Budgetary Issues

Abstract

Budgetary considerations have obvious appeal in explaining the outcomes of weapon programmes. A specific weapon may be acquired because administration officials and legislators believe it to be good value (or, at least, not bad value). Clearly, the cancellation of weapon programmes may also be explained in terms of budgetary considerations. If a weapon programme is seen to be too expensive then it risks getting cut or cancelled. If defence expenditure is perceived as being too high then weapon programmes may also be cut or cancelled to reduce it. In addition, questions about cost are most likely to be considered towards the later stages of the weapon programme and not the outset. There are two reasons for this, both of which have been dealt with in the previous chapter. First, weapon programmes almost always seem cheaper to start with than they actually turn out to be; there are institutional pressures which lead the services to underestimate the final cost of weapon programmes. Second, weapon programmes swallow up increasing amounts of money as they mature from R&D into production. Explaining the origins of weapons programmes is a different matter. Weapon programmes are rarely, if ever, started because of budgetary issues. It is difficult to imagine that they are ever started for the purpose of simply using up defence dollars. Weapon programmes are never started to reduce the defence budget because the services control weapons acquisition and they have no interest in reducing overall defence expenditure.