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SLDR
i

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iii

Strategic Studies Institute

and

U.S. Army War College Press

DO FEWER RESOURCES MEAN 

LESS INFLUENCE?

A COMPARATIVE HISTORICAL CASE 

STUDY OF MILITARY INFLUENCE IN A TIME 

OF AUSTERITY

Mary Manjikian

January 2015

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iv

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ISBN 1-58487-661-1
v

FOREWORD

In the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review, military 

planners speak at great length about the importance of 

rebalancing our armed forces. As a result of the Budget Control Act of 2011, our U.S. Armed Forces have 

absorbed significant budget cuts, which are projected 

to continue into 2016. Not surprisingly, a major theme 

of the Quadrennial Defense Review is the necessity of 

making tough choices in a period of fiscal austerity.1

As Dr. Manjikian’s analysis points out, however, 

many of the themes raised by policymakers, military 

analysts and the general public in relation to this new 

politics of austerity are not actually new. Rather, such 

conversations have taken place at the end of U.S. military actions after the Korean War, in Vietnam, and at 

the end of the Cold War. Similar conversations have 

taken place across the sea in Western Europe as well. 

The historical case studies presented by Dr. Manjikian are valuable because they highlight the ways in 

which agencies in Washington have navigated previous post-conflict situations, drawing out the lessons 

for policymakers today as our military forces compete 

for resources, but more importantly for influence. The 

case study of defense policymaking in post-World 

War I Britain shows how diverse agencies, including 

the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or Treasurer, were 

able to use economic arguments to put forth their vision of what forces threatened Britain and how economic arguments were used to shape defense policy 

over a period of nearly 30 years. It provides a cautionary tale, showing us what can happen when military 

research and development and military doctrines are 

subordinated to short-term economic interests. 
The case studies of the post-Vietnam situation and 

the post-Cold War situation again illustrate the ways 

in which social expectations of a “peace dividend” can 

lead actors in Washington to move quickly to take actions that they see as consolidating the gains of the 

changed world environment. However, these quick 

decisions that seem right at the time may actually 

prove detrimental in the long run. 

As this Foreword is being written, our international 

situation is changing once again. The United States is 

facing new challenges, including such human security 

challenges as the Ebola crisis, alongside more traditional security challenges such as the rise of the Islamic 

State in Iraq and Syria in the Middle East. To address 

these pressing public health concerns, $6.2 billion has 

been allocated, and agencies are again competing for 

a shrinking slice of the economic pie as resources are 

diverted toward new challenges and threats.

The case studies presented here ask us to take a 

broader perspective in considering how decisions can 

be made in a climate of austerity, considering not only 

the issues that are most present currently, but also 

taking into account problems like reversibility, the 

importance of maintaining an industrial base, and the 

challenges of being prepared for future threats that 

have not yet been identified or named. It is my hope 

that we can learn from the mistakes of the past as we 

navigate this problem on into the future.

 

 

 DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

 Director

 Strategic Studies Institute and

 U.S. Army War College Press

vi
vii

ENDNOTE - FOREWORD

1. Quadrennial Defense Review, Washington, DC: Department of Defense, The Pentagon, 2014, p. iv, available from 

www.defense.gov/pubs/2014_Quadrennial_Defense_Review.pdf, accessed November 7, 2014.

ix

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MARY MANJIKIAN is Associate Dean of the Robertson School of Government at Regent University. 

She previously served as a U.S. Foreign Service officer in The Netherlands, Russia, and Bulgaria, and as 

a Fulbright Scholar at Durham University’s Institute 

of Advanced Study. Dr. Manjikian’s publications include Apocalypse and Post-Politics: The Romance of the 

End (Lexington Books, 2012), Threat Talk: Comparative 

Politics of Internet Addiction in China and the US (Ashgate, 2012), and Securitization of Property Squatting in 

Western Europe (Routledge, 2013). Her articles have 

also appeared in such journals as International Studies 

Quarterly, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Intelligence and National Security, and the 

International Feminist Journal of Politics. Dr. Manjikian 

holds an M.Phil. from Oxford Unversity and a Ph.D. 

from the University of Michigan.

xi

SUMMARY

It is common in post-conflict situations for a societal conversation about defense cutbacks to take place. 

Regardless of the time period or country in which 

such conversations occur, some universal themes can 

be identified: 

1. A claim (which appears in the media and in the 

legislature) that cost savings will be realized, and that 

these savings are collective property “owed” to citizens as a reward for supporting the effort. 

2. A redefinition of the utility of traditional military 

tools in a changed, post-conflict society, accompanied 

sometimes by a larger conversation about the utility 

of the hegemon’s leading position in the international 

system. 

3. A tendency for new presidential doctrines to 

emerge that drive defense policy, including defense 

cuts. 

4. A search for new, “cheaper” military technologies developed during wartime to be used in place of 

conventional military forces. 

5. A sense that the military, which grew powerful 

during wartime, should now take a backseat in society while problems like social welfare are tackled by 

policymakers. 

6. A tendency for threats to be redefined in both 

the short and long term.

1

DO FEWER RESOURCES MEAN 

LESS INFLUENCE?

A COMPARATIVE HISTORICAL CASE STUDY 

OF MILITARY INFLUENCE IN A TIME 

OF AUSTERITY

INTRODUCTION

At the end of every recent war, whether the United 

States has achieved a decisive victory or not, the ensuing drawdown and demobilization has resulted in a 

smaller, more fiscally constrained military. Post-war 

cutbacks have affected all services—impacting the 

overall size of the force, the money available for training, military research and development, and normal 

activities such as infrastructure and equipment maintenance. Here, the United States is not alone. Rather, 

retrenchment after a conflict is a political phenomenon 

noted in many states, both those that are democratic 

and those that are not. Indeed, it is often identified as 

part of a cycle. 

In looking at military drawdowns after conflicts, 

the redeployment of resources to other sectors is often 

described and explained with reference to the shorthand phrase “guns vs. butter.” The guns vs. butter 

dynamic suggests that public opinion and domestic 

political factors often combine in the aftermath of conflicts to produce a narrative suggesting that citizens 

should be rewarded for their loyalty during a conflict by receiving the benefits of a “peace dividend.” 

In such a scenario, the overwhelming impetus is to 

pump the savings that are ostensibly realized by the 

end of conflict into domestic social programs—to include infrastructure projects like roads and buildings, 

as well as social benefits like tax reductions and in-
2

creases in pensions and welfare payments. Discussion 

of a peace dividend rests on the assumption that there 

are opportunity costs sustained during conflict—specifically, the idea that decisions to increase a nation’s 

defense often affect decisions about domestic spending priorities. As President Dwight D. Eisenhower 

famously described the dilemma: 

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, 

every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft 

from those who hunger and are not fed, those who 

are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not 

spending money alone. It is spending the sinew of its 

laborers, the genius of its scientists, and the hopes of 

its children.1

Here, it should be noted that an academic consensus regarding the existence or the extent of the guns 

vs. butter trade-off does not exist. Rather, as Alex 

Mintz and Chi Huang point out, some analysts have 

described governments that are “stingy” as being 

stingy on all fronts. That is, governments that undertake austerity programs frequently do not distinguish 

between the need for defense spending and the need 

for social spending. In addition, they note that other 

analysts describe defense and welfare spending as 

“driven by different dynamics” in such a way that 

spending is not zero-sum. A cut in military spending 

does not automatically transfer to welfare spending, 

nor does the opposite always occur.2

However, a reliance on the so-called bureaucratic 

politics model has led analysts to describe the events 

that occur after a conflict merely as a contest for the 

deployment of resources. This model for understanding organizational behavior, popularized by Graham 

Allison in his analysis of the decisionmaking process 
3

undertaken by U.S. policymakers during the Cuban 

Missile Crisis, posits that politics is best understood as 

a contest for resources and influences between a discrete number of unitary actors, usually bureaucratic 

agencies. In this scenario, a conflict is decided when 

one player prevails over the other in the contest for 

resources. The party that controls the lion’s share of 

resources also gains the most influence within the political system. In this model, the contest is zero-sum, 

meaning that one agency’s gain is another’s loss.3

The bureaucratic politics or contest for resources 

model has been used to frame current discussions 

about both actual and proposed defense cuts that have 

either taken place or are slated to take place between 

2013 and 2016. For example, in an article entitled, “The 

Dismal Present and Future of Smart Defense,” analyst 

Stephen Saideman used the following language to 

describe cutbacks taking place throughout the North 

Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO): 

Any decision to cut some capabilities and keep others means that there will be winners and losers in the 

armed forces of each member. Those likely to lose may 

put up a fight to protect their branch of the armed forces. This is what we have long expected bureaucrats to 

do—protect their budgets, their portfolios and their 

autonomy.4

In this contest, there are clear winners and losers, 

agencies that increase in prestige and influence, personnel, and opportunities for their employees, and 

agencies that lose the contest for prestige, power, and 

influence. The indicators used to identify winners and 

losers are quite straightforward in this type of analysis. One can point to specific activities that took place 

leading up to the budget sequestration of 2013—including personnel cuts and cancellation and cutbacks 
4

in weapons procurement—as an indicator of the U.S. 

military’s loss of influence in policymaking. In this scenario, recent cutbacks in the number of Navy vessels 

ready for combat, the numbers of Air Force personnel, 

and the plan to cut back the size of the U.S. Army to 

the levels it had shortly after World War II can all be 

read not only as a loss in budget but also as a loss of 

prestige and influence within policymaking circles. In 

this model, the group with the largest “footprint” in 

Washington in terms of real estate, budget, and personnel can be seen as having the most influence.5

 (That 

is, military spending is seen as an acceptable proxy for 

calculating military influence).6 In addition, the contest between agencies for resources also extends to a 

contest between agencies for employee opportunities 

and employee resources, as well as ultimately a contest between agencies to hire the most competent and 

skilled people.7

The bureaucratic politics perspective is reflected in 

an analysis of military spending put forth by Mackenzie Eaglen of the American Enterprise Institute. 

In an article entitled, “Shrinking Bureaucracy, Overhead and Infrastructure: Why This Defense Drawdown Must Be Different for the Pentagon,” she has 

argued that:

President Barack Obama has been reducing military 

capability, capacity and budgets since entering office over 4 years ago. . . . In 2012, the White House 

directed another 78 billion dollars to be cut from the 

Pentagon’s request in the name of loosely identified 

efficiencies. . . . The result is that [the Department of 

Defense] has been drawing down, scaling back war 

plans, absorbing ever more efficiencies, canceling 

weapons systems and reducing readiness for the past 

4 years. These trends are not likely to fade any time 

soon.8
5

In applying the bureaucratic politics model to understanding how cuts in defense spending—including 

the loss of personnel and programs—occur, analysts 

traditionally have pointed to a contest between hawks 

and doves within Congress. In this scenario, hawkish 

senators and representatives (who are usually Republican) seek to control significant positions within the 

House and Senate, such as the majority of seats on 

the Senate Armed Services Committee, while dovish 

senators and representatives seek to do the same. Each 

group fights for the interests of its constituents—with 

doves seeking to divert resources away from military 

projects and spending toward domestic political programs, including those administered by the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as the 

Departments of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Education. At the same time, 

hawks seek to control greater military resources, usually by attempting to pull resources away from other 

projects whose constituencies are largely domestic. 

In addition, the bureaucratic politics model has been 

used to describe a contest between various branches of 

the armed forces, with the suggestion that a nation’s 

ground, air, and naval forces might compete against 

each other to increase the size of their budgets, with 

each claiming that their organization’s readiness is 

the most important value to be preserved in a time of 

increased austerity. 

We can also point to a contest between two specific 

branches of government—the Armed Forces and the 

Department of the Treasury. As Vincenzo Bove and 

Roberto Nistico note, “The Armed Forces tend to hate 

ministries of finance more than their notional enemies, 

since cutbacks may be driven by financial crises.”9
6

As illustrated here, the bureaucratic politics model 

depends on the fact that planning for defense cutbacks often occurs in a public sphere where all actors 

are aware of and party to the deliberations involved. 

The media and politicians often frame the discussion 

as a conversation about how ‘our national resources’ 

should be spent—whether they should be held by 

defense planners in order to prepare for contingencies that may or may not occur in the distant future 

or whether they should be immediately distributed to 

the taxpayers in the form of public goods or tax cuts. 

Politicians and administrators are put in a position 

where their expertise counts as much as that of the 

military experts, and the result is a situation in which 

actors other than the military end up shaping not 

only the military budget, but also the doctrines and 

strategies that depend on and stem from the resource 

base allowed for military operations. In this way, both 

American grand strategy and specific military strategies and doctrines are often shaped by a large group 

of bureaucratic interests, including public opinion, 

congressional representatives who may overemphasize the interests of their constituencies, think tanks, 

and academics.

THE CONTEST FOR RESOURCES VS. 

“STRATEGIC CULTURE”

While the bureaucratic politics model suggests 

that agencies engage in competition merely for its 

own sake—in order to grow their organizations and 

increase their footprint in Washington—other analysts have suggested that the share of resources commanded by a particular agency is actually an indicator 

of a deeper phenomenon. That is, it is too simplistic 
7

merely to say that, for example, in Britain in the interwar period, a contest for resources took place between Britain’s Exchequer (Treasury Department) 

and the branches of the military and that the Treasury 

prevailed over the military in that contest. Instead, it 

is important to consider what military spending was 

seen to represent in Britain in the interwar period 

and how the military’s resourcing affected what it 

was and was not able to accomplish within the international system. 

