Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-kwt9d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-12T21:27:30.369Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Weapons Succession Process

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Mary Kaldor
Mary Kaldor
Affiliation:
University of Sussex, England
Get access

Abstract

The weapons succession process is an analysis of military-technological change that draws upon classical economics and recent theories of bureaucratic politics. The analysis focuses on the institutional mechanisms for reconciling the demand for weapons with the supply of weapons. In wartime, the demand for weapons, determined in battle, shapes military-technological change. In peacetime, different styles of military-technological change depend on different types of supplier institutions; military-technological change is described as “baroque” in the West and “conservative” in the Soviet Union. The essay speculates about the implications of different styles of military-technological change for economic development and for arms limitation.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , July 1986, pp. 577 - 595
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

1 Rowbotham, Sheila, Woman's Consciousness: Man's World (London: Pelican Books, 1973)Google Scholar.

2 See, for example, Peck, Merton J. and Scherer, Walter, The Weapons Acquisition Process (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962)Google Scholar; McKean, Roland, ed., Issues in Defense Economics (New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1967)Google Scholar; Hartley, Keith, NATO Arms Cooperation: A Study in Economics and Politics (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983)Google Scholar.

3 Passinetti, Luigi L., Structural Change and Economic Growth: A Theoretical Essay on the Dynamics of the Wealth of the Nations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981)Google Scholar.

4 Kornai, Janos, Growth, Shortage and Efficiency (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982)Google Scholar.

5 Kaldor, Mary, The Baroque Arsenal (London: Andre Deutsch, 1982)Google Scholar.

6 Robinson, Julian Perry, “Arms Control and the Assimilation of Chemical Weapons,” International Journal (Toronto, Canadian Institute of International Affairs) 36 (Summer 1981), 515–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 For an elaboration of this distinction, see Curnow, Ray and others, “General and Complete Disarmament: A Systems Analytic Approach,” Futures (October 1976), 384–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Classic examples of bureaucratic politics theories include Allison, Graham T., Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971)Google Scholar; Halperin, Morton, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1974)Google Scholar; Steinbruner, John D., The Cybernetic Theory of Decision: New Dimensions of Political Analysis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974)Google Scholar.

9 Aron, , “War and Industrial Society: A Reappraisal,” Millenium. Journal of International Studies 7 (Winter 1978/1979), 195–210CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 I have explored this argument in “The Concept of Common Security,” in Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Policies for Common Security (London and Philadelphia: Taylor & Francis, 1985), 37–52Google Scholar.

11 See, for example, Allison, Graham T. and Morris, Frederick, “Armaments and Arms Control: Exploring Determinants of Military Weapons,” Daedalus 104 (Summer 1975)Google Scholar; Brodie, Bernard, “Technological Change, Strategic Doctrine, Political Outcomes,” in Knorr, Klaus, ed., Historical Dimensions of National Security Problems (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1976)Google Scholar; Ellis, John, The Social History of the Machine Gun (New York: Pantheon Books, 1973)Google Scholar; Hacker, Barton C., “Resistance to Innovation: The British Army and the Case Against Mechanization,” Actes du XI Hieme Congres International d'Histoire des Sciences 2 (1974)Google Scholar; Holley, Irving B. Jr., Ideas and Weapons: Exploitation of the Aerial Weapon by the United States in World War II. A Study in the Relationship of Technical Advance, Military Doctrine and the Development of Weapons (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953)Google Scholar.

12 Coulam, Robert F., “The Importance of the Beginning: Defense Doctrine and the Development of the F-III Fighter-Bomber,” Public Policy 23 (Winter 1975), 1–37Google Scholar, at 25 (emphasis added).

13 Janowitz, Morris, The Professional Soldier (New York: Free Press, 1960)Google Scholar.

14 Nove, Alec, The Soviet Economic System (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1977)Google Scholar.

15 See Kaldor, Mary, “Military R & D: Cause or Consequence of the Arms Race?” International Social Science Journal 35 (No. 1, 1983), 25–45Google Scholar.

16 The term was developed by Kurth, James A.; see his “Why We Buy the Weapons We Do,” Foreign Policy No. 11 (Summer 1973), 33–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Kaldor (fn. 5).

18 Fallows, James, “M-16: A Bureaucratic Horror Story,” Atlantic Monthly 247 (June 1981), 56–66Google Scholar.

19 The ministries are Aviation, Defense Industry, Shipbuilding, General Machinery, Medium Machinery, Radio, Electronics, Communications, and Machine-Building. For a detailed description, see Holloway, David, “Innovation in the Defence Sector,” in Amann, Ronald and Cooper, Julian, Industrial Innovation in the Soviet Union (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1982), 276–366Google Scholar.

20 Nove (fn. 14); Alexander, Arthur J., “Decision-Making in Soviet Weapons Procurement,” Adelphi Papers No. 47 and 48 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, Winter 1978/1979)Google Scholar; Amann, Ronald, Cooper, Julian M., and Davies, R. W., eds., The Technological Level of Soviet Industry (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1977)Google Scholar.

21 See the autobiography of one of the most famous aircraft designers, Yakovlov, A. S., The Aim of a Lifetime (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1972)Google Scholar. A similar point was made by a leading radar designer, Fedoseev, Anatol, “Design in Soviet Military R & D: The Case of Radar Research in Vacuum Electronics,” mimeo., seminar given at Center for Russian Studies, Harvard University, March 1983Google Scholar.

22 Easterbrook, Gregg, “Divad,” Atlantic Monthly 248 (October 1982), 29–39Google Scholar.

23 See, for example, Baran, Paul and Sweezy, Paul, Monopoly Capital (London: Penguin Books, 1966)Google Scholar; Kidron, Michael, Western Capitalism Since the War (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1968)Google Scholar; Griffin, J., Wallace, M. and Devine, J., “The Political Economy of Military Spending: Evidence from the United States,” Cambridge Journal of Economics (No. 6, 1982), 1–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Ibid.

25 Harrie, Christopher, “Technical Change and Military Power in Historical Perspective,” in “New Conventional Weapons and East-West Security,” Part I, Adelphi Paper No. 144 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, Spring 1982), 5–13Google Scholar.

26 This tendency was originally noted by the German economist, Wolff, in 1912. See Freeman, Christopher, Clark, John, and Soete, Luc, Unemployment and Technical Innovation: A Study of Long Waves and Economic Development (London: Frances Pinter, 1982)Google Scholar.

27 See, for example, Kaldor (fn. 5); Spinney, Chuck, Defense Facts of Life (Washington, DC: Program Analysis and Evaluation Division, Department of Defense, 1980)Google Scholar; Fallows, James, National Defense (New York: Random House, 1981)Google Scholar.

28 Robinson, Julian P. Perry, “Qualitative Trends in Conventional Munitions: The Vietnam War and After,” in Kaldor, Mary and Eide, Asbjorn, eds., The World Military Order: The Impact of Military Technology on the Third World (London: Macmillan, 1979), 64–109CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Freeman (fn. 26).

30 Passinetti (fn. 3), 235 (emphasis in original).

31 See, for example, Holloway, David, The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Cooper, Julian, “Defense Production and the Soviet Economy 1929–41,” Soviet Industrialisation Project Series, No.3, CREES Discussion Papers (Birmingham, U.K.: Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham, 1977)Google Scholar.