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p There is a close relationship between war and the economy. A country’s economic potential is the decisive factor of its military power. In antiquity, the Middle Ages and in the early period of capitalism, this relationship was hardly appreciable. In those times, economically backward states often won their wars against more advanced and larger states, because the course and outcome of a war were decided mostly by the numerical strength of the opposing armies, the standards of their training and organisation and their mastery of the art of warfare. This is illustrated by the military defeats inflicted on the European peoples by the Huns, the Mongols, and Ottoman Turkey.

p As productive forces developed and weapons of war became more sophisticated, the dependence of war on the economy grew, as did the absolute and relative demand for material resources and manpower during military conflicts. This was pointed out in their day by the classics of bourgeois political economy. Adam Smith, for one, wrote:

p “The great change introduced into the art of war by the invention of firearms has enhanced still further both the expense of exercising and disciplining any particular number of soldiers in time of peace, and that of employing them in time of war. Both their arms and their ammunition are become more expensive.... In modern times many different causes contribute to render the defence of the society more expensive....

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p “In modern war the great expense on firearms gives an evident advantage to the nation which can best afford that expense, and consequently, to an opulent and civilized, over a poor and barbarous nation.”  [54•1 

p The founders of Marxism were the first to give an exhaustive scientific explanation of the dependence of war on the economy and of the impact of progress in weaponry on the methods of warfare, on the concepts of military art. In a letter to Engels, Marx wrote: "Is our theory that the organisation of labour is determined by the means of production confirmed anywhere more splendidly than in the manslaughtering industry?”  [54•2 

p In his writings, Engels, a brilliant expert on military matters, dealt with problems of war in great detail. Referring to the relation between war and the economy he wrote in AntiDiihring that "nothing is more dependent on economic prerequisites than precisely army and navy. Armament, composition, organisation, tactics and strategy depend above all on the stage reached at the time in production and on communications. It is not the ’free creations of the mind’ of generals of genius that have had a revolutionising effect here, but the invention of better weapons and the change in the human material, the soldiers; at the very most, the part played by generals of genius is limited to adapting methods of fighting to the new weapons and combatants.”  [54•3 

p In his works, Engels traces the history of changes in the art of war brought on by advances in military technology, pointing out in particular the new elements introduced by the revolutionary war the insurgent North American colonies waged against Imperial Britain. That war was quite unlike feudal wars. The American rebels had revised not only the methods of warfare but also the very content of war. They were fighting a revolutionary war for their freedom and independence.

p Large manpower and material resources are required to prepare and wage war. The quality and quantity of means 55 of warfare vary with the development of productive forces. The history of wars shows that the development of military technology involves an absolute and relative increase in material expenditure on the preparation and conduct of wars. It has been estimated that 19th-century wars consumed an average of 8 to 14 per cent of the national incomes of the belligerents, the first and the second world wars just under 50 and over 50 per cent respectively.

p As Engels described it, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870- 71 marked a turning-point in the history of the art of war, militarism and the arms race. Engels wrote: "The army has become the main purpose of the state, and an end in itself; the peoples are there only to provide soldiers and feed them. Militarism dominates and is swallowing Europe.”  [55•1 

p In the imperialist epoch, militarism and the arms race have assumed a vast scope and spread to all continents. The law of the uneven economic and political development of capitalist countries under imperialism results in a disturbance of the balance of power among the bourgeois states followed by wars for a redivision of the world "according to power”. But since the transition of capitalism to its imperialist stage has greatly enhanced the importance of market outlets and raw material sources and has strengthened economic and political ties between individual countries, even a minor military conflict is likely to affect the interests of many nations. As a result, wars have grown in scope and intensity. For instance, within the first half of this century, the imperialist rivalry for a redivision of the world plunged the mankind into two sanguinary world wars. The First World War involved a total of 36 countries which committed some 70 million officers and men to the battlefield. World War II involved 61 countries and a total of 110 million officers and men.

p World War I differed from all previous wars in scope and character. It saw the advent of novel types of armaments and combat equipment, such as aircraft, machineguns, motorised heavy artillery, tanks, and so on. For the first time in history the belligerents used combat equipment driven by internal combustion engines.

