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Books > Business & Economics > Industry & industrial studies > Manufacturing industries > Armaments industries
China is flexing its growing military and strategic clout in the pursuit of broadening national security interests. At the same time, the country's economic and technology policies have also become more nationalistic, state-centered, and ambitious. China's defense economy has set its sights on catching up with the West by the beginning of the 2020s and is making steady progress in building up its innovation capabilities, although this is presently in the form of incremental and sustaining types of activities. More high-end, disruptive forms of innovation that would lead to major breakthroughs are likely to be beyond China's reach in the near-to medium term. This volume provides a wide-ranging and detailed assessment of the present state of the Chinese defense economy at a time of rapid change and accelerating advancement in its innovation capabilities and performance. This collection of articles has three main goals: (1) to locate China's defense innovation dynamics within broader historical, technological and methodological frameworks of analysis; (2) to assess the performance of the Chinese defense economy's six principal subsectors; and (3) to compare China's approach to defense industrialization with major counterparts in the Asia-Pacific region. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Strategic Studies.
US Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler collected an award cabinet full of medals for his battlefield bravery. But perhaps his bravest act of all was to declare, after his retirement in the early 1930s, who was really winning (and losing) during the bloody clashes. It was business interests, he revealed, who commercially benefited from warfare. War Is a Racket is the title of the influential speech Butler delivered on a tour across the United States, as well the expanded version of the talk that was later published in 1935 and is now reprinted here. This seminal piece of writing rings as true today as it did during Butler's lifetime. In his introduction, Jesse Ventura reviews Butler's original writings and relates them to our current political climate explaining how right he was, and how wrong our current system is. With an insightful new foreword by Salon.com founder David Talbot, and a new afterword by activist Cindy Sheehan, this portable reference will appeal to anyone interested in the state of our country and the entire world. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
This book draws a subtle picture of Warsaw Pact economic and military cooperation by presenting a complete branch-the military industry-from the perspective of a smaller member-state, Hungary. It demonstrates that the military industry's cooperation played a crucial role in the development of economic integration within the Soviet Bloc, and it was in this sector that the strongest, most efficient integration was established. The book builds on recently declassified documentation from Soviet-led international economic organizations to give insight into the backstage debates of partner states, to shed light on the intensive conflicts and clashes of interests between the nations, and to highlight the bureaucratic decision making of the Eastern bloc's supranational organ. The transnational analysis is supplemented by the presentation of the national viewpoint: how Hungary intended to vindicate its interests, what measures Budapest took to optimize international cooperation, and what kind of new markets were discovered outside the Warsaw Pact.
In this narrative of extraordinary richness, depth, and authority, America's preeminent biographer/historian explores the German national character as no other writer has done. The Arms of Krupp brings to life Europe's wealthiest, most powerful family, a four-hundred-year German dynasty that developed the world's most technologically advanced weapons, from cannons to submarines to anti-aircraft guns; provided arms to generations of German leaders, including the Kaiser and Hitler; operated private concentration camps during the Nazi era; survived conviction at Nuremberg; and wielded enormous influence on the course of world events. William Manchester's galvanizing account of the rise and fall of the Krupp dynasty is history as it should be written-alive with all its terrifying power.
Prolific munitions production keyed America's triumph in World War II but so did the complex economic controls needed to sustain that production. Artillery, tanks, planes, ships, trucks, and weaponry of every kind were constantly demanded by the military and readily supplied by American business. While that relationship was remarkably successful in helping the U.S. win the war, it also raised troubling issues about wartime economies that have never been fully resolved.
Koistinen traces the evolution of federal agencies mobilizing for war--including the National Defense Advisory Commission, the Office of Production Management, and the Supply Priorities and Allocation Board-and then focuses on the work of the War Production Board from 1942-1945. As the war progressed, the WPB and related agencies oversaw the military's supply and procurement systems; stabilized the economy while financing the war; closely monitored labor relations; and controlled the shipping and rationing of fuel and food. In chronicling American mobilization, Koistinen reveals how representatives of industry and the armed services expanded upon their growing prewar ties to shape policies for harnessing the economy, and how federal agencies were subsequently riven with dissension as New Deal reformers and anti-New Deal corporate elements battled for control over mobilization itself. As the armed services emerged as the principal customers of a command economy, the military-industrial nexus consolidated its power and ultimately succeeded in bending the reformers to its will. The product of exhaustive archival research, Arsenal of World War II shows that mobilization meant more than simply harnessing the economy for war-it also involved struggles for power and position among a great many interest groups and ideologies. Nearly two decades in the making, it provides an ambitious and enormously insightful overview of the emergence of the military-industrial economy, one that still resonates today as America continues to wage wars around the globe.
