The Real Effects of Military Spending on Security
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Lloyd J. Dumas
Abstract
The indirect effects of military spending on security are stronger and more important than its direct effects, and its long run impact more telling than its short run impact. In the short run, military spending can be a source of both physical security and economic stimulus. In the long run, it can be counterproductive in terms of physical security and will be a dead weight on the economy. How a society’s productive resources are deployed, as between military spending and more economically productive activities, sets it on a long-term course with powerful implications for the ability of its economy to do what it is supposed to do – provide for the material well-being of the population as a whole. The mechanism by which the extensive and extended diversion of productive economic resources to economically unproductive military spending drags an economy down is analyzed. Furthermore, it is possible to use properly structured international and domestic economic relationships in place of threats or use of military force to increase national and international security, while at the same time enhancing, rather than degrading, economic wellbeing. Three principles for structuring such a “peacekeeping economy” are set forth.
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As an example, during the Cold War, the US national security establishment spent very little time or money worrying about the nuclear arsenals of Britain and France, and a great deal of time worrying about and trillions of dollars trying to deter an attack from the nuclear arsenal of the Soviet Union. Yet, while much smaller than the Soviet arsenal, British and French nuclear forces were also capable of destroying the US as a viable society. Britain and France were not considered a threat to our security, not because they lacked the capacity to do us horrendous damage, but because of our far more cordial relationship with them.
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A well-established, zero-sum mindset of domination as the route to personal economic success has been the curse of much of modern day Sub-Saharan Africa, perpetuating violence and undercutting every effort at economic and political development.
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© 2014 by De Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Advances in Peace Economics and Peace Science: Introduction
- Articles
- The Real Effects of Military Spending on Security
- Military Spending and Economic Growth in An Augmented Solow Model: A Panel Data Investigation for OECD Countries
- A Formal Model of Arms Market with Cash-for-Favours
- Peace Science: A Multiple Attribute Approach
- Triads in International Relations: The Effect of Superpower Aid, Trade, and Arms Transfers on Conflict in the Middle East
- Divide and Conquer: The Impact of “Political” Maps on International Relations
- Breaking the Dynamics of Emotions and Fear in Conflict and Reconstruction
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Advances in Peace Economics and Peace Science: Introduction
- Articles
- The Real Effects of Military Spending on Security
- Military Spending and Economic Growth in An Augmented Solow Model: A Panel Data Investigation for OECD Countries
- A Formal Model of Arms Market with Cash-for-Favours
- Peace Science: A Multiple Attribute Approach
- Triads in International Relations: The Effect of Superpower Aid, Trade, and Arms Transfers on Conflict in the Middle East
- Divide and Conquer: The Impact of “Political” Maps on International Relations
- Breaking the Dynamics of Emotions and Fear in Conflict and Reconstruction