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p The vast scale of hostilities in World War I, the appearance of new, sophisticated types of weapons and combat equipment combined to swell the demand for material resources to be used in war. For instance, at the height of hostilities between 1914 and 1918 the daily consumption of ammunition exceeded that expended in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. The weight of metal fired in a single offensive of the American forces on the Continent in 1918 was greater than the total used by the North in the whole of the Civil War of 1861-65.  [56•1 

p The first few days of World War I showed that the stocks of armaments and ammunition accumulated prior to the outbreak of hostilities were insufficient for the continuation of the war and that the General Staffs of almost all the belligerents had overrated the amount of war supplies at their disposal and had failed to anticipate the actual requirements of the impending war. It became perfectly clear that the government arsenals alone were incapable of meeting the needs of the war which made qualitatively new demands on the economy and called for gearing the bulk of the belligerents’ economic potential to the war effort. In 1918, the share of war production in total industrial output was 75 per cent in Germany and France, 65 per cent in Britain, and 40 per cent in the USA. The total of basic types of weapons and material produced by the main belligerents in the First World War is shown in Table 7.

p The mobilisation of the economic resources and the organisation of arms production on a vast scale made it possible to make up for the current losses on the battlefield and to improve substantially the equipment of the armed forces. Indeed, on the eve of the war the armies of the West European countries had an average of 400 rubles’ worth of weapons and equipment per serviceman, whereas towards the end of the war the figure rose to 2,000 rubles.  [56•2 

p The colossal claims of the war upon material resources compelled the belligerent powers to place their entire economy on a war footing. The imperialist war accelerated the
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57 Table 7 g P Production of Armaments and Military Equipment in World War I (1914-18) (thous. pcs) Types of armament and equipment USA Germany Britain France Austro-Hungary Russia Italy Total Rifles . . . 3 500 8,547 3 854 2 500 3 500 3,300 2,400 27,601 Heavy machine-guns . . 75.0 280 239.0 87.0 40.5 28.0 101.0 850.5 Submachine-guns .... — — — 225.0 — — — 225.0 Artillery pieces .... 4.0 64.0 26.4 23.2 15.9 11.7 6.5 151.7 Mortars 0.6 12.0 2.5 3.0 __ _ ._ ____ 18.1 Tanks ....... 1.0 0 1 2.8 5.3 _ 9.2 Aircraft 13.8 47 3 47.8 52.1 5.4 3.5 12.0 181.9 Ordnance ammunition (mil.) ........ 20.0 306.0 218.0 290.0 80.0 67.0 70.0 1,051.0 Small arms ammunition (thous. mil.) ..... 3.5 8.2 8.6 6.3 4.0 13.5 3.6 47.7 Motor vehicles 30.0 65.0 87.0 110.0 __ 20.0 28.0 340.0 z D Pi n o o

Source: Militarism. Disarmament, Handbook, Moscow, 1963. p. 17 (in Russian).

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development of monopoly capitalism into state-monopoly capitalism. The vast scale of hostilities dictated the need for government interference in national economic affairs. Lenin wrote in this connection: "Monopoly capitalism is developing into state-monopoly capitalism. In a number of countries regulation of production and distribution by society is being introduced by force of circumstances. Some countries are introducing universal labour conscription.”  [58•1 

p Lenin repeatedly emphasised the decisive role of the economy in war. In his article "On a Businesslike Basis" he pointed out that "to wage the war in earnest we need a strong and organised rear. Even the best of armies, even people most sincerely devoted to the revolutionary cause will be immediately exterminated by the enemy, if they are not adequately armed, supplied with food and trained.”  [58•2  In another work Lenin wrote: "Victory in war goes to the side whose people has greater reserves, greater sources of strength and greater endurance.”  [58•3 

The all-important role of the economy as the material and technical basis for war was dramatically demonstrated during World War II, which saw radical changes in the methods and means of warfare, the use on a vast scale of new, more effective means of destruction. The use of machines assumed a mass scale, and the degree of mechanisation of military operations sharply increased. In 1914, there was an average of 0.3-0.4 h.p. of mechanical energy per serviceman, in 1918, 1.5-2.0 h.p., whereas on the eve of World War II the figure rose to 10 h.p. and more.  [58•4  In the course of the war, the powerto-man ratio continued to climb. The vast scale of hostilities, the advent of new, more sophisticated weapons and equipment led to a steep increase in the demand for material resources. To meet the needs of the war the belligerent powers had to gear to it the bulk of their economic and manpower resources, to place their entire economies at its service. The higher level of their productive forces enabled the belligerent capitalist countries to organise war production on a scale many times that during World War I.

