Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://dair.nps.edu/handle/123456789/2597
Title: The Impact of Globalization of the U.S. Defense Industrial Base
Authors: Jacques S. Gansler
William Lucyshyn
John Rigilano
Keywords: Globalization
Industrial Base
Defense Policy
Issue Date: 26-Feb-2014
Publisher: Acquisition Research Program
Citation: Published--Unlimited Distribution
Series/Report no.: Defense Industrial Base (DIB)
UMD-AM-13-101
Abstract: The nation's military strategy, in large part, continues to depend on superior technology, highly qualified operational forces, and the ability to sustain those forces, in order to achieve its objectives. However, in spite of fact that the U.S. defense industrial base and the global defense industrial base have changed significantly since the end of the Cold War, current U.S. defense policy amounts to little more than the consolidation of numerous incremental changes that are often contradictory in their aims. The impacts of globalization on defense must be better understood so that policy-makers can better balance the requirements of defense industrial and trade policy with political, economic, and security considerations. Globalization is the long-term, largely irreversible phenomenon involving the political, cultural, and economic merging of geographically dispersed groups of people across geopolitical lines (Defense Science Board [DSB], 1999). With the advent of modern transportation and communication technologies, the implications of globalization have grown exponentially. In the past, the U.S. industrial base would ramp-up production to meet the needs of the U.S. military, and then fade into the background when the conflict concluded. Throughout the Cold War, however, defense emerged as a permanent segment of America's industrial base, providing dedicated development and production of systems, equipment, and supplies. Rather than mobilize the U.S. civilian economy for conflict, the military sought to develop sufficient permanent capacity within the defense industry to successfully engage in conflicts as they arose (Gansler, 1980). The end of military tensions between the former Soviet Union and the United States ushered in a major restructuring of the defense industry. Four major developments precipitated a new environment in which the post Cold War defense industrial base now operates: (1) major cuts to the defense budget; (2) the commercial sector entrance into high-tech research and development (R&D); (3) the offshoring and outsourcing of technology R&D and production; and (4) the DoD's shift towards net-centric warfare, a strategy informed by increasingly sophisticated and complex communications and information technology becoming available.
Description: Acquisition Management / Defense Acquisition Community Contributor
URI: https://dair.nps.edu/handle/123456789/2597
Appears in Collections:Sponsored Acquisition Research & Technical Reports

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