State Defense Policy Research Articles

Alliance Politics and Issue Areas: Determinants of Defense Spending

This paper investigates how changes in governments in Western European parliamentary systems affect the size of the states' defense budgets. A model is presented that outlines how intraalliance political considerations may affect both (1) the size of a state's contribution to the alliance and (2) what political processes are involved in defense-allocation decisions. An argument is presented regarding the proper issue area into which the question of a state's defense policy can be placed. The issue-area perspective also allows the question of a potential guns-butter trade-off to be addressed more fruitfully. It is demonstrated that changes in governments in small allied states lead to changes in the defense budget, but such changes in large allied states have little effect.

United states defense policy: New answers for old questions

United states defense policy: New answers for old questions

Lumpy Goods and Cheap Riders: An Application of the Theory of Public Goods to International Alliances

ABSTRACTMancur Olson and Richard Zeckhauser's ‘An Economic Theory of Alliances’ has been described as ‘the best known application of the theory’ of collective (or public) goods. In that article, Olson and Zeckhauser advanced the claim that America's Western European Allies (and by implication, Japan as well) are all, more or less, ‘free riders.’ Yet, more than twenty years later, the meaning of this claim remains very much in doubt. This article outlines Olson and Zeckhauser's basic argument and conclusions and the evidence against their argument; explains how application of the ‘free rider’ thesis to the problem of collective security can be revised in the light of contemporary thinking about the provision of collective goods; presents some preliminary tests of this formulation; and suggests a few of the implications of this analysis for the formulation of United States defense policy.

Western Military Strength and Security

Western military strength and security rely on United States defense forces. The principle of deterrence, and how to apply over-all military strategy to it, is the overriding problem for United States defense policy planners. The nature of the defense force is influenced by the fact that it is built not to be used and the fact that it will not be used until it has sustained the attack of an enemy. Two concepts of deterrence, finite deterrence and counterforce, are employed in combination by the United States. Two main issues con cerning our defense posture are related to the philosophy of deterrence: strengthening limited-conflict weapons and equip ment, and gaining dependable agreements on weapons tests, control, and disarmament. The principle of interdependence is important for military policy. It has two aspects: inter dependence with other nations of the free world partnership, and interdependence between defense policy and other aspects of international strategy. The United States is the strongest nation in the world militarily, and her joint defense establish ment maintained with her free world allies is superior to that of the Soviet bloc. The Western deterrent is effective. The continuing need is for hard reappraisal, combined mobilization of joint resources, and decisive action to make and carry out new policies on national and international levels.—Ed.