Americans spend more than $100 billion a year to buy weapons, but no one likes the process that brings these weapons into existence. The problem, McNaugher shows, is that the technical needs of engineers and military planners clash sharply with the political demands of Congress. McNaugher examines weapons procurement since World War II and shows how repeated efforts to improve weapons acquisition have instead increased the harmful intrusion of political pressures into that technical development and procurement process. Today's weapons are more complicated than their predecessors. So are the nation's military forces. The design of new systems and their integration into the force structure demand more care, time, and flexibility. Yet time and flexibility are precisely what political pressures remove from the acquisitions process. In a series of case studies and conceptual discussions, McNaugher tackles concerns at the heart of the debate about acquisition—the slow and heavily bureaucratic approach to development, the preference for ultimate weapons over well-organized and trained forces, and the counterproductive incentives facing the nation's defense firms. He calls for changes that run against the current fashion—less centralization or procurement, less haste in developing new weapons, and greater use of competition as a means of removing the development process from political oversight. Above all, McNaugher shows how the United States tries to buy research and development on the cheap, and how costly this has been. The nation can improve its acquisition process, he concludes, only when it recognizes the need to pay for the full exploration of new technology.

Americans spend more than $100 billion a year to buy weapons, but no one likes the process that brings these weapons into existence. The problem, McNaugher shows, is that the technical needs of engineers and military planners clash sharply with the political demands of Congress. McNaugher examines weapons procurement since World War II and shows how repeated efforts to improve weapons acquisition have instead increased the harmful intrusion of political pressures into that technical development and procurement process. Today's weapons are more complicated than their predecessors. So are the nation's military forces. The design of new systems and their integration into the force structure demand more care, time, and flexibility. Yet time and flexibility are precisely what political pressures remove from the acquisitions process. In a series of case studies and conceptual discussions, McNaugher tackles concerns at the heart of the debate about acquisition—the slow and heavily bureaucratic approach to development, the preference for ultimate weapons over well-organized and trained forces, and the counterproductive incentives facing the nation's defense firms. He calls for changes that run against the current fashion—less centralization or procurement, less haste in developing new weapons, and greater use of competition as a means of removing the development process from political oversight. Above all, McNaugher shows how the United States tries to buy research and development on the cheap, and how costly this has been. The nation can improve its acquisition process, he concludes, only when it recognizes the need to pay for the full exploration of new technology.

Exposes the mechanics of power across the military-industrial complex from battlefield to back office

First published in 1999, the papers collected in this volume were originally prepared for four workshops organized by the UN Department for Disarmament Affairs to inform the work of the Panel of Governmental Experts on Small Arms. These workshops were held during 1995-96. Some of the authors updated their papers for publication in early 1998. Lora Lumpe, senior fellow with the Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers in Oslo and Tamar Gabelnick, Acting Director of the Arms Sales Monitoring Project at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, DC edited the presentations for this book.

First Published in 1997. In an effort to find the validity of middle ground, this book offers a comprehensive analysis that looks further than the House Committee on National Security's actions on the B-2 bomber, President Clinton's campaign promise to support the Seawolf submarine, and the Pentagon's use of a concurrent and risky management strategy for the $71.6 billion F-22 fighter aircraft program. It provides a dissection of the decision-making process for a representative sample of major weapons systems to invalidate the claims that pork and malfeasance are both pervasive and determinate.

"Political Warfare provides a well-researched and wide-ranging overview of the nature of the People's Republic of China (PRC) threat and the political warfare strategies, doctrines, and operational practices used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The author offers detailed and illuminating case studies of PRC political warfare operations designed to undermine Thailand, a U.S. treaty ally, and Taiwan, a close friend"--

Our ideas about national security have changed radically over the last five years. It has become a political tool, a "wedge issue," a symbol of pride and fear. It is also the one issue above all others that can make or break an election. And this is why the Democratic Party has been steadily losing power since 2001. In Hard Power, Michael O'Hanlon, an expert on foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, and Kurt Campbell, an authority on international security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, explain how the Democrats lost credibility on issues of security and foreign policy, how they can get it back -- and why they must. They recall the successful Democratic military legacy of past decades, as well as recent Democratic innovations -- like the Homeland Security Office and the idea of nation-building -- that have been successfully co-opted by the Republican administration. And, most importantly, they develop a broad national security vision for America, including specific defense policies and a strategy to win the war on terror.

Originally published in 2004. This incisive work reveals the causes of escalating costs and delays in British defence procurement from 1945 to the present. Tackling a complex subject in a straightforward and readable manner, it considers how successive British governments reacted to this problem, why they adopted the reforms they did and why these reforms failed to have any meaningful effect on the operation of this process. The study draws upon a number of disciplines such as economics, politics and science and engineering to provide a broad synthesis that allows the reader to understand the technicalities of the process. The conclusion reached is that there is no apparent solution to the problem of intergenerational costs of weapons, but that a key to controlling the growing cost of projects during their development lies in the construction of a more effective research and development strategy, a path followed by Margaret Thatcher's predecessors and one that is also being advocated today.

Why are certain weapons acquired in the United States and others not? Theo Farrell addresses this question by examining the strategic, institutional and budgetary issues surrounding four major weapon programmes. Extensive use is made of primary sources in analysing the origins, development and outcomes of these programmes. This book presents alarming evidence to show how the military services manipulate weapons acquisition to suit their own ends rather than national security. It also analyses how Congress, motivated by concerns over cost, comes to play a greater role in shaping programme outcomes once weapons enter production.

Washington think tanks such as the Brookings Institution, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage Foundation have become so large and influential in recent years that they now constitute virtually a new branch of the political system. In this engrossing and lively book, David M. Ricci brillantly explores the parallel and convergent social, economic, and political trends within America that have transformed government in Washington and led to the development and prestige of these public policy research centers. Ricci argues that since the late 1960s Americans have lost sight of the familiar guidelines that used to help them assess issues and have become more hospitable to think tank research and advice. He examines the flood of policy-relevant information that has resulted from the growth of expertise and the advent of big government; the confusion over national goals that comes from the decline of the Protestant ethic and the empowerment of minorities; the growing influence of television and its focus on instant testimony from experts; political changes such as the decline of parties, the move to an "open" Congress and the growth of an independent presidency; the pervasive power of modern marketing; and much more. According to Ricci, policy ideas generated by think-tank research and commentary are helpful in providing greater objectivity and political insight, not only because of their general reliability but also because in their ideological variety think tanks generate a substantial range of policy proposals, giving voice to a healthy factional pluralism and facilitating a constant testing of ideas. In today's dissonant politics, Ricci concludes, think tanks contribute some order - and occasionally wisdom - in the ongoing battle in Washington over political ideas.