My own thinking about arms is grounded, primarily in my own experience in the Army and a lifelong proximity and love of aircraft. I don't think a lot about the Navy, but I should. The past few weeks have provided a number of interesting articles about the Russian navy and arms acquisition and manufacture, which have many applications for I think about the problem of arms in general.
The first link is to a story about the sinking of the dry dock and damage to Russia's Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier. The story highlights the importance of infrastructure for both building and servicing military equipment. In addition to the need to think about infrastructure, is a discussion about the shift in strategy and acquisition to favor small ships over a large blue-water navy. For states with arms production capability, the acquisition process is still tied to strategic priorities and bureaucratic politics. This is an issue that has been explored with a bit of depth in the US case and its often dysfunctional arms acquisition process. Opening the black box of other states and understanding what drives the purchasing decisions beyond economic necessity is an under-explored area in the literature on arms transfers.
A two-part article on the Russian Defense Policy Blog discusses the issue of nuclear submarines in the Russian fleet. Part I of the article is basically a translation of an article that ran in the Russian press that asks hard questions about the priorities of the Russian fleet. Part II of the article provides more commentary on the primary arguments in the original piece. The gist of the piece is that the focus on nuclear subs with a capability that lags behind the US is starving the entire fleet of necessary resources that could provide stronger strategic value.
An interesting question to ask here is how the priority to export weapons interferes with or enhances the strategic capabilities of states. Jonathan Caverley and Ethan Kapstein have written about this in the US context. They advocate updating the arms acquisition in the US to favor "good enough" weapons that can be exported as well rather than simply focusing on building the top of the line systems. When the state is both dependent on exports for reasons of status and economics (as I found in my dissertation), how do strategic priorities shift? How can the state allocate resources efficiently under conditions of competing priorities?
In the case of Russia does chasing great power status and a posture that follows the Soviet Cold War allocation of naval resources (in terms of aircraft carriers for power projection and nuclear submarines for nuclear deterrence) harm its ability to meet its new strategic demands and realities?
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The first link is to a story about the sinking of the dry dock and damage to Russia's Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier. The story highlights the importance of infrastructure for both building and servicing military equipment. In addition to the need to think about infrastructure, is a discussion about the shift in strategy and acquisition to favor small ships over a large blue-water navy. For states with arms production capability, the acquisition process is still tied to strategic priorities and bureaucratic politics. This is an issue that has been explored with a bit of depth in the US case and its often dysfunctional arms acquisition process. Opening the black box of other states and understanding what drives the purchasing decisions beyond economic necessity is an under-explored area in the literature on arms transfers.
A two-part article on the Russian Defense Policy Blog discusses the issue of nuclear submarines in the Russian fleet. Part I of the article is basically a translation of an article that ran in the Russian press that asks hard questions about the priorities of the Russian fleet. Part II of the article provides more commentary on the primary arguments in the original piece. The gist of the piece is that the focus on nuclear subs with a capability that lags behind the US is starving the entire fleet of necessary resources that could provide stronger strategic value.
An interesting question to ask here is how the priority to export weapons interferes with or enhances the strategic capabilities of states. Jonathan Caverley and Ethan Kapstein have written about this in the US context. They advocate updating the arms acquisition in the US to favor "good enough" weapons that can be exported as well rather than simply focusing on building the top of the line systems. When the state is both dependent on exports for reasons of status and economics (as I found in my dissertation), how do strategic priorities shift? How can the state allocate resources efficiently under conditions of competing priorities?
In the case of Russia does chasing great power status and a posture that follows the Soviet Cold War allocation of naval resources (in terms of aircraft carriers for power projection and nuclear submarines for nuclear deterrence) harm its ability to meet its new strategic demands and realities?
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Caverley, Jonathan, and Ethan B. Kapstein. (2012) Arms Away. Foreign Affairs 91: 125–132.
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