Military Power vs. Economic Power in History by James Graham Throughout history military power has been paramount and economic power a luxury. This has slowly changed to the point that the two roles have been reversed. Japan, China and even the United States have relied on economic prosperity to finance formidable military forces. Conversely the Soviet Union, Iraq and North Korea have relied on their military to build economic power with little or limited success. success. Economic power can be defined broadly as the capacity to influence other states through economic means. It is composed of a country's industrial base, natural resources, capital, technology, geographic position, health system and eduction system. Military power on the other hand is the capacity to use force or the threat of force to influence other states. Components of military power include number of divisions, armaments, organisation, training, equipment, readiness, deployment and morale. Military equipment, a key factor in military power can be purchased from a range of countries. Russia, Israel and China are willing to sell their hardware to almost any state in the world. The United States, Japan and the European countries are more selective in the countries they will sell to, but are still big arm's exporters. All a state needs to purchase arms in the international marketplace is hard currency. This allows states with economic power to easily obtain military mi litary equipment. While the other aspects of military power like training and morale are ar e harder to obtain through conversion of economic resources, it is not impossible. A well financed force is able to send members overseas for training and pay its members well. A highly paid soldier is likely to exhibit a high standard of professionalism and have high morale. If a state has the economic resources it should be able to increase its military power. At the close of World War Two both the United States and the Soviet Union found themselves in parallel positions of military and economic power. Both arrived at this position largely through converting their economic resources into military resources during the war. The two superpower's actions in the next fifty years make an interesting comparison. The U.S.'s continued military dominance survived in tact until the mid 1970s. During this decade it faced a major military defeat but more importantly its economy stagnated. With a stagnating economy the U.S. could not increase the amount it spent on its military forces without serious domestic political difficulties. Only when the
economy picked up during the 1980s could the U.S. resume increasing its military power. Under the Regan administration 1981-1989 the U.S. increased its military expenditure significantly and commenced the key Strategic Defence Initiative. This project threatened to radically alter the balance of power between the U.S. and the Soviet Union by rendering Soviet intercontinental nuclear missiles ineffective by means of a nationwide anti missile system. One of the aims of the S.D.I. project described in a defence guidance document was "to open up new areas of military competition and obsolescence previous Soviet investment or employ sophisticated strategic deception options to achieve this end." The S.D.I project was one aspect of the American spend Moscow into the ground strategy. Under this strategy the U.S. not only used economic power for conversion purposes but also as a military weapon in itself. A weapon that proved extremely effective. The Soviet Union employed a more unbalanced strategy towards the growth of its military power. Soviet military industries directly employed 10 million people including the most highly trained scientists and the best educated workers. The military segment of the economy accounted for 25% of the Soviet Union's gross national product and half of all manufacturing in the Russian republic was devoted to the military. This mindset relegated the expansion of economic power to a second order priority. While this strategy worked well for close to thirty years in the l ong run it was a failure. By the 1980s the Soviet economy had deteriorated to such an extent that it could no longer support the Soviet military machine let alone help increase the country's military power. Military crackdowns did however allow the Soviet Union to maintain and prolong its economic power. In Hungary and Czechoslovakia in 1956 and 1968 respectively, Soviet troops kept Eastern Europe under Soviet control and hence in the Soviet economic block for an additional twenty years. Eastern Europe rebelled again in the late 1980s. By this stage Soviet economic power had declined to a point that i ts political masters and citizens no longer had the political will to use Soviet military power to suppress the rebellion. As the Soviet Union collapsed Russia was faced with the task of converting its military industries to civilian production. Mikhail Malei, President Yeltsin's then chief adviser on conversion estimated in 1992 the task would take 15 years and cost 150 billion dollars. One method Russia has chosen to fund this conversion is international arm's sales.
However this option comes with its own problems not least that many of Russia's traditional customers like Iraq can not pay in hard currency. The true benefit of conversion may only come when a large proportion of Russia's 1500 arm's factories go bankrupt. This would release the industry's highly skilled personnel to find employment in other sectors. The physical conversion of military power to economic power is horrendously expensive and difficult to achieve. Iraq is a country that was able to transfer much of its economic wealth earned largely from oil revenues into building its military power. However Iraq's attempt to use this military power to further increase its economic power was a complete diaster. Its invasion and incorporation of Kuwait were swiftly condemned by the nations of the world who defeated Iraq and threw its forces out of Kuwait. Apart from the obvious material loss and infrastructure damage severe economic sanctions were placed on Iraq. These sanctions continue to this day and include oil, Iraq's main foreign currency earner. The result has been a near collapse in the Iraqi economy. Iraq's blatant use of its military power in an attempt to gain additional economic power backfired dramatically placing its economy in ruins. North Korea is another state that has pursued military power at the expense of economic power. In North Korea's case it has almost completely failed to convert its military power into economic power. According to Lee Ki-Tak, an expert on North Korean affairs the North's development of heavy industry for mil itary purposes has ensured the agriculture and consumer products industries are virtually non existent. This lopsided development has forced thousands in the country to die of starvation. The northern government has also had to approach its previously sworn enemies, South Korea and the U.S. for humanitarian aid. North Korea's military build up and subsequent military power has been of no use in curing the countries economic woes. Japan has taken the opposite path since World War Two. Using its growing economic power to build the second most advanced military force in the world. Throughout this period Japan has been able to keep its defence expenditure around or below one percent of gross national product. In comparison the U.S. spends upwards of six percent of its G.N.P. on defence and most European countries around three to four percent. Remarkably during this period Japan has also been able to increase total defence expenditure by an average of six percent per year. Hence Japan's increasing economic power has allowed it to rapidly increase its military power without causing cut backs in other areas. Japan is now in the enviable position of spending a larger amount
on defence than every other state bar the U.S. with a relatively smaller drain on its economy. For years China has maintained the world's largest standing army but has had relatively little military power. For as the size of its military has been large the quality and technology of its equipment has been low. In the last two decades as the expansion of the Chinese economy has grown pace the government has begun to modernise its military forces. Modern fighter aircraft, submarines, air-to-air missiles, ground attack missiles and supersonic anti-ship missiles are being added to the Chinese military arsenal. These advanced weapons are costly and China purchasing them would have been unthinkable before its economic resurgence. China is using its growing economic power to increase its military power. While it is possible to convert military power back into economic power peacefully, the cost is largely prohibitive. Forceful use of military power to build economic power is extremely risky and can have counter productive side effects in the form of economic sanctions. Military power is also extremely difficult to sustain without corresponding levels of economic power. For it is economic power that allows military power to be built up in the first place.
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