This book makes an original contribution to our knowledge of the world's major defence industries. Experts from a wide range of different countries - from the major economies of North America and Western Europe to developing economies and some unique cases such as China, India, Singapore, South Africa and North Korea - describe and analyse the structure, conduct and performance of the defence industry in that country. Each chapter opens with statistics on a key nation's defence spending, its spending on defence R&D and on procurement over the period 1980 to 2017, allowing for an analysis of industry changes following the end of the Cold War. After the facts of each industry, the authors describe and analyse the structure, conduct and performance of the industry. The analysis of 'structure' includes discussions of entry conditions, domestic monopoly/oligopoly structures and opportunities for competition. The section on 'conduct' analyses price/non-price competition, including private and state funded R&D, and 'performance' incorporates profitability, imports and exports together with spin-offs and technical progress. The conclusion explores the future prospects for each nation's defence industry. Do defence industries have a future? What might the future defence firm and industry look like in 50 years' time? This volume is a vital resource and reference for anyone interested in defence economics, industrial economics, international relations, strategic studies and public procurement.
Recent political developments imply a much larger part of our economy will be devoted to civilian enterprises and a much smaller part to military work than in the recent past. This book examines the impact on the technical community, particularly engineers, of the conversion of defense-related industries to civilian-oriented activities. Currently about one third of all engineers work on military projects, and four fifths of all federal research and development is defense-related. The essays in this volume are by academic researchers (in disciplines ranging from psychology and philosophy to economics and engineering), engineers and managers from companies that work on military projects, and representatives of some of the professional societies of engineers. They address the questions: What will be the impact on the technical community of the economic conversion? What effect will the technical community have on the conversion? What actions can one take to minimize the destructive and maximize the constructive effects of the conversion? What are the implications for engineering education, professional work, and public policy?
This book focuses on the lives, struggles, and contrasting perspectives of the 60,000 workers, military administrators, and technical staff employed in the largest, most strategic industry of the Nationalist government, the armaments industry based in the wartime capital, Chongqing. The author argues that China's arsenal workers participated in three interlocked conflicts between 1937 and 1953: a war of national liberation, a civil war, and a class war. The work adds to the scholarship on the Chinese revolution, which has previously focused primarily on rural China, showing how workers’ alienation from the military officers directing the arsenals eroded the legitimacy of the Nationalist regime and how the Communists mobilized working-class support in Chongqing. Moreover, in emphasizing the urban, working-class, and nationalist components of the 1949 revolution, the author demonstrates the multiple sources of workers’ identities and thus challenges previous studies that have exclusively stressed workers’ particularistic or regional identities.
The world arms market has been in continuous flux since the end of the Cold War. This volume provides a policy-relevant analysis of the complex web of contemporary economic trends, political developments and strategic considerations that are shaping the contours of the new post-Cold War world market for weaponry.
Whatever happened to the post-Cold War "peace dividend"? Why does military spending continue to escape federal budget reductions? Why, despite the nearly universal desire to reduce government waste and budget deficits, is the United States still saddled with a costly, bloated military-industrial complex? The answer, says Sanford Gottlieb, is the debilitating dependence of a key sector of the American economy on defense jobs and profits. Defense Addiction is based on hundreds of interviews with defense contractors, union representatives, members of Congress, state and federal officials, lobbyists, economic development professionals, and local activists. Gottlieb explains how these groups and individuals cope with defense dependence, competition for federal funds, and budget and job cuts-painting a sobering picture of how this addiction hampers the nation's ability to deal effectively with a host of domestic and global problems. Gottlieb's engaging and jargon-free volume points to civilian public investments, reduced military spending, strengthened international peacekeeping, and other measures that could help our country kick the defense habit. His book also provides guidance to companies and communities struggling to break free in the face of inadequate government policies.
This book shows how the Dutch accumulation of great wealth was closely linked to their involvement in warfare. By charting Dutch activity across the globe, it explores Dutch participation in the international arms trade, and in wars both at home and abroad. In doing so, it ponders the issue of how capitalism has often historically thrived best when its practitioners are ruthless and ignore the human cost of their search for riches. This complicates the traditional Marxist understanding of capitalists as middle-class exploiters in arguing for a much greater agency among lower-class Dutch soldiers and sailors in their efforts to benefit from skills that were in high demand.
In 1989-90 the collapse of state socialism and the end of the Cold War brought dramatic changes for the defence industries of East-Central Europe. Initially it seemed that the resources devoted to the Cold War confrontation might become available for investment in non-military economic and social progress. However, by 1994 this optimism had given way to recognition that the transformation would involve significant costs and could not be accomplished quickly. The Defence Industry in East-Central Europe charts the development of the industries of the Visegrad countries - Czechoslovakia and its successor states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia; Poland; and Hungary. In the first part, national case studies underline the different approaches to reform adopted in the individual countries. The second part uses unique information derived from extensive interviews at enterprises in each of the four countries to examine the transformation of industry from a producer perspective.