As Charles J. Hitch, an advisor to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, famously noted, “Strategy 

and cost are as interdependent as the front and rear 

sights of a rifle.”10 Here, Hitch tied together the ways 

in which planners might change doctrines not for reasons of military strategy but instead for reasons of cost. 

He was particularly concerned with the ways in which 

planners might choose a cheaper new technology, like 

nuclear weapons, over a more expensive technology, 

like an armed invasion. His analysis points out that, 

in some instances, “economics drives the train” and 

that considerations of costs may eventually weigh into 

how objectives are defined and strategies and tactics 

are drawn up. 

At the same time, Kier has noted that doctrines 

may also rest on decisions made by civilians, who 

may have their assumptions about how the military is 

supposed to work within society, how much power it 

is supposed to have, and how military power should 

fit into power politics overall within society.11 She argues that an organization’s budget is both a symbol 

of its power vis-à-vis other organizations in a society 

and that the organization’s budget may be contingent upon other larger issues—such as how voters 

think about civil-military relations in a democracy, 

for example. 
8

Her strategic culture approach thus offers a much 

longer and broader temporal perspective for understanding funding decisions. The bureaucratic politics 

model looks only at limited or immediate competition 

for resources between agencies and tends to describe 

a conflict as won or lost at the moment a decision is 

made about the division of resources between agencies. In contrast, the strategic culture model may treat 

the final decision about finances as the culmination of 

a contest or debate that has been ongoing for a longer 

period of time. That is, by the time that Congress has 

decided to reign in defense spending, the process by 

which the military has been losing influence and failing to shape the debate about its future role may have 

been occurring for several years already.

 A strategic culture approach places debates about 

the necessity of military spending within a broader 

conversation about the overall position of the United 

States in the world today, about the utility of military 

force in general, and about American military force in 

particular. Here, strategic culture is defined as “the 

nexus between domestic politics and grand strategy—

or an analysis of their role of domestic political events 

in establishing grand strategy.”12 In this perspective, 

a move to cut the military’s budget may say something deeper about changes in civil-military relations 

in a society. This model suggests that, when defense 

cutbacks occur, they are often attempts to stem the 

influence, power, and prestige of the military within 

society by depriving it of resources and, as a result, 

of influence. In such a scenario, the President might 

thus seek to privilege other types of solutions to international conflict—such as an economic or diplomatic 

solution—over a military solution and a result reducing the perceived utility of having a strong military. 
9

In this way, the drive to maintain military readiness 

may come to be seen as less crucial, once the military 

solution is no longer the obvious solution to every 

problem that arises in the international system. 

In this paradigm, we can see how a well-resourced 

military also has a significant voice within policy debates. Here, military officials will often serve as key 

interpreters of the political events that are occurring in 

the world and may even have the last word in terms of 

defining the threats facing the nation. Military leaders 

can also influence the types of military solutions that 

are considered, with each branch agitating for a solution that would prioritize the use of its own forces. Using this perspective, we can see that the U.S. military 

has been well resourced for most of the years since 

the end of World War II, occurring in tandem with 

the increasingly prominent role the military had in the 

formulation of foreign policy during this time frame.13

As Elizabeth Kier has pointed out, the question 

of how much power the military in particular should 

have within a democratic society (in terms of resources and influence) is one where the answer may vary, 

depending on a nation’s history. Military funding decisions within a society may often grow out of special 

historical, political, and cultural understandings. In 

her study of French military policy in the 1970s, she 

suggests that the French decision to embrace the socalled force de frappe strategy—in which military resources were redirected to social programs, and the 

decision was made to depend on the cheaper nuclear 

option over preparing and training a strong conventional force—was a particularly French decision best 

understood through referencing the prominent role 

that traditionally had been played in politics by military personnel, including General Charles de Gaulle. 
10

She argues that some French policymakers were concerned with what having a highly trained and strong 

conventional force might mean for French democracy, 

and thus the decision was made to spend money on 

armaments rather than personnel.14 In addition, she 

argues that the decision to cut back on the French 

military during this time period was a reflection of a 

larger conversation about the role France should play 

in the world and whether or not empire was necessary 

or desirable. 

Similarly, we can consider the British decisionmaking process regarding the equipping of Britain’s 

Navy after World War I, or to embrace an East of 

Suez strategy in the 1970s as being not merely conversations about defense budgets, but rather as part 

of a larger societal conversation about whether Britain needed to be an empire and who should bear the 

costs of sustaining that empire. Finally, the strategic 

culture paradigm can help to explain why a region 

might be perceived as being particularly militarily important at one time—but not at another. Here, we can 

consider why it was perceived as important during 

the 1980s for the United States to be deeply militarily 

involved in Latin America and why it is not regarded 

the same way today. We can also consider the degree 

to which U.S. military spending discussions currently 

are embedded within larger conversations about what 

the U.S. Mideast policy should be and how important it is for America to continue to engage in Iraq 

in particular. 

In the strategic culture paradigm, the priority for 

military spending is not a given. Indeed, international system structure alone does not predict military 

spending. Rather, states can decide to fund a large and 

active military largely for domestic political reasons 
11

(such as using the military to guarantee a stable world 

for free trade, which benefits citizens economically at 

home) or to cut back for the same reasons. 

In applying a strategic culture approach to understanding current military spending decisions, we can 

point to two recent developments within academic 

and policy circles that have helped to structure the 

climate in which defense cuts have occurred. First, 

we can consider the discourse about “securitization,” 

which has been prevalent in American policy circles 

since September 11, 2001 (9/11). European and American academics have warned against the increasingly 

broad use of security language to describe issues that 

previously might have been described simply as social or criminal problems. Barry Buzan et al. point to 

the ways in which immigration, drugs, and poverty 

are also increasingly described as serious threats to 

social stability and safety. They warn that the use of 

the phrase “war on” often signals an attempt by state 

authorities to pursue an end without paying sufficient 

attention to citizens’ civil liberties and rights.15 More 

recently, academics and pundits have warned against 

government overreach in the areas of surveillance 

and tracking, carried out by government agencies like 

the National Security Agency. This has resulted in a 

more generalized fear that security and public agencies, emboldened by post-9/11 increases in personnel and budgets, may be driven to co-opt more and 

more social functions within society, as they seek to 

broaden their influence and portfolios of activities. In 

addition, analysts argue that the distinction between a 

foreign military activity and a domestic counterintelligence or policing activity is becoming less and less 

clear-cut today. Thus, there is a fear that providing 

military and police forces with large budgets might 
12

somehow serve not to make citizens safer, but rather 

to chip away gradually at their rights. 

At the same time, both in Britain after World War 

I and in the United States today, the broader debate 

taking place is not simply about how large a military 

is needed in a post-war world, but it is rather about 

what it means to be a hegemon in that post-war world. 

Today, the debate about the size of America’s military is situated within a larger debate about whether 

America is still a superpower, whether it is necessary 

that it perform as one, and the question of whether a 

hegemon is necessary to organize and administer the 

international system. 

AMERICA’S STRATEGIC CULTURE: 

LESSONS FROM THE PAST

As this introduction has made clear, in considering 

the context in which current debates about American 

restructuring are taking place, it is useful to look at 

the past and to consider similar historic examples. The 

situation in which the United States has found itself 

in the past years is not actually unusual. It is common 

for states to take stock periodically and to attempt to 

affect a balance between the military need for defense 

and the state’s domestic priorities in terms of providing for social welfare and benefits programs. This set 

of activities is particularly likely to take place in the 

aftermath of a war—where there may be a push for 

a seeming “return to normal”—when the pendulum 

swings back from a wartime mobilization of resources 

to one where defense is seen as less critical, while domestic needs are seen as more pressing. The desire to 

“balance” domestic economic needs and military priorities can be observed as occurring in the 20th cen-
13

tury in Britain, the United States, France, and, most 

recently, in Israel. 

The post-war period thus is often viewed as a period of stock-taking—both internally within the military 

and also within a broader societal context. Internally, 

military planners can consider the lessons learned 

from the conflict and make recommendations as to 

how the lessons learned can be applied to planning 

for the next war. Indeed, it has been argued that the 

austere military budgets that may emerge in the postwar period allow for the military to consider carefully 

and strategically the next steps, moving purposefully 

to spend funds well and considerately. Outside of the 

military, this stock-taking may include the creation 

of study committees (both within the legislature and 

within various think tanks) and the holding of congressional hearings to consider the new post-war environment and the unique challenges it may pose. 

Perhaps the best-known historic example of the 

establishment of such a commission is the creation in 

1902 in Britain of the Committee of Imperial Defense 

(CID), which answered to Britain’s Parliament. The 

commission considered Britain’s activities in its colonial territories and the larger question of what types 

of military presence Britain should have abroad. The 

organization, which answered to Britain’s Prime Minister, Lord Arthur Balfour, included representatives 

from both the British Navy and Army, and was later 

widened to include cabinet ministers. The organization’s mandate was understood to be “determining 

the work for which the army and navy have to be 

fitted and how they are to be fitted for it”16 and was 

later widened to consider “the military needs of the 

empire.” The committee met every 2 weeks and considered a wide variety of issues, including how cus-
14

toms duties should be charged during wartime, how 

the invention of the wireless telegraphy might affect 

military activities, and how ships should be insured 

during wartime. They also carried out what we might 

describe today as defense planning simulations, concluding that Britain did not need to worry about an 

invasion, for example.17 Those who favored the committee saw it as a vital step toward interagency cooperation, as well as international cooperation. However, many naval officers argued that many group 

members were insufficiently versed in the issues being 

studied and that the attempts by Parliament to regulate the military spending patterns and future plans 

of the military constituted an undue intrusion into 

military affairs. 

As the example of Britain’s CID shows, particularly in post-conflict transitions, all domestic policy 

players (the executive branch, the legislative branch, 

and the agencies that administer the budget, social affairs, and the military) may not agree about the nature 

of the threats facing the state, their severity, or which 

threats are most likely to emerge in the long term. In 

this transition period, the danger is that the military 

will come to be seen as unnecessary or irrelevant and 

that this decision will be made by nonmilitary actors, 

who may have different assumptions and informational bases on which to make this decision. In many 

cases, the prevailing winds in the post-war period 

may lean toward a re-examination of the utility of 

military force and the utility of armed conflict. There 

may be a move both nationally and globally toward 

disarmament, with a push to establish understandings quickly between nations regarding limits on the 

production and deployment of weaponry. At the same 

time, there is a danger that warnings by the military 
15

about the nature of emerging threats will be unheeded 

by agencies and players with different priorities and 

different agendas. 

In several historic examples, one can identify the 

ways in which legislative committees, legislative hearings, and consultative studies carried out by independent think tanks and study groups have affected government decisions regarding how post-war balancing 

and budget reprioritization should take place. In some 

cases, outside authorities have acted to shift military 

strategies by altering large-scale strategic thinking regarding the types of scenarios the military needs to 

prepare for; deciding how large the purview of the 

state should be in world affairs; and deciding whether 

the emphasis should be on homeland defense or defense of territories abroad that fall into the state’s orbit. Study committees and public hearings have also 

succeeded in altering military strategies due to cuts 

that render certain scenarios logistically untenable. 

For example, in deciding that a state will not fund its 

own specialized weaponry but will instead depend on 

specialization and sharing of resources among allies, 

a study committee or congressional committee can 

affect the ability of a service or nation to act unilaterally. In other cases, specific types of cuts to either 

manpower or weaponry have succeeded in shifting 

military tactics and doctrines through altering the balance of resources available to the military. Finally, a 

budget decision may force a military to rely more on 

“cheaper” new technologies and, as a result, cause it to 

abandon reliance on other sorts of weapons. This phenomenon, however, has been insufficiently studied 

and is not sufficiently acknowledged. Instead, there 

is a tendency to treat changes in strategies, doctrines, 

and tactics as emanating from the military services 
16

themselves without considering the ways in which 

cost-cutting measures and decisions may constrain 

military planning and thought. 

In this analysis, I present three comparative case 

studies of previous defense reductions. First, I consider the debates that occurred in British society regarding the curtailment of military spending in the 

period between World Wars I and II. In many ways, 

the situation in Britain in the early-20th century can be 

compared to the situation in the United States in the 

early-21st century. At the end of World War I, both the 

general public and the Labour politicians campaigned 

for a devastating system of defense cutbacks—including the cancellation of programs for British naval 

modernization and large-scale cutbacks in human resources—in order to fund increased social programs 

at home. The contest between Britain’s treasury department (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) and Britain’s military branches played out over the course of 

15 years, from 1919 until 1934. While the contest was 

ostensibly only about the deposition of fiscal resources 

within Britain, it also both framed and defined a larger 

set of issues—including what Britain’s role should be 

in the world, how many of the defense resources Britain was currently providing to its possessions overseas could conceivably be outsourced to the possessions themselves, and who should define the nature of 

the strategic threats facing Britain in the future and on 

what basis this decision could be made. In addition, 

there was a question of technology—specifically, how 

should developments in the newly created British air 

force be understood? What were the cost savings to 

be reaped from this new technology, and to what degree was it appropriate for Britain to count on its new 
17

and modern air force to make up for fiscal cutbacks 

in other areas, including the navy and ground forces? 

