Defense Spending and Procurement

A research agenda emphasizing the nonpareto and nonlinear relationship between domestic defense spending, capabilities, and national security outcomes. Research and papers address serious shortcomings in conventional defense spending analyses to problematize 1) the role of strategic preferences and national interest, and 2) intentional design versus institutional inefficiencies, constraints, redundancies, and waste.

“European Defense Budget Cuts: Undercutting European Power and Military Capabilities?” with Lenka Wieluns, in progress.

addresses the strategic intentions of European states over a decade of defense spending cuts. Demonstrated that cuts reflect primarily reinvestments and reforms, rather than retrenchment or intentional decline. We are currently revising the paper to incorporate recent defense spending data to account for post-2014 spending increases.

“Privileging Procurement?: Understanding Procurement Trends in Military Spending from 1950  to Today” with Rosella Cappella-Zielinski and Benjamin Fordham), in progress.

disaggregates US defense budgets with historical ‘line item’ data (procurement, R&D, operations, and personnel) hypothesizing inverse pressures, tradeoffs, and structural constraints within defense budgets.