Eugene Gholz

Restructuring the U.S. Defense Industry

The end of the Cold War produced major changes in the U.S. defense sector. More than 2 million defense workers, military personnel, and civil servants have lost their jobs. Thousands of arms have left the industry. More than one hundred military bases have closed, and the production of weapons is down considerably. As signiacant as these changes are, they do not address the key issues in restructuring the post–Cold War defense sector. The Reagan-era defense buildup led contractors to invest in huge production capacity that no longer is needed. This capacity overhang includes too many open factories, each of which produces a “legacy” system that was designed for the Cold War. Many individual defense plants are also too large to produce efaciently at post–Cold War levels of demand. Until this excess capacity is eliminated, the United States will continue to spend too much on defense. The politics of jobs and congressional districts that many analysts thought governed the Cold War have triumphed in its aftermath. Today, years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, not one Cold War weapon platform line has closed in the United States. 1 The same factories still produce the same aircraft, ships, and armored vehicles (or their incremental descendants). During the Cold War, the high level of perceived security threat increased U.S. policymakers’ respect for military advice on weapons procurement and research and development (R&D) decisions. The military services’ expert knowledge checked Congress’s pork barrel instincts, and failed or unneeded weapon systems were often canceled. Today, however, contractors and congres

Protecting “The Prize”: Oil and the U.S. National Interest

American national security policy is based on a misunderstanding about U.S. oil interests. Although oil is a vital commodity, potential supply disruptions are less worrisome than scholars, politicians, and pundits presume. This article identifies four adaptive mechanisms that together can compensate for almost all oil shocks, meaning that continuous supply to consumers will limit scarcity-induced price increases. The adaptive mechanisms are not particularly fragile and do not require tremendous foresight by either governments or economic actors. We illustrate these mechanisms at work using evidence from every major oil disruption since 1973. We then identify the small subset of disruptive events that would overwhelm these adaptive mechanisms and therefore seriously harm the United States. Finally, we analyze the utility of U.S. foreign military policy tools in addressing these threats. Our findings suggest that the United States can defend its key interests in the Persian Gulf—the worlds most important oil-producing region—with a less-intrusive, “over the horizon” posture.

The effects of wars on neutral countries: Why it doesn't pay to preserve the peace

SINCE THE END of the cold war, Americans have struggled to understand the new threats and opportunities created by the changed international environment. The threat that captivated the United States for half a century—that a hostile great power would conquer most of die industrialized world—is now gone. Not only has the Soviet Union disappeared, but no new peer competitor is on the horizon. Furthermore, while the nuclear revolution does not guarantee peace, it does guarantee that great powers can no longer be conquered. What are the remaining international threats to the United States? If they are small, can the United States reduce its overseas commitments, cut its defense budget dramatically, and enjoy its enormous security and prosperity?

The Curtiss-Wright Corporation and Cold War–Era Defense Procurement: A Challenge to Military-Industrial Complex Theory

The extraordinary year-to-year continuity in the list of top Cold War aerospace suppliers has led many analysts to adopt theories of a military-industrial complex (MIC). The collapse of the Curtiss-Wright Corporation, once the second-largest manufacturer in the United States and a leading defense contractor, belies their approach. This article recounts the histories of Curtiss-Wrights three independent divisions and uses these to test the MIC theory against three other explanations of the pattern of Cold War defense procurement: the technological imperative, the bureaucratic-strategic perspective, and free-market competition. The bureaucratic-strategic theory is most consistent with the case-study evidence.

Restraining Order: For Strategic Modesty

Even in an era of globalization, when information, people, goods, services, and, yes, weapons, armies, and terrorists may travel much more efficiently than in the past, geography still matters. At the start of the Cold War, the United States chose to relinquish the protection given by wide ocean buffers and relatively unthreatening neighbors to protect poor and depleted European and Asian allies whose own geography made them vulnerable to Soviet expansion. Today, however, the Cold War is long over, these allies have grown prosperous, and its time for America to reclaim its strategic depth. The Cold War left a legacy that has been difficult for Americans to transcend. The global network of American bases and military commands is ready for use, and many U.S. allies, despite their posturing complaints about U.S. policy, often encourage our interventionism as a way of ducking responsibility for maintaining their own security. It is also true that post-Cold War conflicts that developed in or near the collapsed Soviet empire, and the violent ethnic rivalries and failed states of Africa and Asia, have tempted U.S. intervention. When President Obama and other policymakers claim that security is indivisible?that instability anywhere

Energy, Coercive Diplomacy, and Sanctions

Analysis of energy markets has long focused on the concern that fossil fuels might be used as instruments of coercion. In this chapter, we review the state of knowledge on the relationship between energy, coercion, and sanctions. We argue that historical concerns in the major energy-importing countries regarding the potential for coercion have largely been misguided: the structure of energy markets makes it difficult to use the fossil fuels that form the basis of our energy system as instruments of coercion or to enforce changes in target states’ behavior. We suggest there are nevertheless a number of important questions that remain amenable to further research. First, more research is needed to understand the implications of energy supply chains in which production, transportation, refining, and distribution are no longer handled by the same companies or dominated by the same countries. Second, recent sanctions efforts suggest that oil consumers may gain leverage vis-a-vis producers, yet the effectiveness of sanctions against energy exporters remains poorly understood, including sanctions that target the financial activities that underpin their ability to settle trades in oil and gas. Third, scholars interested in energy could also profitably study the relationship between the energy sector and interest groups politics, both in targeted countries and those seeking to impose costs through the manipulation of energy markets.

Emerging Technologies’ Potential to Change the Balance of Power in Asia

Technology underlies the ways that militaries interact with each other—at its simplest, whether their forces even have the range to interact. It is by no means the only factor involved in the strategic balance. Each country’s economic power has a big effect, because it determines not only what technologies it can develop, purchase, and maintain but also how much of each technology a country can afford. And a host of other factors influence countries’ ability to use those technologies effectively. Perhaps even more important, foreign policy intentions, whether aggressive or aimed at preserving the status quo, are the proximate cause of many interactions. But technology and its interaction with geography constitute the structure of the strategic environment.

The RMA and the defense industry

1. The Missing Transformation Harvey M. Sapolsky, Benjamin H. Friedman, and Brendan Rittenhouse Green 2. The Technology of The Revolution in Military Affairs David Burbach, Brendan Rittenhouse Green, and Benjamin H. Friedman 3. From Conservation to Revolutionary Intoxication: The US Army and the Second Interwar Period Colin Jackson 4. The Navy After the Cold War: Progress Without Revolution Benjamin H. Friedman 5. Evolution in the Post-Cold War Air Force: Technology, Doctrine and Bureaucratic Politics Sanford L. Weiner 6. The Marine Corps: Sticking to its Guns Austin Long 7. The Fifth Service: The Rise of Special Operations Command Austin Long and Colin Jackson 8. Defense Strategy in the 1990s: Old Wine, New Bottles Robert R. Tomes 9. The RMA and the Defense Industry Eugene Gholz 10. The RMA and the Second Interwar Period Harvey M. Sapolsky, Benjamin H. Friedman, and Brendan Rittenhouse Green