In addition, the British case raises the interesting 

question of what Jürgen Brauer and Hubert Van Tuyll 

have termed the law of marginal return.18 This principle, derived from economics, suggests that there may 

be a limit to the utility that an organization can reap 

through continuing to grow, and that it is possible to 

define a point at which more of something is not always better. They draw on the example of shipbuilding, with the British Navy suggesting that, beyond a 

certain point, there are no more economies of scale to 

be reaped by increasing the size of a battleship. At this 

point, it makes no more sense to keep diverting resources to this goal, and suggest that, instead, resources should be put elsewhere. The question for British 

planners was, as it is for Americans today, whether 

it is ever possible to decide that one has purchased 

enough military security—both offensive and defensive—and that there are few returns to be reaped by 

continuing to purchase more.

As they note, calculating marginal returns into 

the future also involves prediction, based on assumptions about what that future will look like.19 At what 

point was it appropriate for British defense planners 

to decide that Britain’s lead over its adversaries was 

sufficiently great that it was appropriate to seek only 

to maintain that edge, rather than seeking to improve 

it? Clearly, the study of British defense cuts can hold 

many lessons for U.S. military leaders today.

The second case study looks at U.S. decisions regarding defense cutbacks in the post-Vietnam era. It 

is in this time period that the term “peace dividend” 

is first utilized to describe an understanding that the 

cost savings derived from the withdrawal of Ameri-
18

ca’s military presence in Southeast Asia could be reapplied to address social problems within the United 

States. In this period, a discussion also took place about 

the utility of nuclear weapons, including anti-ballistic 

missiles, to replace American reliance on conventional 

forces. The resulting discussion about the “hollowing 

out” of the U.S. military helps us to consider both the 

costs and benefits of such an approach. Again, there 

are several clear lessons to be derived from this analysis which can be applied to understanding current 

debates about cost savings, the reapplication of these 

funds, and the savings from technology. 

The third case study considers the public debate 

that took place beginning in 1989 about the peace 

dividend the United States expected to see as the result of defense builddowns in the aftermath of the 

Cold War. While certain features of this time period 

were unique (including the speed at which the Soviet threat was seen to have fallen apart), there are 

still many lessons that can be applied to the current 

situation. In particular, the debate about the nature of 

the threat, which took place between the intelligence 

community and the military, suggests that developing 

a consensus about future threats is very difficult but 

ultimately necessary. 

The monograph concludes with a list of recommendations to U.S. military leaders regarding ways 

in which they can ensure that the U.S. military, particularly the Army’s powerful and important voice in 

policymaking in Washington, will still be preserved, 

despite cuts to programs and infrastructure.
19

Case Study 1: Britain’s Post-War “Ten Year Rule.”

At the conclusion of World War I, Britain emerged 

a victor. Britain’s navy was the largest and best 

equipped in the world, and the state had begun to put 

together an air force. The war had given Britain an 

opportunity to make strides in military doctrine and 

preparedness. However, Britain had spent an estimated $47 billion (in 1913 U.S. dollars) in concert with 

other commonwealth nations on the conflict. Stephen 

Broadberry and Mark Harrison describe World War 

I as a war of attrition in which the nations that were 

wealthy enough to fight on eventually prevailed. They 

describe the war as a contest in which wealthy nations 

like Germany, France, Britain, and the United States 

eventually “ground each other down with rising force 

levels and rising losses.”20 The war concluded in November 1918, after a period of 4 years. The terms of 

the German surrender—requiring their military disarmament and a stiff economic reparations payment 

package—served to convince both British citizens and 

policymakers that, at least for the foreseeable future, 

Britain was not in any danger militarily. These terms 

were codified in the Treaty of Versailles, which was 

signed on June 28, 1919. At the same time, the British public was wearying of Britain’s role of subduing conflicts in the colonies, particularly in the wake 

of the Amritsar massacre in India in 1919. Together, 

these forces combined to produce a climate that was 

unsupportive of further military expenditures and 

investments. 

Thus, in July 1919, Cabinet Secretary Lord Maurice 

Hankey wrote a memo to Prime Minister (PM) Lloyd 

George arguing that now that the war was over, it was 

important to reduce “non-productive expenditures on 
20

armed services to within narrowest limits consistent 

with national safety.”21 G. C. Peden argues that the 

Prime Minister was attempting to balance the budget 

and carry out social reforms, largely by economizing 

on defense expenditures.22 As a result, in August 1919, 

Her Majesty’s Cabinet made the decision to reduce 

defense spending, based on the assumption that the 

British Empire did not anticipate participating in any 

conflict similar in scope and size to World War I—at 

least for the next 10 years. In 1921, Foreign Secretary 

Austen Chamberlain described the prospect of war 

with Japan as “very remote.” Winston Churchill, who 

served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1924 until 

1930, again noted there was no foreseeable danger of 

war with Japan and thus no need for Britain to build 

additional ships or bases, nor to strengthen its base 

in Singapore. 

Based on these understandings, the decision was 

made in 1919 that Britain did not need to consider 

arming or mobilizing in preparation for such a conflict. This decision, which came to be known as the 

Ten Year Rule, has been described by some scholars 

as a decision to give the Treasury Department control 

over British service policies.23 However, Christopher 

Bell points out that the situation is actually more complicated and that the decision to limit military spending was, in part, the outcome of a clash between the 

Foreign Office and the Admiralty, both of which were 

attempting to set foreign policy. Cutting off naval 

modernization thus allowed the Foreign Office to take 

the lead in making policy.24

In retrospect, it seems stunning that Britain should 

adopt such a bizarre policy as the Ten Year Rule. It 

is particularly difficult to understand the role which 

Churchill himself, the visionary figure who led Britain 
21

through World War II, played in helping to dismantle 

Britain’s military in the interwar period. However, 

though Churchill was a brilliant military strategist 

throughout the 1920s, he wore his “treasury hat” 

and acted in the interests of the Treasury, rather than 

the military. He actually appeared hostile toward 

the navy, which he described as wasteful, speaking of “dockyards . . . choked with war vessels.”25

He thus put forth the understanding that the navy 

was overbuilt and that moving to a normal post-war 

footing involved not simply ceasing production, but 

cutting back. 

The decision not to regard Japan as a threat and 

to behave as though modernization was unnecessary 

does not appear to have been based on intelligence 

estimates, including military intelligence—but rather 

was a purposive decision made by politicians. In addition, the Ten Year Rule was considered a “rolling assumption”—meaning that every year the assumption 

was renewed, and the 10-year clock began again. In 

this way, the Ten Year Rule was used to justify decisions to reduce the absolute size of Britain’s military 

both in terms of manpower and equipment, to defer 

its modernization programs, and to delay improvements to bases around the world. At the same time, 

Britain’s commonwealth possessions were urged to 

take on gradually more responsibility for their own 

defense and defense policymaking. As a result of the 

Ten Year Rule, defense expenditures were cut by more 

than half from the years 1919 until 1932. 

The Ten Year Rule alone was not the only factor in 

the builddown or stagnation of Britain’s armed forces 

that occurred during that time. In addition, there was 

an international consensus to prevent an arms race that 

was codified in the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 
22

and the London Naval Treaty of 1930. Both agreements 

limited the size of navies for all participants—The 

United States, Britain, and Japan. However, as Jeremy 

Black argues, while Britain sought to end an arms race 

with the United States, the real victor was Japan, which 

was able to increase its standing in the naval contest 

during this time. In effect, Britain opted out of competing with Japan, thus ceding to Japan the opportunity to 

achieve parity.26

The Ten Year Rule remained in effect until 1932 

when it was revoked largely due to the actions of

Japan, which clashed with China in Manchuria.27

The rule is nonetheless seen as the main reason why 

Britain was caught unaware and unable to respond 

in this crisis. In 1933, Britain established the Defense 

Requirements Subcommittee (DRQ) to look at existing deficiencies in British rearmament and defense 

policy.28 Here again, the lead in making these decisions was not granted to the military itself but rather 

to the Treasury. Thus the Treasury is seen as responsible for the decision not to devote sufficient resources 

to reconstituting the military industrial infrastructure 

needed by Britain at the outset of World War II. Bell 

even goes so far as to suggest that the British government initially adopted an appeasement strategy with 

Germany largely because of its deficient industrial 

base caused by granting Treasury control over the 

making of defense policy.29 He also suggests that the 

DRQ thus “made policy” in the sense that it decided 

that Germany was a greater threat than Japan and 

oriented defense spending based on that assumption. In considering the deliberations over the military 

budget that occurred in the 1930s, therefore, Britain’s 

military branches are seen as playing largely a passive 

role. They did not take a key part in making financial 
23

decisions regarding their own weapons systems, nor 

were they key players in deciding which threats were 

the most serious and what steps should be taken to 

prepare for coming conflicts. 

As this brief case study shows, the period after the 

end of conflict was particularly damaging for Britain’s 

navy, air force, and ground troops. Domestic pressures to invest more in social services, the public’s 

war-weariness, and the failure of the military to work 

together or to formulate a strong message about the 

dangers facing Britain and the steps needed to secure 

Britain militarily all combined to make the military the 

“loser” in the bureaucratic contest for resources. Britain’s military failed not only to campaign in Whitehall 

and to win allies for its positions, but in a larger sense, 

they failed to convey the exact nature of the threats 

facing Britain and the importance of maintaining a 

strong military even during peacetime. In present-day 

terms, we might argue that they failed to “capture 

the narrative.” 

LESSONS FOR TODAY FROM POST-WAR 

BRITAIN

In considering the military drawdown in Britain 

after World War I and the adoption of the Ten Year 

Rule in particular, there are several dynamics of interest to analysts today. First, Britain then resembled 

the United States today in the sense that the public 

evinced a war weariness and lack of commitment to 

military spending, given economic difficulties facing 

the nation and its population. The United States is still 

recovering from the 2008 economic meltdown with 

employment levels, housing starts, and consumer 

spending still not back to earlier levels. At the same 
24

time, Britain faced a post-war economy with high unemployment and housing shortages. These problems 

were exacerbated by the worldwide Great Depression that began in 1929. In both Britain and the United 

States, the general public voiced the issue as one of 

guns versus butter. 

But what lessons does the British example offer for 

military personnel today? We can point to five crucial 

lessons for military leaders today who wish to maintain a strong military that is ready for conflict, even 

during peacetime:

1. Do not get caught up in interservice warfare 

and rivalries. As this example shows, it will be particularly important for all American military branches 

to present a unified front in terms of identifying the 

most critical dangers to U.S. national security interests in the short term and long term, since a division 

among the services will lessen their bargaining power 

in Washington. Bureaucratic infighting among the 

services will lessen their ability to make defense 

spending a priority.

In the British example, we note that until 1936, 

there was no single Minister for Defense tasked with 

speaking for all service branches. Instead, the different branches each had different priorities and saw different emerging threats. Britain’s navy and air force 

often failed to work together to formulate defense 

policy and did not share a view of the specific strategic threats facing Britain. Instead, the navy was preoccupied with the threat of a rising Japan as well as the 

possibility of a naval arms race with the United States, 

while the Royal Air Force was particularly worried 

about the possibility of air war with Germany. The 

two sides failed to coordinate policies and strategies 

and thus both were vulnerable to a loss of influence 

and resources. 
25

Today, in the United States, the joint operations environment seeks to reconcile competing or contradicting views regarding the nature of emerging threats. 

However, one might still argue that the Navy is most 

concerned with the China threat and the emergence 

of conflict in the South China Sea, while U.S. ground 

forces are particularly oriented toward training for 

and reacting to the prospect of increased instability in 

the Middle East. We can also point to recent reporting 

on disagreements between leaders of the Air National 

Guard and the Air Force active duty and reserve leaders regarding the duties of the two groups. As the 

report indicates, disputes have been noted regarding 

the role of the National Guard in carrying out cyber 

and intelligence activities, as well as surveillance and 

reconnaissance activities.30 There are also disputes regarding how duties are to be shared and reconciled 

between the branches. In each case, these disputes are 

part of a larger conversation about the ways in which 

homeland defense and defense of the United States 

beyond its borders are to be thought of, as separate, 

complementary, or unified activities. 

The British example shows that during periods 

of time when there is a lack of consensus about doctrine and objectives, it is also more likely that defense 

cutbacks will take place. Similarly, when there is a 

competition between players due to lack of consensus 

about doctrine and objectives, it is also more likely 

that defense cutbacks will take place.31 Messaging and 

unity of objectives are thus particularly important 

during these periods of instability and flux. As the 

British example shows, in an atmosphere of scarcity, 

the branches competed among themselves, and none 

of them was independently successful in convincing 

Parliament or the Prime Minister of the importance of 

preparing for conflict. 
26

Finally, it is important for the armed services to 

avoid the temptation to cannibalize each other’s budgets during a period of austerity or to create a situation 

in which one is “robbing Peter to pay Paul.”32 Though 

it is clearly necessary for the United States to take the 

lead, for example, in the area of cyber warfare, this 

leading position should be maintained without taking 

those costs from another area, such as naval defense.

2. Be prepared for a rethinking of the utility of 

military force in general, and specific types of military force in particular, in the aftermath of a conflict. 

In the British example, each military branch believed 

that the international system itself could be objectively 

examined and that, in doing so, all participants would 

instinctively understand what the threats were and 

why having strong ground forces, a navy, or an air 

force were necessary to defend against that particular 

threat. That is, they assumed that planning decisions 

were going to be made on the basis of objective facts 

derived from an analysis of the international system. 

