[extropy-chat] FWD [fantasticreality] Nice Summary of Problems of the self-denoted "Cultural Elites"

[J. Andrew Rogers]

On Jul 23, 2006, at 11:14 AM, Jeff Davis wrote:
> (3) Decommercialization of military spending, ie taking the profit out
> of the defense "business".  Just as individual citizens can be
> conscripted to perform military service, so to the production of
> defense-related products and services should be *conscripted* --
> seized/compelled.  Without profit, war would be severly
> disincentive-ized.


There are a few serious practical problems with this.

The first global problem is that there are a couple sovereign states  
of significant size that significantly rely on military exports for  
their economic health, Russia being the most notorious but hardly the  
only one.  Of the major exporters this is probably the least true of  
the US, primarily because the US occupies a special place in the  
weapon development market.  Stopping profit-taking on this scale will  
be essentially impossible.  During the first Gulf War, it was widely  
rumored in geopolitical academia that USSR acquiescence was achieved  
on the matter of Iraq because the US led coalition was only going to  
destroy all the military hardware of one of their best customers but  
not eliminate the customer, creating a rich new sales opportunity for  
weaponry when their economy desperately needed it.  (The USSR and  
Russia have frequently been suspected of fomenting conflicts in their  
export markets solely for the purpose of boosting sales.)

The second major problem is that you cannot conscript an advanced  
weapons R&D program at will.  If it is not an ongoing concern in  
peacetime, it will come up very short in wartime.  As is in evidence  
in two World Wars, it takes months to years to get things going from  
a standing start, and during those first years it can cost a country  
dearly.  These days, wars tend to be shorter than the war development  
ramp-up time, so if you do not already have something you never will  
for useful purposes.  For obvious reasons, no vaguely decent  
government can conscript entire industries indefinitely.  The term  
for that is "nationalizing" and has consistently produced poor  
results.  Remember, the USSR actually did what you are proposing for  
a long time.

The third issue is exclusivity, regulation, and market realities.   
Before the development of a defense research industry to address the  
second point in the 1930s and 1940s, most of the best weapon designs  
were private commercial developments sold to anyone with money which  
were adapted to the military later.[1]  While this was extremely  
efficient economically, it seriously blunted any meaningful  
technological advantage a military might have as technology became an  
increasingly decisive factor.  Combined with broad regulatory schemes  
that effectively killed non-governmental weapon R&D in the mid-20th  
century, privately-funded commercial military development became a  
grossly inefficient enterprise.


To a significant extent, we have the setup we have today because it  
has been mandated in the US with no other practical ways to meet the  
government's objectives given a market and regulatory scheme that the  
majority of people want.  For the military R&D necessary to maintain  
an advantage to continue, there has to be a customer.  It used to be  
the American public and foreign countries, but both of these markets  
have been eliminated through strict regulation.  That leaves only one  
plausible commercial market for funding peacetime R&D: the US  
government.  If  no customer exists, the work simply won't be done  
which has practical long-term geopolitical consequences.


Cheers,

J. Andrew Rogers


[1]  The common usage of military adoption dates to denote a  
particular weapon design in the first half of the 20th century and  
prior (e.g. Model 1903 Springfield) creates a common misconception  
that the weapon was designed or first available around that time when  
in fact many so designated weapons were sold to the general public  
for many years prior to military adoption.  For example, the famous  
Model 1911 .45 pistol was based on a gun Colt had been selling to the  
public since 1905.  That most weapon technology and development was  
done by private ventures with private money until relatively recently  
is almost inconceivable now because of how the industry has been  
reshaped.  Most weapon design and research done today is done for a  
specific military contract.