Arms Industry Limited is an empirical account of the size and structure of the world arms industry with special case studies of the United States, the former Soviet Union, Canada, countries in both Western and Central Europe, and countries in the less developed world and in the Asia-Pacific region. The book describes the various strategies which arms producing companies have adopted in order to meet the challenges and commitments of the post-cold war world. Governments are in the process of restructuring national armed forces and revising military equipment procurement plans. Military budgets are tighter in many parts of the world, affecting national arms production and arms exports. The most common company strategies are to reduce the size of the firm and lay off employees, to mothball production facilities, to `transnationalize' firms, and to convert firms to non-military production. While there are counter-pressures to a decrease in the production and export of arms, in the future companies will probably have to reduce their production capacities and number of employees even further. The strong international pressure on governments to regulate arms exports, particularly since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, is also examined by the international group of experts who have contributed the case studies in the volume.
It is estimated that today some 2.7% of world GDP ($1.5 trillion) is spent on arms. In 2014 Lockheed Martin, the US defence contractor, had revenues of $45 billion the equivalent of the GDP of Tunisia. This book explores the business behind these breathtaking figures and explains how the arms industry makes its money. The book begins by defining the industry, explaining why the sector is important, outlining its prime contractors and key supply chains. Its cost categories (from R&D to maintenance), the role of technical innovation, and the sector's dependence on the monopsony buying power of Government, are all examined. The structure-conduct and performance model is used to show the workings of the arms market and its various entry and exit conditions, and the sector's performance is analysed through various indicators including exports, development time scales, cost overruns and profitability. The complex choice problems of domestic procurement are considered alongside sales to foreign governments and the opportunities that may present for bribery and corruption. The Military-Industrial-Political-Complex (MIPC) is unpacked and the behaviour of its major agents national defence agencies, the armed forces, producer groups, political agents (voters, political parties and budget-maximising bureaucracies) is scrutinised, both in times of conflict (expansion) and peace (contraction). The book concludes by considering future trends, such as whether arms industries are better under state or private ownership, and how they can meet the challenge of new threats in different forms. The discussion throughout is anchored to case studies from all parts of the world, including Brazil, Korea, Japan, Russia as well as UK, US and Europe. As an authoritative non-technical introduction to the economics of arms industries, it is suitable for students of business studies, politics, international relations, political economy, strategic and defence studies as well as for courses on microeconomics and industrial economics. As a masterly summation from one of the world's leading defence economists, it will also be required reading for staff in defence ministries, procurement agencies, the armed forces and strategic studies think-tanks throughout the world.
This report examines the prospects for defence industries in Central and Eastern Europe as they attempt to restructure in the wake of the dramatic changes in the security environment brought about by the end of the cold war. Chapters examine key factors affecting the process of industrial restructuring in the region: the role of military doctrine, the trend in national military expenditure, the process of internalization of the defence industry, and the role of arms exports. Contributors: Ian Anthony, Shannon Kile, Evamaria Loose-Weintraub
Based on fieldwork at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory - the facility that designed the neutron bomb and the warhead for the MX missile - "Nuclear Rites" takes the reader deep inside the top-secret culture of a nuclear weapons lab. Exploring the scientists' world of dark humor, ritualized secrecy, and disciplined emotions, anthropologist Hugh Gusterson uncovers the beliefs and values that animate their work. He discovers that many of the scientists are Christians, deeply convinced of the morality of their work, and a number are liberals who opposed the Vietnam War and the Reagan-Bush agenda. Gusterson also examines the anti-nuclear movement, concluding that the scientists and protesters are alike in surprising ways, with both cultures reflecting the hopes and anxieties of an increasingly threatened middle class. In a lively, wide-ranging account, Gusterson analyzes the ethics and politics of laboratory employees, the effects of security regulations on the scientists' private lives, and the role of nuclear tests - beyond the obvious scientific one - as rituals of initiation and transcendence. He shows how the scientists learn to identify in an almost romantic way with the power of the machines they design - machines they do not fear. In the 1980s the 'world behind the fence' was thrown into crisis by massive anti-nuclear protests at the gates of the lab and by the end of the Cold War. Gusterson links the emergence of the anti-nuclear movement to shifting gender roles and the development of postindustrial capitalism.
Military production in Russia has decreased nearly 70 per cent since 1989, and that now-unused industrial capacity has to be redirected to towards market conditions. By the end of 1994, privatization had had only a small effect on defence-enterprise profiles; real conversion is still a rarity. In most cases, these enterprises merely attempt to expand their existing civilian-orientated production, due largely to lack of investment, technological gaps, and inexperience in operating within a free-market system. The product of a continuing research project on conversion in Russia, this book, which includes contributions from Russia, Germany, Sweden and France, presents case studies and theoretical analyses on the conversion process.