The international system was thus seen by the military players themselves as dictating budget decisions.

However, to borrow contemporary international 

relations language, one could argue that in the postconflict situation, both the concepts of threat and of 

military necessity were actually socially constructed 

by a variety of actors. There was no absolute consensus regarding what the most pressing threats were to 

Britain in the post-conflict environment, nor was there 

a consensus regarding how much security Britain 

needed to possess to function effectively in its environment. Rather, different players—including Parliament, the Committee on Imperial Defense members, 

the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
27

and the public—all saw the situation differently, and 

each arrived at a conclusion based on how they put 

the same set of data together. Each group came to its 

own conclusions regarding how to interpret events in 

the international system—which ones to prioritize or 

weight more heavily, which ones to ignore, and how 

to assemble the information that remained. Since the 

international system was also dynamic, events that 

arose during the window in which budget decisions 

were made tended to be overemphasized by planners, who were less able to consider events that might 

arise in the future, particularly in the distant future. 

As intelligence planners have long argued, prediction 

about future events become more and more difficult 

as the time horizon is extended. For that reason, decisions regarding what the threat level for Britain might 

be in 10 years were based on an individual’s values 

and hopes, rather than on significant available data.

In the British example, the Royal Air Force (RAF), 

created in 1918, was the clear winner in the contest 

for resources, largely because it was best able to redefine its mission in the post-war period. In addition, the 

RAF benefitted from opportunities to prove its utility 

through participation in colonial conflicts in British Somaliland and Afghanistan.33 As Bruce Hoffman states, 

the RAF was able to redefine its peacetime mission as 

one of “‘policing the empire.” They also quickly won 

the support of Chancellor of the Exchequer Churchill, 

who argued in 1920 that the responsibility for Iraq 

should be taken from the army (and the colonial office) and given to the air force—for financial reasons. 

In the post-World War I period, ground forces in particular came to be seen as slow and expensive, versus 

the newly emerging air power which could be reconfigured and deployed more quickly. 
28

At the same time, however, the British public itself 

evinced a war-weariness that extended to their lack of 

support for imperial adventures. Public opinion did 

not attribute much utility to any type of military force, 

though air power was preferred due to its lower costs. 

The lesson for today’s military planners is clear. 

Any perception of utility that they may have won 

through past developments in Iraq and Afghanistan 

will likely expire quickly. It will be important for all 

branches to clarify their new missions and to argue 

for the continued utility of military strength as a component of overall U.S. foreign policy. In no situation 

should military planners assume that the data speaks 

for itself or that the utility and value of military force 

is self-evident or obvious. It is important for the military not to be perceived as unnecessary or outdated. 

Here, new policies that stress the utility of military 

actors in Phase Zero operations help to maintain this 

understanding.

3. Consider the trade-off between old and new 

weapons. As the British example also shows, there 

is an inherent temptation for politicians to see new 

technologies as cheaper and more efficient, and thus 

as a means to overall cost savings on military spending. Thus, not surprisingly, the dynamics of military 

spending in Britain produced a situation where new 

programs (in the areas of weapons research and development) were directly competing with older programs. There was a common understanding that, in 

order for Britain to move ahead as a leader in air force 

and aviation warfare, the “bite” needed to be taken 

out of the navy. Similarly, today, one can identify a 

dynamic in which it is possible that the funding of 

new programs like drones and cyber warfare will be 
29

at the expense of conventional forces, which might not 

be sufficiently maintained or resourced.

4. Always consider the problem of reversibility. 

Thus, it is important for planners to consider the fact 

that in a changed situation, the utility of the weapons 

currently being relied upon may change as well. It is 

very important to stress keeping older weapons up to 

date so that they can be brought back “on line” in the 

future if the situation warrants it. Today, this phenomenon has come to be known as “reversibility.” In the 

British example, we can identify some acknowledgement of this idea of reversibility. In July 1919, Cabinet 

Secretary Hankey’s memo to PM Lloyd George noted 

that “a machinery should exist for re-creating a great 

army,”34 though this might be only a schematic on paper delineating responsibilities. However, in point of 

fact, military industries were allowed to wither away, 

and they were only recreated with great difficulty 

in the late-1930s when they became necessary once 

again. Today, military planners have succeeded in 

making Washington policymakers aware of the concerns of reversibility and the ways in which keeping 

some infrastructure in place for a later contingency is 

a wise risk-averse strategy.

5. Consider the opportunity costs of ceding one’s 

leading position in the development or employment 

of a new technology, not only the short term but in 

the long term as well. The British example also illustrates the phenomenon of path dependence—which 

is defined as a situation in which seemingly minor 

decisions made at the beginning of a production process can have far-reaching, often irreversible and unanticipated, effects later on in a product’s life cycle. 
30

Analysts refer to the ways in which an advantage or 

disadvantage may be “locked in” because once a decision is made and a process is institutionalized, it may 

become prohibitively expensive or impossible to go 

back and change it later. 

In the British example, the Ten Year Rule resulted 

in decisions being made that locked Britain into certain “ways of war” later on. In deciding to builddown 

key naval elements and forgo modernization of military equipment, Britain ceded certain advantages to 

its competitors that it was never able to reclaim later. 

That is, even when the criterion for reversibility are 

met, in that a state can resurrect its industry in time 

to mobilize for war, the state may still lose the advantages that naturally accrue with being the first to develop a technology. In ceding its place as a technological innovator, the state unwittingly cedes something 

else—namely the opportunity to guide the conversation that emerges regarding doctrines and norms for 

the employment of the new technology.35 The nation 

that develops and deploys a new technology first has 

the advantage of being able to shape broader social 

understandings regarding what uses of the technology are legal, ethical, moral, and possible. As a leader 

in the field of aerial combat, Britain thus initiated the 

first ethics discussions of such military technologies 

as strategic bombing and led the way in the development of norms regarding the use of aircraft for the 

aerial delivery of chemical weapons. 

In this way, the early adopters and innovators end 

up having an outsized effect as they shape the conversation for years to come. Public opinion in the nation 

that first develops the technology may come to be seen 

as a crucial variable in guiding the use of technology 

and can affect decisions regarding whether a weap-
31

on should be used for purely defensive purposes or 

whether it can also be used for offensive purposes. As 

Shawn Brimley et al. point out, public opinion can also 

shape the so-called “ladder of escalation” or the perceived requirements for the use of new technologies, 

as well as shaping how a new weapon is perceived 

in relation to existing weaponry. For this reason, they 

speak of the importance of “locking in” America’s 

privileged technology position.36

Unfortunately, U.S. military spending in research 

and development has declined as a consequence of 

the 2011 Budget Control Act at the same time that 

many traditional military research and development 

activities have been increasingly off-loaded to the 

private sector or to U.S. allies. There is an insufficient 

acknowledgement here of the fact that U.S. military 

may also be ceding its right and its ability to have 

the leading voice in conversations that emerge about 

the norms, ethics, and legality surrounding the use 

of technologies like drones, surveillance equipment, 

and cyber warfare tools. When policymakers cede the 

military’s opportunity to have a leading role in the 

development of new technology, they are implicitly 

acknowledging that this new technology may develop 

in ways the United States either never wanted or never 

anticipated. The builders determine the ideology and 

possible uses of new technologies, and technologies 

built by our adversaries—Iran, Russia, or China—may 

implicitly contain a set of values that are antithetical 

to U.S. values. 
32

Case Study 2: Defense Planning in the 

Post-Vietnam Era: The Politics of the 

“Hollow Force.”

The next analogous situation in which defense 

cuts took place after a conflict is the period beginning in the late-1960s and leading up to the 1972 Paris 

Peace Settlement, when policymakers began discussing the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam and the next 

steps to be taken in U.S. military planning. It is during this phase that the phrase “peace dividend” was 

first coined—and it was used in reference to savings 

that would be recouped once the United States was no 

longer involved in the Vietnam War. 

 As Jungkun Seo notes, in the 1966 State of the 

Union address, then-president Lyndon B. Johnson described no conflict between “guns vs. butter,” arguing 

instead that: 

I believe we can do both. We are a country which was 

built by pioneers who had a rifle in one hand an ax 

in the other. . . . We can do both. And as long as I am 

president, we will do both.37

However, by the late-1960s, that understanding 

had changed as the concept of a peace dividend was 

born. The phrase “peace dividend” can be traced back 

to a statement by Assistant Secretary of the Treasury 

Murray L. Weidenbaum in August 1968. He wrote, “It 

is easy enough to conjure up visions of so-called fiscal dividends and peace dividends totaling up more 

than forty billion dollars in the year after peace is 

achieved.”38

Both policymakers and the general public were eager to reap the benefits they saw accruing to the nation 
33

as the result of a cessation of hostilities in Vietnam and 

the Asian region. President Richard Nixon’s chief economic advisors noted in August 1969 that, if the war 

ended immediately, $8 billion would become available 

for civilian programs. As in the British case, a number 

of private and congressional study groups put forth 

analyses and recommendations regarding the existence and preferred deposition of the peace dividend. 

The private Committee for Economic Development 

predicted that defense spending would decline by almost $20 billion in 1971, if troop withdrawals began in 

1969. President Johnson’s Cabinet Coordinating Committee on Economic Planning for the End of Vietnam 

Hostilities was also convened in January 1969. As is 

currently the case, bureaucratic interests quickly identified shortfalls in domestic infrastructure that had 

been ignored at the height of military mobilization, 

including city planning, elementary and secondary 

education, foreign aid, and poverty programs. These 

programs were described as being underfunded, with 

authorizations not being met, along with programs in 

the areas of mass transit and housing. 

While congressional committees thus quickly 

moved to capture the military budget and divert it to 

other pressing U.S. needs, military officers spoke back, 

arguing that even at the height of hostilities in Southeast Asia, the military had been under resourced. 

Defense expenditures fell by over 30 percent from 

1969 until 1975. Thus, they argued that, throughout 

the conflict, insufficient resources had been devoted 

to repairing and building infrastructure, both that of 

physical equipment and human resources. In addition, throughout the 1970s, insufficient resources were 

devoted to weapons modernization, the replacement 

of aging equipment, and the stability of the defense 
34

industry. As Andrew Feickert and Stephen Daggett 

point out, the end of hostilities meant the end of the 

draft in 1973, and the military struggled to establish 

plans to continue to recruit high quality personnel, 

due to salaries that failed to keep pace with inflation, 

along with erosions in benefits.39

In both the post-Vietnam era and today, the general public was war-weary and more concerned with 

domestic economic problems than with conducting an ongoing discussion about defense priorities. 

Presidents Nixon (and later Gerald Ford) and Barack 

Obama spoke directly to the public regarding the 

ways domestic political situations could be repaired 

now that military conflict would no longer draw such 

a high level of citizen and public resources, and both 

Nixon and Obama framed foreign policy doctrines 

renouncing U.S. unilateral military activities and declaring instead that the United States would seek to 

work more closely with its allies, which needed to 

do more of the heavy lifting both financially and in 

terms of concrete military contributions of manpower 

and equipment. Indeed, even Nixon’s overtures to 

China can be understood as a mode of keeping the 

peace through diplomacy, which was seen as a more 

cost-effective strategy than undertaking increased 

defense spending. 

In the Nixon example, the military was encouraged to develop an “offset strategy” in which it would 

rely more on precision guided weapons than on conventional forces. Under the Nixon administration, 

purchases of the Trident submarine, cruise missiles, 

and the B1 bomber were carried out, funded through 

cutbacks on conventional military forces.40 Similarly, 

the Obama administration has evinced an increased 

reliance on and interest in developing categories of 
35

unmanned or autonomous weapons, which are seen 

to be the future of warfare. 

In both examples, warfare also became more 

highly specialized and technocratic. As Robert Tomes 

notes, the Nixon years led to the strengthening of 

organizations like Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency as well as the growing role of nuclear 

arms specialists, who became frequent expert witnesses at congressional hearings that focused on understanding and analyzing the status of America’s 

nuclear forces.41

In both situations, there was a tendency for politicians and military planners to regard the most recent 

conflict as an aberration or a failed experiment rather 

than a set of events military planners might learn from. 

Particularly in the Vietnam situation, the prevailing 

tendency was for military planners to devote resources and efforts to developing new types of weapons 

and strategies, such as a reliance on anti-ballistic missiles, rather than considering how strategies of insurgency learned during Vietnam might be strengthened 

and the gains realized maintained. Strategies for fighting insurgency were seen as having little utility and 

the decision (which would come to be seen as foolish 

in hindsight) to allow U.S. capabilities in this area to 

wither was made.

As in the British example, one can identify a conversation both about the utility of existing weaponry 

as well as about the law of diminishing marginal returns. The coining of the phrase “mutually assured 

destruction” in the 1970s reflected the new understanding that there was an absolute point beyond 

which additional expenditures would not necessarily 

guarantee more security. As Henry Kissinger stated 

in 1974 in Moscow, “When two nations are already 
36

capable of destroying each other, an upper limit exists 

beyond which additional weapons lose their political 

significance.”42 This new understanding was reflected 

in academic conversations about the value of relative 

versus absolute power as well. 

