenges it faces. The first section will provide a brief overview of the current fiscal environment within member states, including key member states' current and planned defense spending and how these will impact burden sharing within NATO. The next section will briefly describe the Secretary-General's Smart Defense proposal, and will explore each pillar of the concept. The third section will examine the key challenges and strengths of the proposal. Finally, conclusions will be drawn about the ability of the Smart Defense proposal to help overcome the current fiscal challenges.NATO Burden Sharing and the Fiscal EnvironmentBurden sharing within occurs through a variety of direct and indirect contributions to the costs of the Alliance.3 The main way member states contribute to the Alliance is through the participation of their national armed forces in NATO, including in operations, and in efforts to ensure that national forces are interoperable with other members.4 At the Prague Summit in 2002, member states made a commitment to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense in order to ensure that each member state was able to maintain a capable and effective defense force that was interoperable with other forces.5Constrained fiscal environments within member states have a significant impact on NATO, as this may lead member states to reduce their defense budgets and contributions to NATO. Presently, there are two key challenges for stemming from the current fiscal environment: declining defense budgets in many states, which will likely lead to capability shortfalls; and the increasing gap between European and U.S. contributions to resources. Each trend is discussed below and is followed by a review of the likely impacts on NATO.Declining Defense BudgetsWhile declining defense budgets have been a trend for some time now in Europe, the financial crisis in 2008 accelerated this trend. In 2011, for example, eighteen member states spent less on defense than in 20 10.6 Indeed, in the last two years, Europe's defense spending has gone down by roughly USD 45 billion, which is around the size of Germany's entire annual defense budget.7 The United States also faces huge spending with a USD 487 billion reduction to the US Defense budget over the next ten years.8 In addition, in 201 1 only three of NATO's twenty-eight members met the target of dedicating 2 percent of GDP to defense spending.9 As former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recognized, the fiscal, political, and demographic realities make [achieving the 2 percent of GDP target] unlikely to happen anytime soon. 10 Added to this are the concerns that these cuts have been carried out with little or no coordination with other member states of the Alliance.11An Increasing Gap between U.S. and European ContributionsSince the beginning of NATO, there have been concerns about the equality of the Alliance's burden-sharing arrangements, particularly between contributions made by the United States and those from its European allies. …

NATO Burden-Sharing: Past and Future

NATO is facing major changes and challenges: enlargement, new threats, new missions, new technology, and declining defence budgets. These developments raise the question of who will pay for the changes and hence the possibility of new burden-sharing debates. burden-sharing was a focus of controversy in the past and it could re-emerge in the future. A variety of burden-sharing measures are reviewed. These range from such traditional indicators as the share of defence in GDP to a range of alternative military measures as well as civil indicators, such as contributions to UN humanitarian operations and economic aid. Burden-sharing debates are affected by choice of indicator. Different indicators give different rankings and results. Nations will select the indicator(s) which show that they are bearing an `unfairly' high burden of the collective defence effort. The final part of the article examines the likely developments in burden-sharing over the next decade (e.g. new missions, new technology, enlargement). On enlargement, emphasis is placed on the need to assess both the benefits and costs of NATO expansion and the conclusion focuses on the optimal size of NATO.

Saving NATO's Foundation

Transatlantic defense cooperation is a little like the weather: everybody talks about it, but nothing much seems to happen. Meanwhile, Europe is building a separate European defense industry, based in part on shortsighted, if not downright misguided, calculations of self-interest. For its part, the United States is tentative at best and ambivalent at worst about greater cooperation. But as the United States and Europe dither, the effectiveness of the nato alliance?and ultimately its future?is increasingly at risk. The costs of inaction mount daily. Declining defense budgets, already stretched too thin, are denied the efficiencies that greater transatlantic cooperation could yield. Both Europe and the United States have therefore had to delay the modernization of their mili tary forces and thus have been slow to take advantage of advances in technology?notably information technology that applies to command, control, communication, and intelligence. The air war in Kosovo

Effective project management in the aerospace industry

The US aerospace industry is currently being challenged by both strong international competittion in the commerical sector and the effects of declining defence budgets on government contracts. In an effort to meet these challenges, the industry is experimenting with new ways of organizing. One of the most effective new organizational structures is the product development team (PDT). Briefly examines what a PDT is and the advantages this type of organization has over the conventional functional type of structure. Because when to use PDTs and when not to is of critical importance, and includes guidelines to aid in the decision‐making process. Since implementing PDTs involves a major corporate culture change, problems will occur. Both potential problems and suggested strategies for resolution are included to provide some solace for the frustrated. The bottom line on PDTs is that they can greatly improve product quality while reducing costs and time to market. The effort of implementation is great, but so are the potential rewards.

The Path to U.S. Shipbuilding Excellence—Remaking the U.S. into a World-Class Competitive Shipbuilding Nation

U.S. shipbuilding has a unique opportunity now to reenter and compete profitably in world commercial shipbuilding. World shipbuilding demand is expanding rapidly and U.S. costs of most factors or inputs of production are today comparable to those of major shipbuilding countries. A path for regaining a U.S. commercial shipbuilding competitiveness is described and formal steps suggested which will be necessary to remake the U.S. into a world class shipbuilding nation. Many of the proposed steps will be painful, but similar steps have been taken by other U.S. industries, such as manufacturers of automobiles, steel, construction, electronics, and appliances. They are deemed necessary if U.S. shipbuilding is to survive as a viable industry under conditions of declining defense budgets, consistent federal budget deficits, and increasing importance of trade to the U.S. economy.

Declining defense budgets and the future of the US defense industry

Declining defense budgets and the future of the US defense industry