Defense Policy and Management

pThe contemporary strategic balance in East Asia contains a significant degree of ldquo;slackrdquo; that tempers international threats: the offense-defense balance, geography, and the current alliance system in which the United States injects power from outside the region on the side of smaller, weaker states all mitigate the potential for sudden surges in defense spending, surprise adoption of new technology, and clever, aggressive strategies to change the balance. Emerging technologies always have the potential to upend the strategic balance, but the current trajectory, analyzed in terms of its interaction with current military capabilities, geography, and role of the U.S., is likely to reinforce the slack in the region, keeping the threat of war relatively low. Regional powers can assure that defensive advantage through appropriate investment choices./p

pA reasonable estimate of the defense budget cost of protecting the Persian Gulf (and especially of protecting production and transit of oil) would make an important contribution to a rational assessment of the desirability of continuing to include this mission as part of U.S. military strategy. Unfortunately, such an estimate is not easy to produce. Ideally, it would incorporate three sources of defense budget cost: the avoidable future investment to acquire the force structure to perform the mission, the cost of the force posture linked to the mission (the incremental cost of forward basing, specific training exercises that could be cancelled, etc.), and the intermittent cost of military operations in the region (whether surges of forces to deter potential adversaries or actual wars). Each of these sub-estimates presents significant analytical challenges, and most previous attempts fall victim to one or more of them. This paper offers a new, careful estimate of the costs based on two alternative scenarios: one in which the United States maintains its commitment to a two-regional-war force-sizing construct even without planning to fight in the PG and one in which the United States shifts to a 1.5-war strategy. The resulting budget savings are relatively small compared to the current size of the U.S. defense budget./p

pAnalyzing the ways in which the United States prepares for war, the authors demonstrate how political and organizational interests determine US defense policy and warn against over-emphasis on planning, centralization, and technocracy. Emphasizing the process of defense policy-making rather than just the outcomes of that process,nbsp;emUS Defense Politics/emnbsp;departs from the traditional style of many existing textbooks./p

pPolicy experts routinely assert that U.S. leadership in international affairs provides essential protection to the global economy; scholars uphold the same argument as part of the proposed grand strategy of deep engagement. Specifically, they argue that the strongest power in the world needs to police the global commons and to tamp down global violence to enable trade and investment to flow. However, careful reasoning and a review of key historical evidence undermines the claim that military primacy provides vital support to commerce. While most merchants and investors prefer peace to war, they do not stop their pursuit of wealth when war breaks out. Instead, they adapt. So while belligerents suffer terrible economic consequences from war#39;s direct destruction of productive capacity, from the negative incentive effects of higher government taxes and borrowing to pay for the war, and from the diversion of effort into making products for fighting rather than for consumption and investment, wars merely reshuffle trade and investment patterns in the rest of the world. They also yield some stimulus as belligerents pay high prices to import from neutrals. Commerce flows through the commons and even into war zones, despite political-military instability. Consequently, powerful countries should not attribute economic benefits to activist military policies; they will enjoy trade and investment whether they assert their power or not./p

pAlthough the Department of Defense has long been the global innovation leader in military hardware, that capability is not easily applied to energy technology./p