As Lawrence Freedman notes, the conversation 

about the value and utility of military power was also 

a larger conversation about the legitimacy, respect, 

and honor of military solutions as well. It was this 

larger context that made it difficult for those who lobbied for an increased military budget. Freedman suggests that many regarded the military as incompetent 

and its endeavors pointless. Thus, it was hard to create 

a consensus about the importance of increased military spending. The analogy between the post-Vietnam 

budget discussions and current military budget discussions is particularly apt. In the period leading up 

to and following America’s withdrawal of forces from 

Vietnam, both the emotions of the general public and 

of political figures were very high. It was impossible 

for public debate about budget cutbacks to occur independently or divorced from a larger conversation 

about the meaning of the Vietnam conflict, the role 

of America in the world, and the utility of military 

force in the present environment. As Henry Kissinger, who served as Secretary of State from 1973 until 

1977, indicated: 

In the anti-military orgy spawned by Vietnam, to have 

challenged the overwhelming Congressional sentiment for domestic priorities was almost an exercise in 

futility, pouring salt on the open wounds of the Vietnam debate.43
37

Similarly, the conversation about military cutbacks 

today is occurring within a larger conversation, and 

debate continues about whether conventional military strength is still a critical variable within America’s overall global position, as well as about whether 

America is still a hegemon in the world and whether 

it should continue to seek that position. 

What are some lessons that defense planners can 

draw today from the politics of defense cutbacks in 

the post-Vietnam era? There are three major lessons 

that one can identify.

1. Discussions about defense spending are often 

deeply politicized, and context is important. Because the Vietnam War, along with media coverage 

of that war, served to sow doubts among voters and 

politicians about the legitimacy and utility of military 

force, defense planning decisions were made within 

a context where it was incumbent upon the military 

to prove the need for defense spending, rather than 

beginning with the assumption that such spending 

was necessary. Thus, for example, in a climate that 

favored arms control and weapons reductions, it was 

necessary for the military to prove that both nuclear 

and conventional weapons were still required—rather 

than for those who favored arms control to prove that 

it was safe or wise to reduce U.S. defense expenditures. Throughout the 1970s and into the early-1980s, 

the military was essentially in a defensive position politically where it could not take for granted that either 

the public or politicians would support increased defense. Again, one can consider that the military failed 

to “capture the narrative” regarding the utility or 

necessity of military spending.
38

2. Economic decisions can affect doctrines. As 

the post-Vietnam example shows, economics led the 

Nixon administration to make three political decisions that had major effects on U.S. military doctrines. 

First, economics caused the administration to embrace 

a new “one and a half wars” strategy in which the 

United States would no longer have the ability to fight 

wars on two fronts. Similarly, economics led to the creation of the Nixon Doctrine, in which America’s allies 

would increasingly be responsible for their own defense around the world, and the decision was made to 

seek détente with Russia and a diplomatic relationship 

with China.

While traditional defense thinking suggests that 

planning should proceed from a clear accounting 

and understanding of the strategic objectives to be 

pursued, the post-Vietnam example suggests that the 

reverse actually occurred. Planners began with an understanding of the military resources and funds available, and then proceeded to create a military strategy 

that would allow the achievement of strategic objectives most efficiently, given those limitations. In many 

ways, it appeared that the first questions politicians 

asked were “Can we afford it?” and “Is it worth it?” 

when considering military action, rather than asking 

if it was necessary and what might occur if military 

actions were not taken.

As the post-Vietnam example shows, in situations 

where economic considerations precede and outrank 

strategic considerations, the military is more likely to 

adopt a risk-averse strategy, more concerned with fulfilling defensive objectives than with pursuing a more 

proactive approach toward containing conflict in the 

international system.
39

3. Conversations about military spending often 

take place in a short-term context, while military 

planning occurs in a much longer time frame. As in 

the British example, the long-range damage sustained 

by the military due to short-term cutbacks did not 

become apparent for many years. In the British case, 

Treasury Department officials asked military planners to proceed upon the assumption that no major 

conflicts would occur in 10 years. Similarly, by May 

1980, U.S. military planners were starting to argue 

that the United States had created a so-called “hollow 

army.” Chief of Staff of the Army General Edward C. 

Meyer used this phrase during a House Armed Services Committee hearing to describe situations where 

the services might have had sufficient equipment, 

but often lacked the funds to maintain, modernize, or 

man this equipment. Similarly, planners are using this 

term today to refer to problems within the military in 

regard to personnel, training and readiness.

Case Study 3: The Politics of the Peace Dividend in 

the Post-Soviet Era.

The final case of defense retrenchment to be considered is the situation the United States faced in the 

late-1980s with the end of the Cold War. Just as in 

Vietnam, the notion of a peace dividend quickly surfaced with the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the 

phrase is most commonly associated with this time 

period rather than with Vietnam. What is unusual 

about the defense spending debate that took place 

in this era was that the circumstances that led to the 

debate occurred both so quickly and so unexpectedly. 

Thus, players on all sides scrambled to articulate and 

advocate for their interests once it became apparent 
40

that a reconsideration of American defense spending 

was going to take place. Unlike the Vietnam and Iraq 

scenarios, where there had been a clear timetable for 

troop withdrawals and the ability to marshal resources gradually and arguments to support one’s position over several years, the breakup of the Soviet bloc 

in Eastern Europe occurred within a span of only 4 

months, from the August 1989 opening of Hungary’s 

border with Austria to the opening of the Berlin Wall 

on November 9, 1989. 

Due to the quick pace at which these events unfolded, the tendency for all actors was to think only 

in a short-term perspective regarding the disposition 

of the peace dividend (if indeed one existed), rather 

than considering what the long-term U.S. strategic 

interests were both domestically and within the international system. In hearings, the tendency was to ask 

“What should next year’s defense budget look like as 

the result of these activities?” rather than considering 

what new threats might emerge and how the military 

might best prepare for these threats, which might not 

emerge for another 10 or more years. 

The U.S. Congress convened the first set of hearings regarding the deposition of America’s peace dividend less than 1 month later in December 1989. These 

public hearings on the subject of the peace dividend, 

which were widely covered by domestic and international media, helped to build the understanding that 

the peace dividend belonged to everyone and that 

“we” won the Cold War. In this way, any cost savings 

realized by a redeployment or builddown of forces 

were seen as belonging not only to the Department 

of Defense (DoD), but also to the general public. As 

Representative Lee Hamilton, Chairman of Joint Economic Committee, noted in one such hearing: 
41

It seems clear that we will soon be faced with major 

choices about how to employ the peace dividend—

Should it be used for deficit reduction, tax cuts, and 

new spending programs? Is this an appropriate occasion for a major reordering of priorities?

Similarly, Democratic Senator Jim Sasser referred 

to the “dawn of an era of domestic economics.”44 Even 

Robert McNamara, Defense Secretary under President 

John Kennedy, testified, noting that the chief security 

threat facing the United States at that time was the 

deficit, not the Soviets. He voiced the sentiment that 

“security depends on more than military force—it is a 

function as well of economic strength and social cohesion.”45 Witnesses asked whether the savings could be 

diverted to put an astronaut on Mars; to launch new 

satellites; or to improve childcare, health care, and 

education. Some optimistic predictions included the 

claim that Pentagon spending would be safely cut in 

half by the end of the 1990s if Gorbachev remained 

in power. Other agencies, like National Aeronautics 

and Space Administration, lined up to claim the savings they expected to be generated from the inevitable 

defense cutbacks. 

Although hearings were quickly convened in the 

Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate 

Foreign Relations Committee to examine changes in 

the Communist Bloc and their impact on spending, 

there was not an initial consensus between the executive and legislative branch, nor between government 

agencies, on whether a peace dividend did, in fact, 

exist and how it should be reallocated. The various 

bureaucratic actors also disagreed about the timing of 

this reorientation, with the general public in particular eager to “cash in” and spend the peace dividend, 
42

while military planners in particular sounded a note 

of caution. 

One of the most publicized cases of disagreement 

occurred between Central Intelligence Agency director 

William Webster and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. 

Cheney accused Webster of acting prematurely in declaring that the Soviet system no longer represented a 

threat to the United States and disagreed with his assessment that the Soviet Union’s decline was irreversible. Webster had stated during a hearing of the House 

Armed Services Committee that “there is little chance 

that Soviet hegemony could be restored in Eastern 

Europe.”46 The nonprofit Center for Security Policy 

think tank accused Webster of setting the conditions 

for eviscerating President Bush’s defense budget.47

Walter Mears argues that the Pentagon wanted to 

ease up gradually on defense spending, a plan that 

would not have significant effects on the domestic 

economy until 1991. Undersecretary of Defense Paul 

Wolfowitz noted that if you cut too much, too fast, 

you risk undoing the security you have created.48

Similarly, Secretary of Defense Cheney noted that: 

I want to emphasize this is a six-year look that’s being 

offered at a time of considerable turmoil and uncertainty [building up to Gulf War] . . . and I would like to 

reserve the right to come back at some future time and 

say we can’t go down as fast or as far as this program 

would.49

At the same time, defense planners noted that even 

at the height of the Cold War, the DoD did not have 

a blank check for its activities. It still needed to prioritize and was not able to fully fund infrastructure 

and maintenance in the best manner. Thus, they argued that it made sense to reorient the funds freed up 
43

through the nuclear arms builddown with the Soviet 

Union and reduce the number of U.S. troops along borders with East Germany to make up for shortages in 

infrastructure and production. Here, their arguments 

were bolstered by statements made by former President Gerald Ford, who argued that the peace dividend 

was perhaps an illusion or an invention rather than a 

concrete reality. He argued that there was, in fact, no 

dividend after the Vietnam War, due to increases in 

the inflation rate throughout the 1970s which “swallowed” any savings, since budgeted funds seldom 

matched the actual prices at that time. Thus, he argued that any savings realized after the breakup of the 

Soviet Union should go directly into deficit reduction, 

not new spending. 

The lack of agreement between the intelligence 

community and the defense community was particularly damaging for the DoD since the general public 

saw the lack of agreement about the nature of the 

threats facing the United States as an indication that 

there was no threat, and that any claims regarding 

such a threat were simple exaggerations being made 

for public relations purposes. At the same time, the 

President’s staff, like the DoD, did not rush to judgment regarding the significance of these events. A 

Bush White House official noted that, “We are much 

too preoccupied with the immediate year to think 

about five or 10 years out.”50 President Bush noted that 

it was premature to speak of cuts and a dividend, and 

expressed a warning that the peace dividend might, in 

fact, fail to materialize. He suggested not being unduly 

optimistic and warned against the danger of a fire sale. 

While academics discussed the events at the American 

Economic Association and 10 congressional committees held hearings on the subject, the White House 
44

did not convene expert panels nor attempt to take 

the lead in conducting post-Cold War assessments.51

Indeed, the President’s team did not put together 

its own response to the breakup of the Soviet Union 

until August 1990, when Saddam Hussein invaded 

Kuwait, thus changing the conversation altogether.

Perhaps because of this failure by the White House 

to play a leading role in this conversation, discussions 

about the peace dividend instead exploded in the popular and scholarly media. Just as in the previous cases, 

the conversation soon turned from considering not 

only how the cost savings should be spent, but also to 

asking about whether military force was still useful in 

this changed world and whether it was necessary to 

reprioritize how much of a state’s budget should be 

devoted to defense overall. As Mears argued, voters 

were no longer convinced of the necessity of defense 

spending by December 1989. He notes that with the 

fall of the Berlin Wall, the general public no longer 

saw the U.S. as threatened. In this way, he argues, voters and the general public had a more radical understanding of how much the military should be cut back 

than did policymakers. Public opinion, in this way, 

served to move policymakers to a more radical position. He describes voters as insisting on defense cuts 

more drastic than the administration deems wise.52

The media, as well, tended to overemphasize the 

significance of the end of the Cold War, using hyperbolic language to describe a new era in international 

relations. As Mark Sommer notes, the cover of the 

December 11, 1990, issue of Business Week pictured a 

dove with a dollar bill in its beak with the headline, 

“The Peace Economy: How Defense Cuts will Pay Off 

for America.” In the article, the author spoke of a “veritable cornucopia of positive effects: lower inflation 
45

and interest rates (down to 5.5 percent), a declining 

budget deficit (half less by 1991); and faster growth . . . 

a reduced trade gap and more housing starts.”53

However, as we saw in the previous case studies 

of Britain and Vietnam, the debate about the peace 

dividend was also about something much larger. In 

particular, academics and media pundits voiced the 

sentiment that military force no longer had the same 

utility as it once did, and that, in the new environment, other types of power and influence would be 

more meaningful, including soft power tools like diplomacy, state building, civic education, educational 

exchanges, and so forth. This new understanding of 

the role and utility of military power was reflected in 

the assessments by other key constituencies that lobbied for defense cuts. Here, the most optimistic assessments came from other international groups like the 

United Nations (UN) Development Program, which 

proposed a worldwide builddown of weapons, with 

the proceeds to be devoted to programs that would 

eliminate poverty and equalize living standards 

around the world.54 UN documents from this time 

argue that: 

If there is to be a peace dividend, there must be disarmament, a reversal of the technological arms race, improved international relations on a global scale, a fair 

chance for economic development in the third world

. . . and the establishment of centres for crisis avoidance and crisis management. As well as the introduction of a new security concept. . .55 

The UN report made the claim that, as a result of 

the breakup of the Soviet Union, the current number 

of 25 million armed forces worldwide could be reduced by half, as could the figure of approximately 15 
46

million workers employed in the arms industry. UN 

planners hoped to see a 5 percent military expenditure reduction globally every year for 10 years. At the 

same time, European policymakers anticipated an end 

to the large-scale U.S. military presence in Europe and 

a lessening of U.S. military and political presence.56

They hoped to halve the American presence on the 

European continent, and as a result, anticipated a savings of $50 billion to $100 billion dollars a year. 

