Abstract
Nayantara Hensel, an economist and policymaker with academic, corporate and American Department of Defense (DOD) experience, examines the American defence industrial sector with a focus on the interaction of the DOD, military services, contractors, European counterparts and developing countries in the Middle East and Asia.
The fundamental arguments are as follows. (1) There is an interrelationship between the strategic decisions made in one defence sector which will then impact on other industry sectors, on the defence sectors of other countries and on other areas of the local and global economy. (2) America continually struggles to maintain critical aspects of the defence industrial base as defence priorities and budgets change in response to a combination of several challenges, namely, cycles of budgetary growth and shrinkage, shifts in strategic priorities and macroeconomic volatility.
The historical and contemporary approach assesses implications for the future under a number of different headings, covering the evolution and challenges of the American defence budget and trade-offs which impact on the defence industrial base, the American defence industrial base, defence industry consolidation, defence industrial alliances, globalisation and American defence industries – a case of tanker competition between Boeing and Northrop Grumman/EADS, the role of America in international defence markets and the global defence market and global arms deliveries. The book is aimed at defence policymakers, economists, professionals in the defence industries, the military and students.
Hensel succeeds in her main goals of giving readers a well-written and long-awaited primer on the topic, emphasising historical and contemporary challenges and strategic choices. The book is empirically noteworthy in providing an exhaustive mine of international defence sector data, full of comparative figures, tables and diagrams depicting specific defence sector purchases by country of interest including cost, time series, cross-country defence expenditures and numerous case studies for illustrative support.
What is most revealing is how interconnected the defence sector is among nations. The book is theoretically innovative, providing a plausible understanding of the complex interactions of economic, budgetary, security and business strategies – contested on a daily basis – in debates about public budgets and deficits, jobs and corporate and national alliances and rivalries.
Designing and implementing good defence policies would seem to require a contest between big ideas about war and peace, and the author’s arguments are credible through the detailed historical context and overview of domestic and international environment of how states and the global defence sector choose to respond. One main weakness is that the book is too descriptive and it does not identify or propose a concrete way ahead for the American defence industrial base or other nations to meet the numerous challenges.