France ranks as the world's third largest arms exporter and supplies arms and military technology to over a hundred countries. This book exposes the compelling aims and interests--national independence, security, economic welfare, foreign influence, grandeur--that explain the nation's successes in arms production and transfers. Originally published in 1987. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
France ranks as the world's third largest arms exporter and supplies arms and military technology to over a hundred countries. This book exposes the compelling aims and interests--national independence, security, economic welfare, foreign influence, grandeur--that explain the nation's successes in arms production and transfers. Originally published in 1987. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Peter Batchelor and Susan Willett analyze the response of the South African defence industry to drastic cuts in military expenditure and the demilitarization of society since the end of the Cold War and apartheid, and the stabilization of the regional security situation. The new ANC-led government is seeking to use the resources released - the "peace dividend" - to restructure and revitalize the country's industrial base and to support reconstruction, development and redistribution. A lively debate on the country's security needs and strategic doctrine is under way. As in other countries, strategies of industrial diversification and conversion have met with limited success. In the absence hitherto of any coherent government policy on defence industrial adjustment, significant skills and technologies have been lost or wasted. This book provides a historical analysis of South Africa's opportunity to develop new and innovative policies on defence and security matters, the arms industry and arms exports, and makes a valuable contribution to the international debate on the relationship between disarmament and development.
Profound changes are occurring in the structure of arms production in Western Europe. In this book, experts describe how the framework for producing arms in Western Europe is altered, and how various actors-firms, governments, unions-are adapting to the new situation. The book presents detailed analyses for all arms-producing countries in Western Europe. In addition to describing recent changes, the authors speculate on the implications of these for the balance of power in Western Europe, the relations between Western Europe and the United States, arms exports to the Third World, and problems of converting military production to civilian uses.
In a time of great need for Britain, a small coterie of influential businessmen gained access to secret information on industrial mobilisation as advisers to the Principal Supply Officers Committee. They provided the state with priceless advice, but, as "insiders" utilised their access to information to build a business empire at a fraction of the normal costs. Outsiders, in contrast, lacked influence and were forced together into a defensive "ring" - or cartel - which effectively fixed prices for British warships. By the 1930s, the cartel grew into one of the most sophisticated profiteering groups of its day. This book examines the relationship between the private naval armaments industry, businessmen, and the British government defence planners between the wars. It reassesses the concept of the military-industrial complex through the impact of disarmament upon private industry, the role of leading industrialists in supply and procurement policy, and the successes and failings of government organisation. It blends together political, naval, and business history in new ways, and, by situating the business activities of industrialists alongside their work as government advisors, sheds new light on the operation of the British state. This is the story of how these men profited while effectively saving the National Government from itself.
Based on an empirical examination of all aspects of the Soviet military-technical establishment, this original study examines the de-tooling and conversion of the vast Soviet defence industry, following the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, that was vital for Russian political, economic and social regeneration and stability, and had huge implications for international relations and the world economy. Grounded in political and social theory, this book explores the post-Soviet regeneration of Eastern Europe.
Wartime is costly. Whilst the human cost is a burden which remains part of our every waking thoughts for many years after the end of the conflict, the physical cost, at least in some cases, is easier to deal with. Some, if not most of the physical cost of war, is spent in the constant supply of materials including armaments and machines to the troops- wherever they happen to be fighting. Of course the Services have always needed supplies of uniforms, equipment and machines. However, the rate of expansion of the Services and the rate of consumption of armaments increases dramatically in wartime. Pre-war traditional manufacturers simply could not cope with the sudden increase in orders. The only solution was to fabricate what was needed, in the Second World War at least, in additional factories. Shadow Factories was the term used to describe the use of third party factories and equipment used to manufacture components or complete units which were then passed on to the Services. These units could be anything from tanks, parts of aircraft to small pumps or rifles. The list was almost endless. Clearly it would be impossible to walk into the nearest engineering shop and expect them to manufacture heavy components. The railway yards were used to dealing with heavy blocks of metals and so they were approached to help with heavier vehicles such as tanks. Similarly the motor manufacturers were asked to help out with producing trucks and jeeps, for example. Of course this need necessitated formal contracts, and as far as possible discretion so that the German bombers could not locate and destroy vital sources of supplies. In some cases, such was the level of secrecy that components for aircraft for example, were fabricated in a number of shadow factories and assembled in a different location. In that way the exact engineering drawings could be more easily controlled and a stray bomb would only destroy part of the plans and planes. Where relevant, examples are provided from across the United Kingdom and cover an extensive range of machines and vehicles. Some details will also be provided concerning armament shells, some of which were made in one site and filled in other facilities. The government departments were certainly kept busy keeping track of it all! |
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