Lessons from the Peace Dividend.

What lessons do the deliberations of 1989 to 1990 

offer to defense policymakers today? Six are highlighted here.

1. Do not move too quickly in making defense 

cuts. The example of the post-Cold War drawdown 

shows the importance of the pace and timing of cutbacks. The situation was unusual due to the degree 

that all parties (not least the intelligence community) 

were surprised by what had occurred. The breakup 

of the Soviet Union was somehow both inevitable 

and unanticipated, and there were no clear plans immediately accessible regarding what the next logical 

steps should be. However, both the presidency and 

the DoD lost the advantage from being the first to 

speak out in the new environment. Both the legislature and the media acted quickly to consolidate the 

gains of the peace dividend and to affect the parameters of that conversation. Perhaps if DoD had spoken more forcibly about the dangers of a transitioning 

democracy, the increased likelihood of small conflicts 

in such a situation and the fact that the long-term success of the post-Soviet transition was not yet assured, 

then they could have had a greater role to play in 

decisionmaking.
47

2. Do not assume that there will only be one conflict or that we can anticipate what it would look 

like. In both the British and the post-Soviet example, 

there was a tendency for policymakers to assume that, 

because the conflict they had just exited was over, 

therefore conflict was over. In retrospect, it is easy to 

see how planners and policymakers were surprised 

by the violence of separatist movements within the 

former Soviet Union and the sectarian violence within 

Yugoslavia. There was little attempt to see into the 

future to anticipate what the next conflict might look 

like and to plan accordingly. 

3. Think really long term. In the present day, as 

the United States attempts to formulate a workable 

foreign policy toward Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, it is clear that, while the Cold War might be over, 

conflict with Russia is not. However, in conversations 

regarding the disposition of the peace dividend, only 

two possible time frames were considered—next year, 

and the next 5 to 10 years. It appears again that little 

thought was given to the possibility that Russia might 

reemerge as a power with territorial ambitions and a 

revanchist foreign policy some 25 years later. As current conversations about containment and the possibility of restationing U.S. troops in Western Europe as 

a buffer against Russian territorial ambitions toward 

Moldova, for example, continue, it becomes clear that 

reversibility was not an important consideration in 

the post-Soviet builddown.

4. Avoid bureaucratic infighting. The post-Cold 

War example clearly shows the importance of cooperation between the intelligence and defense communi-
48

ties. In retrospect, it appears that the intelligence community’s premature statements about the end of the 

Soviet threat were extremely harmful to U.S. defense 

planning and that the very existence of such a conflict 

was embarrassing to both parties and the administration. This example shows the importance of behindthe-scenes coordination between both parties prior to 

participating in congressional testimony, for example.

5. Guard against the tendency to view conflict as 

an aberration or a departure from the norm, rather 

than the default setting. Cold War historian John 

Lewis Gaddis has noted that, for the soldiers of the 

Greek city-states, there was no actual distinction 

made between wartime and peacetime. Instead, war 

was seen as a constant state for which one must be 

continually prepared. There were no binary opposites 

like wartime and peacetime. However, in each of the 

case studies examined here, the general public, the 

legislature, and the agencies like the Department of 

the Treasury clearly distinguished between wartime 

economies and peacetime economies, and the state of 

war and the state of peace. The tendency to identify a 

peace dividend, for example, rests on the assumption 

that a state’s defensive posture can be markedly different between the two periods and that some activities can be turned off in the post-war period.

In the post-Soviet situation, both policymakers and 

the general public were affected by the 1989 essay by 

academic Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History,” 

which appeared in The National Interest. In this essay, 

Fukuyama stated that: 

What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the 

Cold War or the passing of a particular period of post-
49

war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the 

end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the 

universalization of Western liberal democracy as the 

final form of human government.57

In the essay and a later book, Fukuyama framed a 

triumphalist argument in which it seemed appropriate 

for policymakers to focus on consolidating the gains 

accrued through winning the Cold War, rather than 

considering what new and unanticipated threats were 

likely to arise. However, Gaddis suggests in his work 

that the Cold War period in particular was an anomaly. He argues that the Cold War artificially froze the 

results of World War II in place for a period of nearly 

45 years, and it was only when this anomalous period 

ended, that politics as usual began once again.58 In the 

period since the end of the Cold War, the United States 

has found itself engaged in peacekeeping, responding 

to humanitarian disasters, and carrying out “right to 

protect” activities across the globe. Similarly, the end 

of the Vietnam War did not, in retrospect, provide an 

opportunity for the United States to wind down its 

military presence worldwide. Today, it is equally important for policymakers not to view the end of U.S. 

participation in conflict in Iraq as an inevitable transition to a peacetime economy in which conflicts will no 

longer exist and there will no longer be a need to prepare for it. Contrary to the claims of former Secretary 

of State Hillary Clinton, there is no “reset button” that 

will fundamentally alter either the U.S. position in the 

world or the situations that may arise that will require 

U.S. military intervention. 
50

Case Study 4: Considering Cutbacks Today.

The parallels between the three cases considered 

here—Britain’s drawdown after World War I, America’s drawdown after the Vietnam War, and the conversation regarding the disposition of the post-Soviet 

peace dividend—and current events are many. Indeed, the term “peace dividend” has again come into 

popular usage. A 2011 New York Times article entitled 

“How to Spend the Peace Dividend” quotes President 

Obama telling an audience, “America, it is time to 

focus on nation-building here at home.”59 That same 

year, the U.S. Conference of Mayors issued a statement that called for a quick end to wars abroad and 

for diverting savings to projects that would improve 

roads and services and create more public sector jobs.

In a speech on June 22, 2011, on Afghanistan,60

President Obama noted that by July 2011, 10,000 troops 

would come home, with another 33,000 scheduled to 

return by summer 2012. The speech can be read as a 

valedictory speech President Obama saw himself delivering at the end of a conflict he assumed the United 

States had won. He stated that “We’re starting this 

drawdown from a position of strength,” noting that 

more than half of al-Qaeda’s leadership had been 

identified and removed. 

Many analysts identify this speech as the first stage 

in the framing of a so-called “Obama Doctrine.” In 

June 2011, President Obama opined not only on the 

meaning of American withdrawal from Afghanistan 

and Iraq in the context of American military might, 

but also went on to speculate about the utility of military force and American engagement in the new environment. He noted that “Already, this decade of war 

has caused many to question the nature of America’s 
51

engagement around the world” and then pointed to a 

variety of new directions which America might take. 

First, he noted, America could retreat from a position 

of leadership in the international system. In the future, 

America would only be drawn into conflict when not 

doing so was unavoidable, versus consciously framing and pursuing an activist role in politics. Second, 

America could embrace isolation entirely, or, finally, 

he suggested that America could continue to be overextended, “confronting every evil that can be found 

abroad.”61

In this document, President Obama lays out a 

spectrum of positions from the most isolationist to 

the most activist, coming down clearly against an extremely activist position in the world today. He speaks 

out against the notion of knee-jerk involvement, or involvement that does not fit within the list of U.S. foreign policy priorities today. Instead, President Obama 

called for a “more centered course”—which would 

allow America to play a unique role in international 

affairs but also be pragmatic. He also reprises the notion of guns vs. butter in noting that “strength abroad 

ultimately rests on our strength at home.”62

Here, we can identify a similar tendency to that 

which Churchill evinced in Britain’s post-World War I 

drawdown. It is as if the President has decided to behave as if the world is safer and suggests a relatively 

short-term perspective in which only current events 

are considered. That is, in both the British and American cases, leaders have thought about the need for a 

strong military in the context of the conflict which has 

just ended, thus thinking about the short term rather 

than the extreme long term. The assumption that, 

because this threat has been confronted successfully 

(i.e., the Soviet threat in the Cold War or the German 
52

threat in World War I), therefore the job of the military is done. As in the British case, America’s leadership seemed to be arguing that because the conflict 

was over, the hegemon’s strong presence in the region 

was no longer as necessary or useful as it was previously. In this same vein, cuts have been undertaken 

in the areas of arms control monitoring and nonproliferation activities. In particular, in 2013, the White 

House undertook a $57 million cut to the Cooperative 

Threat Reduction Program, housed in the DoD. This 

was described not as a cutback, but rather as a “more 

judicious outlay” of resources.63

As in the British case, the larger question is really 

about the law of diminishing returns. Specifically, 

how large a force does a country that no longer seeks 

to be the sole hegemon or guarantor of stability need 

to have? How much military force is sufficient, and 

how much is too much? As in the British case, we 

can identify a disconnect between how policymakers 

and military planners answered this question. Travis Sharp argues that, even within the confines of the 

Obama Doctrine, the United States is still committed 

to being a preeminent power. That is, America wishes 

to outpace even its close competitors in its overall level 

of military strength so that anyone wishing to engage 

in military action against the United States would undertake significant risks in doing so.64 Here he points 

to a speech that President Obama delivered in January 2012, in which he stated that “our military will be 

leaner, but the world must know the United States is 

going to maintain our military superiority with armed 

forces that are agile, flexible, and ready for the full 

range of contingencies and threats.”65

As in the post-Vietnam era, however, the question 

arose of how many military conflicts the U.S. military 
53

must be capable of simultaneously fighting, including 

unilaterally. Here, the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review

provides the first evidence that this standard would 

be altered again under President Obama. In that 

document, planners wrote that: 

it is no longer appropriate to speak of ‘major regional 

conflicts’ as the sole or even the primary template for 

sizing, shaping, and evaluating U.S. forces. Rather, 

U.S. forces must be prepared to conduct a wide variety 

of missions under a range of different circumstances.66

Under conditions of defense planning austerity in 

both the United States and Europe, the new thinking 

has been that specialization of forces and the sharing of specialized expertise both among services and 

among states is a chief way of creating efficiencies, 

reducing redundancies, and saving money. As Elizabeth Bumiller and Thomas Shanker note, the new U.S. 

vision—laid out in January 2012 in the administration’s new defense strategy, “Sustaining U.S. Global 

Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense”—includes the notion that the United States should be able 

to fight and win one conflict while “spoiling” or denying adversaries’ intentions toward another region. 

The shorthand for this idea is “win-spoil.”67 Spoiling 

might occur in a variety of ways and does not always 

include the application of military force. 

The Obama Doctrine’s emphasis on multilateralism over unilateralism was defined in great detail in 

the so-called “West Point Speech,” President Obama 

delivered on May 28, 2014. That speech includes 

the lines:

The United States will use military force, unilaterally if 

necessary, when our core interests demand it—when 
54

our people are threatened, when our livelihoods are at 

stake, when the security of our allies is in danger. . . .

On the other hand, when issues of global concern do 

not pose a direct threat to the United States, when 

such issues are at stake—when crises arise that stir 

our conscience or push the world in a more dangerous direction but do not directly threaten us—then the 

threshold for military actions must be higher. In such 

circumstances, we should not go it alone.68

The doctrine thus represents a step away from 

the previous Bush Doctrine which stressed both 

the grounds for unilateralism and the necessity 

of often reducing risks and costs through taking 

preemptive action. 

The Role of Public Opinion in Defense Cuts.

As noted in the examples of both Britain and the 

United States in the post-Soviet era, public opinion 

has also influenced defense policymaking and in 

particular the politics of defense cuts—in some cases 

causing policymakers to adopt more radical stances 

toward undertaking defense cuts than they otherwise 

might. Traditionally, as we have seen, it has been difficult for military policymakers to sustain an argument 

on behalf of greater military spending in the face of a 

public perception that conflict is over and that military 

strength has less utility than it previously did. In each 

of the cases examined, there have also been partisan 

divides with Labour supporters in Britain and Democrats in the United States opposing greater military 

spending and campaigning most strongly for military 

spending cuts in a post-conflict situation. However, in 

the post-Vietnam case, voters on both sides of the partisan divide were wary of increased military spend-
55

ing and were more likely to conclude that the United 

States had “enough” military.

Similarly, in the current case, a 2012 survey by the 

Center for Public Integrity suggests that both Democrats and Republicans appear convinced that currently 

the military is wasteful in its spending, that too much 

is being spent on nuclear weapons, and that cuts could 

be identified in the areas of naval, air and ground 

forces.69 As Sharp argues, Americans seem to hold two 

sets of conflicting ideas simultaneously. They believe 

that the military is too active in world affairs, but at 

the same time, they are committed to the notion that 

the United States itself should play a leading role in 

the international system and are willing to help to finance that activism.70 In addition, public opinion polls 

seem to show conflicting trends. While the Center for 

Public Integrity poll suggests a majority of Americans 

support defense cuts, data from the Gallup Agency 

shows the opposite. A Gallup report shows that, since 

the 1960s, Americans have been divided about military spending. In this data, 37 percent of respondents 

are reported as believing that the United States spends 

too much on the military, while 28 percent believe 

that it spends too little.71 It is unclear whether the two 

parties and their supporters will be able to come together to arrive at a bargain that would resolve conflicts about defense spending. However, it does not 

seem likely.

The Role of Academics in the Current Debate.

