The economics of defense or defense economics is a subfield of economics, an application of the economic theory to the issues of military defense. It is a relatively new field. An early specialized work in the field is the RAND Corporation report The Economics of Defense in the Nuclear Age by Charles J. Hitch and Roland McKean ([1] 1960, also published as a book [2]).[1]
Principles[]
In addition to defense proper, defense economics covers other aspects, such as disarmament and arms conversion.[2]
In terms of economics, a distinctive feature of the defense is that it is public goods, and as such it is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous.[2] As such, it may suffer the so-called "free rider problem".[3]
United States[]
Typically, the United States uses a combination of hard power (military force), soft power (diplomacy and foreign assistance) and domestic counterterrorism(homeland security).[4] During the early 2000s, the United States' national defense budget rose to about $800 billion per year. In recent years, it has dropped to $600 billion annually, which is still a large figure relative to Cold War averages and other countries' budgets.[5]
Military defense spending tables[]
| List by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute 2017 Fact Sheet (for 2016)[6] SIPRI Military Expenditure Database[7] |
List by the International Institute for Strategic Studies Top 15 Defence Budgets 2015[8] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
See also[]
References[]
- ↑ Keith Hartley, The Economics of Defence Policy: A New Perspective, p.1
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Hartley, p. 3
- ↑ "Defense" by Benjamin Zycher in: The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics
- ↑ Sawhill, Alice M. Rivlin and Isabel V.. "How to Balance the Budget". https://www.brookings.edu/research/how-to-balance-the-budget/.
- ↑ Livingston, Ian (6 September 2016). "The recipe for a healthy defense budget". https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2016/09/06/the-recipe-for-a-healthy-defense-budget/.
- ↑ "Trends in World Military Expenditure, 2016" (PDF). Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/Trends-world-military-expenditure-2016.pdf. Retrieved 13 December 2017.
- ↑ "Data for all countries from 1988–2016 in constant (2015) USD (pdf)". SIPRI. https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/Milex-constant-2015-USD.pdf. Retrieved 13 December 2017.
- ↑ "Top 15 Defence Budgets 2015". International Institute for Strategic Studies. https://www.iiss.org/-/media//images/publications/the%20military%20balance/milbal2016/mb%202016%20top%2015%20defence%20budgets%202015.jpg?la=en.
The original article can be found at Economics of defense and the edit history here.