As noted earlier, academics have played key roles 

in framing the debate about defense spending in a 

post-conflict situation. In the post-Vietnam situation, 

academics opposed to the war effort helped to stoke 

the perception that the military was illegitimate, that 
56

the war had been lost, and that it was appropriate to 

punish the military for the role it had played in losing 

the war. In the post-World War I situation, academics 

were chief supporters of the notion that the League of 

Nations could work to make war obsolete, replacing 

military might with a more effective resolution of conflicts through diplomatic channels. In the post-Soviet 

situation, Fukuyama convinced much of the public 

that the United States had won the Cold War, making 

conflict less likely in the future and the military might 

less necessary. 

In the current environment, the international system is seen as being in flux, with many foundational 

ideas seen as up for grabs (such as the role of the state 

versus the role of nonstate actors; the role of religion 

and ideology; the significance of economic policies 

that are seen as leading to inequality). It is also likely 

that influential thinkers from the civilian sector, including academia, will have a fundamental influence 

on how Washington thinks about foreign policy. 

In recent years, both American and international 

academics have undertaken an exercise in so-called 

revisionist historiography, leading to a fundamental 

rethinking of the academic discipline of international 

relations since its inception, as well as a re-examination of how academics historically have understood 

and explained America’s role in the world. Included 

in this narrative is a rethinking of the so-called unipolar moment that occurred between 1989 and 1991 

when the Soviet Union had broken up and the United 

States was the sole remaining hegemon in the world.72

 Academics working on these issues have arrived 

at the claim that policymakers who conduct and react 

to conflicts are often too focused on looking for historic analogies, based on the assumption that the lessons of the past are still relevant today. In contrast, 
57

many academics argue that “we are moving toward a 

world for which there is no historic precedent.”73 This 

academic development has had, and will continue to 

have, far-reaching consequences on policymaking as 

these ideas are carried into the halls of Washington 

by academics serving on advisory panels or serving 

in government positions as political appointees. Furthermore, pundits have aired these ideas in media 

appearances and in op-eds in the press, and in this 

way, these understandings have begun to influence 

public opinion more generally in the United States. 

Currently, the president of the International Studies 

Association, one of two preeminent academic professional organizations for U.S. and international professors of political science and international relations (the 

other is the American Political Science Association), is 

a Canadian academic, born in India, currently teaching at American University. Much of his own writing 

has explicitly questioned the narrative of American 

exceptionalism and the power American policymakers have assumed that America has in the world—

including both hard and soft power. 

The new academic narrative rests on certain key assumptions: First, many academics today believe that it 

is not simply American military power that is less useful and less relevant than it has been historically—it is 

American power in general, including both soft and 

hard power. This new narrative also contains an acknowledgement that many of the activities that occur 

in international relations today occur outside of American, and indeed state, control—and often without 

state knowledge. In this way, the claim is made that it 

is not that military power is less useful, but rather that 

America is irrelevant to much of what transpires in 

the world today. Thus this argument presents America’s decline as a sort of logical end to the evolution of 
58

the international system. This argument suggests that 

the international system has moved toward multipolarity, and, as a result, America is less central to the 

conduct of international affairs than it was in previous 

generations. This new situation is seen as having been 

generated independently from anything America did 

or did not do. America’s decline, thus, is presented as 

occurring not due to a failure to build the necessary 

domestic infrastructure, to cultivate the right values, 

or to engage in sufficient military readiness training, 

rather it is simply the natural, predetermined order of 

things that have come to pass. Empires decline.74

The viewpoint, referred to by some as the “declinist stance,” leads to certain policy prescriptions: In 

The Upside of Down: Why the Rise of the Rest is Good for 

the West, Charles Kenny argues that the United States 

need not be concerned with maintaining dominance, 

but should rather seek to emulate Britain, which may 

have declined in terms of international reputation, 

but which still has a successful economy. Kenney argues that it is incorrect to believe the realist paradigm, 

which regards security and defense as zero-sum or that 

one party’s loss is another’s gain.75 At the same time, 

Amitav Acharya has argued in The End of American 

World Order that the new international structure will 

be neither unipolar, bipolar, or multipolar. Instead, 

he argues, the international system should be seen as 

multiplex, where there are a variety of different types 

of configurations available (in terms of cultural, economic, or political power) and where power has multiple layers that are constantly shifting and changing. 

In such a system, there is no one absolute central set 

of ideas, institutions, or nations around which politics 

revolves. In this new world, the concept of a hegemon 

is truly meaningless.76
59

Academics thus often suggest that the problem 

with merely coming up with new definitions in an 

area such as “smart power” is that this is simply too 

little, too late. It is seen as a halfway measure aimed at 

preserving the status quo, while academics and global 

policymakers are already behaving as though the status quo—with America as the leading player in the 

international system—is past. 

THE MILITARY RESPONSE 

A bureaucratic politics model would suggest that 

in the face of conversations about drawdown and 

changes in the utility of military force, the best strategy for military officials would be to dig in their heels 

and defend their turf, reacting defensively against 

those who would seek to redeploy military resources 

and change military strategies and doctrines as a result. However, in this case, military officials have been 

involved in the dialogue about the changing role of 

the military, seeking to shape and guide the conversation that has occurred. The military has thus taken 

a proactive role in redefining its mission in response 

to perceived changes in the environment. Specific actions have included working to create regional organizations that would serve as allies, thinking about new 

military roles, addressing the problem of reversibility 

and leading conversations about new, cheaper weapons and their role in conflict. 

1. Cultivating and training new allies. The understanding contained within the Obama Doctrine 

that the U.S. military needed to engage in greater 

specialization and burden-sharing among allies was 

incorporated within military doctrines in 2011, when 

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta spoke of the impor-
60

tance of looking to new partners, particularly in the 

Asia-Pacific, to play larger roles in the protection of 

international security.77 We can also point to advances 

in Japanese Defense policy, beginning with actions of 

Japanese Defense Force in the aftermath of September 

11, 2001. It has been suggested that the United States 

pressured Japan to pass legislation that would allow 

for an expansion of its military’s roles, from a position 

of providing only for Japan’s defense to also acting 

on behalf of collective security. In this new strategy, 

the United States will depend not only on historic allies like the NATO countries, but also on bilateral and 

multilateral arrangements, including newly emerging 

partnerships with nations in Asia and with groups 

like the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in the 

Middle East. 78

Certainly, a decision to off-load key defense activities to not only historic allies, but also newer partnerships, represents a major change in U.S. military strategy, one apparently being caused largely by economic 

pressures. We can see evidence of these pressures beginning with the 2010 Ballistic Missile Defense Review, 

which states that “a key objective of US strategy is 

to expand international efforts and cooperation on 

ballistic missile defense.” Other steps have included 

measures to increase U.S.-GCC security cooperation 

in the areas of ballistic missile defense, maritime security, counterterrorism, and border security, including 

cybersecurity.79 In December 2013, President Obama 

designated GCC members as eligible for participation 

in the program of foreign military sales, in essence 

granting them the same designation as NATO, and 

in May 2014, the first U.S.-GCC Defense Ministerial 

Conference occurred.
61

In an analysis, John Anthony writes: 

the GCC Countries’ demonstrating a degree of significantly heightened resolve to strengthen and expand 

their deterrence and defense capabilities in and of itself ought to be welcomed by the American taxpayer. 

A reason is that it shows the requisite determination 

by America’s GCC partners to utilize the maximum of 

their own resources, combined with ongoing American security assistance, to accomplish a goal of vital 

strategic importance not only to themselves and the 

United States but to their and our respective friends, 

allies, and respective working partners.80

Clearly this strategy carries certain risks. Are the 

savings in costs and logistics worth the risk of depending on other states, which might not necessarily 

have the same interests or incentive to cooperate with 

the United States? What are the risks and downsides 

of this strategy? Here we can consider the already existing policy differences that exist with GCC members 

over the questions of diplomatic and military strategies in reference to Egypt, Iran, and Syria. In addition, GCC members may be tempted to utilize their 

Peninsula Shield Force not only in defending from 

outside aggressors, but also for internal peacekeeping in the face of democratic uprisings in nations such 

as Bahrain. At the same time, GCC members worry 

that, as the United States becomes more energy selfsufficient, it may have less of a commitment to working with GCC members. Again, one can point to the 

historic example of Britain’s decision to off-load more 

of the requirements for national defense to the Commonwealth nations after World War I. Although there 

were cost savings in the short run, there is disagreement about the long-term effects of this decision. 
62

This disagreement also appears among U.S. military personnel today. Thus, for example, Chief of Staff 

of the Army General Raymond Odierno has written 

about and spoken in favor of a new model of regionally aligned forces. He describes regionally aligned 

forces as allowing for a flexibility that means that 

forces will be prepared for a variety of scenarios, the 

details of which can be worked out later.81 However, 

at the same time, Sharp argues that many military 

commanders worry that this realignment could lead 

to the same types of problems that surfaced after Vietnam with a hollow force. As in the Vietnam example, 

the “hollow force” language refers both to a shortfall 

in manpower, and also to problems with the pipelines 

of weapons procurement, including in the areas of research and development.82

Cultivating New Military Roles.

As this analysis has shown, the notion of austerity 

in military planning traditionally has simply translated into the creation of a military that is less wellresourced and less prepared to engage in conflict and 

defense. In the face of austerity measures, the legislature and the treasury have acted to allocate less funding to traditional defense activities. However, in recent years, it is possible to identify a trend within the 

U.S. military aimed at redefining and broadening the 

notion of “military activity.” In this way, the defense 

forces have been positioned to receive funds not only 

for the conduct of traditional military activity, but also 

to cooperate and compete with agencies engaged in 

other types of state-building and diplomatic activities. 

Kofi Nsia-Pepra refers to this process as a “militarization of foreign policy,” arguing that the tendency for 

American ground forces in particular to undertake a 
63

new portfolio of activities in Africa (which he notes 

include fighting terrorism, providing for the security 

of oil and other energy resources on the continent, and 

countering Chinese influence in the region) is harmful 

in the long run.83 

However, an organization theory perspective 

would identify such strategies as important adaptive mechanisms for a threatened organization or 

industry. Drawing upon an analogy from the animal 

kingdom, the theory suggests that those species that 

have thrived over the long run were best able to carve 

out a new ecological niche for themselves when their 

livelihood has been threatened. That is, companies 

that have manufactured typewriters might move into 

manufacturing personal computers when the technology changes, and companies that printed books might 

move into e-publishing. In this way, the move by the 

military into new areas of public diplomacy and economic development appears as a natural evolution or 

adaptation to a changed environment. However, not 

all DoD personnel have been on board in supporting 

this new evolution. Indeed, in 2012, Secretary of Defense Gates expressed concerned about the increasing 

‘militarization’ of U.S. foreign policy.84

Military Modernization and the Problem 

of Technology.

As the previous case studies have shown, a period 

of reduced military expenditure often coincides with 

a push to “do more with less” through relying on new 

technological innovations. But as Brauer and Van 

Tuyll point out, the decision to “substitute” technology for other types of military strengths—including 

manpower—is not merely an economic decision, but 

is rather one that also affects tactics and doctrines.85
64

In examining cutbacks to France’s defense services in 

the aftermath of World War II, they ask: 

Did France purchase a nuclear force as a substitute for 

an existing or prospective alternative, most obviously 

conventional forces? The principle of substitution holds 

that if two goods held comparable benefits users will 

drift, ceteris paribus, toward the good with the lower 

relative price.86

 This question has renewed resonance in the current climate of austerity, given that in the January 

2012 document, “Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: 

Priorities for 21st Century Defense?” the White House 

noted the need to build up cyber defense.87 Here again 

we can identify the substitution principle at work. In 

an analysis published in 2012, Jan Kallberg and Adam 

Lowther describe both nuclear weapons and cyber 

weapons as “cheap,”88 noting that the estimated $30 

billion per year we spend on nuclear weapons is only 

5 percent of the defense budget. Kallberg and Bhavani 

Thuraisingham also argue that states will be driven 

to embrace cyber conflict largely for financial reasons, 

since cyber warfare is a cheap option both for defense 

(deterrence) and for offensive cyber operations. As 

they suggest, “cyber warfare is a cheaper option for 

both covert operations and to engage and destabilize 

an adversary.”89

Here, history warns us of the danger of relying 

exclusively on one type of military technology as a 

substitute rather than a complement to other types of 

conventional military technologies. In the British example, one can point to the ways in which the navy 

was insufficiently resourced as funds were devoted 

to the RAF. Similarly, it is important that cyber war 

capabilities not be established instead of or at the 

expense of conventional forces. Cyber warfare capa-
65

bilities should complement, rather than substitute for, 

traditional warfighting capabilities. 

As the British example shows, it is always dangerous for a state to allow one type of capability to wither 

to the point that it cannot be easily and quickly reestablished, should the situation change such that it is 

again necessary. France’s decision to rely so heavily on 

nuclear arms was shown to have consequences when 

it was unable to contribute well-trained conventional 

forces in the 1991 Gulf War conflict, for example. The 

claims that the U.S. ground forces were hollowed out 

in the post-Vietnam era again speaks to the problem 

of substitution without regard to reversibility. 

However, current planners are aware of this dilemma and have begun to emphasize heavily the 

principle of reversibility, which can be seen as a type 

of risk-averse strategy (as opposed to the more risky 

strategy of substitution alone). This doctrine came out 

of the January 2012 Comprehensive Strategic Review. In 

Philip Ewing’s analysis of the review, he states that 

the Department of Defense should “be mindful that 

anything it stops, delays, breaks or undoes, it needs 

to be able to restart, accelerate, repair, and redo.”90 At 

the same time, U.S. Defense Strategic Guidance issued in 

January 2012 noted that: 

The Department of Defense will manage the force in 

ways that protect its ability to regenerate capabilities that might be needed to meet future, unforeseen 

demands, maintaining intellectual capital and rank 

structure that could be called upon to expand key elements of the force.91

Steps taken to safeguard reversibility have included 

personnel decisions and steps to work with the private defense industry to assure that needed capabilities—and skills—do not go offline. 
66

CONCLUSION: LESSONS FOR U.S. DEFENSE 

PLANNERS IN A CLIMATE OF AUSTERITY

As this analysis has shown, the situation in which 

the U.S. military finds itself currently is neither unique 

to the United States nor is it unique to the 21st century. Indeed, given that the economy is felt by many 

to behave in a cyclical fashion, the question of how 

heavily the military should be resourced in tight economic times is one we will be called upon to answer 

and respond to again and again. Thus, the case studies 

considered here offer several lessons that are relevant 

to military planners as they consider policymaking in 

the current climate of austerity:

1. Do not be tempted to search for or rely on 

cheaper substitutes for U.S. military expertise. In the 

current climate, military planners might be tempted 

to rely on cheaper cyber weapons, for example, over 

the provision and deployment of traditional military 

hardware. Planners might also see increased reliance 

on unmanned drones as an opportunity for cost saving, replacing trained and skilled pilots with computer programs and equipment. It is also possible that the 

service seen as farthest out front technologically will 

be tempted to cannibalize the budgets of rival services, 

whose missions and equipment might seem outdated 

and less necessary by comparison. 

However, as the example of France’s force de frappe

and England’s decision to prioritize the development 

of its air force over its navy show, short-term cost savings may have unexpected long-term effects. Overrelying on one technology increases the risk that valuable skills and expertise may be allowed to atrophy, 

making them difficult to resurrect at a later date. 
67

2. Consider the extreme long-term. Planners 

should continue to cultivate relationships with the 

intelligence and academic communities and to fund 

research which looks at the threat environment in 25 

years or longer, and which considers not only shortterm events like revolutions but longer term sociocultural phenomena, including demographic changes 

and changing social roles.

3. Strive for a position of leadership in the development of new technologies—not only in technological terms, but also in terms of being the leading voice for the responsible and safe use of these 

technologies. Planners and decisionmakers should 

be wary of making economic decisions which would 

cede America’s leadership role in defining the meaning and use of new technologies to another country 

or group of nations. For America to continue to lead 

militarily, America needs to be out front in terms of 

deployment of new technologies and leading the conversation regarding their ethical, legal and moral use.

4. Do not undertake new missions at the expense 

of traditional missions—even though this temptation 

may be great. Planners may be tempted in a climate of 

austerity to reinvent the mission of the U.S. military 

or to undertake missions which are far outside of their 

areas of expertise in order to advertise their continued 

relevance. Here, for example, we might consider the 

temptation to deploy U.S. troops in Africa to combat 

the ebola virus in a high profile humanitarian mission. While in the short term this might seem wise, in 

the longer term this sort of activity will make it difficult to maintain operational readiness and mission 

focus and to return to operational tempo when the 

environment changes.
68

ENDNOTES

1. Jürgen Brauer and Hubert Van Tuyll, Castles, Battles and 

Bombs: How Economics Explains Military History, Chicago, IL: The 

University of Chicago Press, 1993, p. 13.

2. Alex Mintz and Chi Huang: “Guns versus Butter: The Indirect Link,” American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 35, No. 3, 1991, 

pp. 738-757. 

3. This model is described in Graham Allison and Morton 

Halperin, “Bureaucratic Politics: A Paradigm and Some Policy 

Implications,” World Politics, Vol. 24, 1972, pp. 40-79.

4. Stephen Saideman: “The Dismal Present and Future of 

Smart Defense,” German Marshall Fund Policy Brief, Paris, France: 

German Marshall Fund of the United States, 2014.

5. Vincenzo Bove and Roberto Nistico: “Coups d’état and Defense Spending: A Counterfactual Analysis,” Naples, Italy: Center 

for Studies in Economics and Finance, Working Paper No. 366, 

July 2014. 

6. International rankings are available from globalfirepower.

com. This document is referenced in Marian Nedelcu, “Defense 

Resources Management using Game Theory,” Journal of Defense 

Resources Management, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2014, pp. 33-44.

7. Gregory B. Lewis: “Guns, Butter and Federal Careers: 

Growth, Decline and Personnel in Defense and Domestic Agencies,” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Vol. 7, 

No. 1, 1997, pp. 59-84.

8. Mackenzie Eaglen, “Shrinking Bureaucracy, Overhead and 

Infrastructure: Why This Defense Drawdown Must Be Different 

for the Pentagon,” Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 2013, available from www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/-

shrinking-bureaucracy-overhead-and-infrastructure-why-this-defensedrawdown-must-be-different-for-the-pentagon_083503530347.pdf,

accessed on June 12, 2014. 
69

9. Ron P. Smith, Military Economics: The Interaction of Power 

and Money, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009, p. 99. Quoted in 

Vincenzo Bove and Roberto Nistico, “Coups d’état and Defense 

Spending: A Counterfactual Analysis,” Naples, Italy: Center for 

Studies in Economics and Finance, Working Paper No. 366, July 

2014, p. 6.

10. Quoted in Brauer and Van Tuyll, p. 247.

11. Elizabeth Kier: “Culture and Military Doctrine: France 

between the Wars,” International Security, Vol. 19, No. 4, Spring 

1995, p. 65.

12. John Glenn: “Realism versus Strategic Culture: Competition and Collaboration?” International Studies Review, Vol. 11, No. 

3, September 2009, pp. 523-551.

13. See Andrew Bacevich, American Empire: The Realities and 

Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002, for more on the financial position of the defense 

structure in the post-World War II period.

14. Kier, pp. 65-93.

15. Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver, and Jaap de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis, Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner 

Publishers, 1998, p. 998.

16. Description of the body put forth by Lord Salisbury is included in John P. MacKintosh, “The Role of the Committee of Imperial Defence before 1914,” The English Historical Review, Vol. 77, 

No. 304, July 1962, p. 491.

17. Ibid., p. 494.

18. Brauer and Van Tuyll, p. 15. 

19. Ibid., pp. 16-17.

20. Stephen Broadberry and Mark Harrison, “The Economics 

of World War I: A Comparative Quantitative Analysis,” available 

from www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/academic/harrison/

papers/ww1toronto2.pdf, accessed June 1, 2014.
70

21. Hankey: Man of Secrets, London, UK: Collins, 1972, p. 112, 

quoted in Christopher M. Bell, “Winston Churchill and The Ten 

year Rule,” Journal of Military History, Vol. 74, No. 4, 2010, pp. 523-

536, especially p. 533.

22. G. C. Peden, Arms, Economics and British Strategy: From 

Dreadnoughts to Hydrogen Bombs, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge 

University Press, 2007, p. 105. 

23. Ibid. 

24. Christopher M. Bell, The Royal Navy, Sea Power and Strategy 

between the Wars, London, UK: Macmillan, 2000, p. 653.

25. Peden, p. 11.

26. Jeremy Black, A Military History of Britain, Boulder, CO: 

Greenwood Publishing Co., 2006, p. 124.

27. Peden, p. 100.

28. Keith Neilsen, “The Defense Requirements Sub-committee, British Strategic Foreign Policy, Neville Chamberlain and 

the Path to Appeasement,” English Historical Review, Vol. 118, 

No. 477, 2003, pp. 651-684.

29. Bell, p. 652.

30. Michael Bruno, “Blue Ribbon Blueprint,” Aviation Week 

and Space Technology. Vol. 176, No. 3, January 27, 2014, p. 37.

31. For more on this point, see Robert Farley, “Over the Horizon: A User’s Guide to Inter-Service Conflict,” World Politics 

Review, December 8, 2010, available from www.worldpoliticsreview.

com/articles/7254/over-the-horizon-a-users-guide-to-inter-serviceconflict, accessed June 1, 2014.

32. For more on this point, see Jen DiMascio, “Pentagon May 

Face In-house Rivalry for Dollars, Budget Experts Say,” Defense 

Daily, Vol. 233, No. 20, February 1, 2007, available from www.

highbeam.com/doc/1G1-159827337.html, accessed May 2, 2013. 
71

33. Bruce Hoffman, “British Air Power in Peripheral Conflict, 

1919-1976,” Los Angeles, CA: RAND Reports, 1989, pp. 6-7, available from www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R3749.html, accessed June 

4, 2014.

34. Maurice Hankey, “Towards a National Policy,” Combat 

Aviation Brigade 21/159, July 17, 1919, quoted in Bell, p. 534.

35. This argument is developed at much greater length in 

Trevor Pinch and Weibe Bijker, “The Social Construction of Facts 

and Artifacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology 

of Technology Might Benefit Each Other,” Social Studies of Science, 

Vol. 14, August 1984, pp. 399-441. See also Bruno LaTour, We Have 

Never Been Modern, Catherine Porter, trans., Cambridge, MA: 

Harvard University Press, 1993.

36. Shawn Brimley, Ben Fitzgerald, and Kelley Sayler, 

“Game Changers: Disruptive Technology and U.S. Defense 

Strategy,” Washington, DC: Center for New American Security, 

September 2013. 

37. Jungkun Seo, “The Party Politics of ‘Guns versus Butter’ 

in Post-Vietnam America,” Journal of American Studies, Vol. 45, 

No. 2, 2011, p. 317.

38. “Size, Potential Use of ‘Peace Dividend’ Contested,” 

Congressional Quarterly Almanac 1969, 25th Ed., Washington DC: 

Congressional Quarterly, 1970, pp. 931-934, available from library.

cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id=cqal69-1247117, accessed 

May 15, 2014.

39. Andrew Feickert and Stephen Daggett, “A Historical Perspective on ‘Hollow Forces’,” Washington, DC: Congressional 

Research Service Report, January 31, 2012. 

40. Robert R. Tomes, U.S. Defense Strategy from Vietnam to Operation Iraqi Freedom: Military Innovation and the New American Way 

of War, 1973-2003, Routledge, NY, 2007, p. 61.

41. Ibid. 
72

42. Quoted in Lawrence Freedman, “Military Power and Political Influence,” International Affairs, 1998, pp. 762-779.

43. Quoted in Tomes, p. 60.

44. Both Sasser and Hamilton are quoted in Mark Sommer, 

“Peace Dividend Prospects: Some Fight the Switch,” Chicago Tribune News, January 9, 1990, available from articles.chicagotribune.

com/1990-01-09/news/9001020922_1_interest-rates-peace-economycuts. accessed June 3, 2014.

45. Chris Reidy, “Senators Wonder How to Use Possible Peace 

Dividend,” Orlando Sentinel, December 13, 1989, available from 

articles.orlandosentinel.com/1989-12-13/news/8912132448_1_peacedividend-perestroika-peace-on-earth, accessed June 3, 2013. 

46. Michael Wines, “Upheaval in the East; Webster and 

Cheney at Odds Over Soviet Military Threat,” The New York 

Times, March 7, 1990, available from http://www.nytimes.

com/1990/03/07/world/upheaval-in-the-east-webster-and-cheney-atodds-over-soviet-military-threat.html.

47. Lars-Erik Nelson, “Even Defense Experts Disagree – Is 

There Still a Soviet Threat, and If So, How Serious?” Philadelphia 

Inquirer, March 9, 1990, available from articles.philly.com/1990-

03-09/news/25902471_1_soviet-threat-judge-webster-intelligencecommunity, accessed June 12, 2014. 

48. Walter Mears, “Peace Dividend: Budget Cutters Poised to 

Cash In,” The Free Lance-Star, December 16, 1989, available from 

news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1298&dat=19891216&id=YwNOA

AAAIBAJ&sjid=TIwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6101,3135821, accessed July 

12, 2014. 

49. Walter Mears, “Peace dividend won’t be a bonanza,” 

Lawrence Journal-World, February 10, 1991, available from 

news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2199&dat=19910210&id=

GzYyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=xeUFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6896,2347442, accessed January 26, 2015. 

50. David Rosenbaum, “Washington Talk: Congress, Not 

Bush, Ponders Peace Issues,” The New York Times, December
73

20, 1989, available from www.nytimes.com/1989/12/20/us/

washington-talk-congress-not-bush-ponders-peace-issue.html,

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51. Ibid.

52. Mears, December 16, 1989. 

53. Sommer.

54. Herbert Wulf, “Disarmament as a Chance for Human Development: Is there a Peace Dividend?” Occasional Paper 5, United Nations Development Program Human Development Report, 

New York: United Nations, September 1991, available from Hdr.

undp.org/sites/default/files/Herbert-wulf.pdf, accessed July 2, 2014.

55. Herbert Wulf, “Disarmament as a Chance for Human Development: Is There a Peace Dividend?” Geneva, Switzerland: 

United Nations Development Plan, 1992. 

56. Sommer. 

57. Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History,” The National 

Interest, Summer 1989, available from ps321.community.uaf.edu/

files/2012/10/Fukuyama-End-of-history-article.pdf, accessed July 

2, 2013.

58. John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War 

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