59 Table 8 Production of Armaments and Military Equipment in World War II (1939-45) (thous. pcs) Types of armament and equipment USA Britain Germany 296.1 102.6 104.0 Tanks 86.5 25.1 65.1 253.0 113.8 174.5 110.0 48.3 82.0 14,623.0 5,415.0 12,309.0 Ordnance ammunition (mil.) Small arms ammunition 331.0 31.5 294.7 9.3 357.0 16.5

p Source: Militarism. Disarmament, p. 18.

p The production of armaments and military equipment on such a vast scale was made possible by the intensive mobilisation of the economic resources and manpower of the belligerent countries for the war effort. According to some estimates, between 1941 and 1945 the share of military production in the total of US industrial output averaged 60.6 per cent.  [59•1 

p For the quantity of arms and equipment used on the battlefield, World War II surpassed by far World War I. During World War I, the American expeditionary force fired less than 10 million artillery and mortar shells, whereas during World War II US forces fired 8 million shells a month in Europe alone. The enormous demands of the war for weapons and equipment, as well as their quick destruction on the battlefield, called for the all but full utilisation for war purposes of many types of equipment and raw materials at the disposal of the belligerents, their allies and even neutral states.

p World War II showed that success in modern war largely depends on the quantity and quality of the economic resources available, on the efficiency and speed of mobilisation and 60 supply of fighting equipment and ammunition to the active forces. The war also demonstrated the difficulty and complexity of measures involved in placing the national economy on a war footing, in mobilising a nation’s material and manpower resources for large-scale production of sophisticated and labour-consuming military equipment. To start war production, it is necessary to build arms factories and supply them with industrial plant and raw materials. This, as well as the manufacture of end-products, takes time. This factor has great military significance in the sense that a country prepared for war well in advance has an enormous advantage over a country which is not and which, irrespective of the size and standard of her economic potential, finds herself at a disadvantage at least in the initial period of the war. Such was the situation during World War II when nazi Germany, fully geared for war, was able to achieve temporary successes early in the war with smaller economic resources than those of the Soviet Union and its Allies.

p The experience of past wars shows that technological progress, the improvement and increasing sophistication of weaponry and methods of warfare went hand in hand with the increase in the importance of the economy, the level of the productive forces and science for a country’s militaryeconomic potential. The advent of missiles and nuclear weapons and other advanced and costly weapons of war enhanced the role of the economy and science in war. After World War II, other factors emerged which are responsible for new requirements for the economic preparation of wars.

p First, it is the unprecedented growth of militarism in capitalist countries. The fact that modern militarism seeks to turn back the clock of history and preserve capitalism and the colonial system and that the military activities of the imperialist powers are directed primarily against the socialist countries combine to stimulate the unprecedented growth of the military establishment.

p Second, it is the extraordinary sophistication and dynamic evolutions of modern armaments. The intensive use of scientific and technological achievements for military purposes, the unprecedented militarisation of science and large-scale military research and development (R&D) entail a rapid 61 increase in costs and labour intensity in the production of weaponry. The multiple increase in and the extremely high cost of modern armaments are illustrated by the following data: since the Second World War to date the cost of an aircraft carrier has grown from 55 million dollars to 750 million; a submarine, from 5 million dollars to 170 million; a destroyer, from 6.5 million dollars to 90 million; a bomber, from 0.5 million dollars to 25 million; a fighter plane, from 50 thousand dollars to 11.5 million; a tank, from 70 thousand dollars to 600 thousand dollars; a rifle, from 50 dollars to 164 dollars.

p Modern advances in military technology make it possible to develop a large variety of intricate weapons system with impressive performance characteristics. It is precisely this increased design complexity of weapons and equipment which is the main reason behind the greater labour-intensity of their manufacture and the rapid growth of prices for them. The manufacture of modern military equipment calls for immense outlays on R&D, the procurement of top quality special materials and costly radioelectronic equipment, adequate industrial facilities and the maintenance of skilled personnel.

p Labour expenditure on the development of similar weapons systems can serve as an aggregate, summary index of the complexity of R&D involved. A total of 200,000 manhours was needed to develop the B-17 bomber (completed in 1937), 10 million man-hours was spent on the B-58 (1957) and 15 million man-hours, on the XB-70 (1965).

p The impact of R&D on labour intensity and consequently on the cost of weapons systems can be gauged from the following data. R&D spending involved in the building of nuclear-powered submarines in 1957/58-1960/61 amounted to 1,400 million dollars, or about 33 per cent of the total construction costs of the first 19 nuclear-powered submarines (4,200 million dollars). During World War II expenditure on designing a submarine accounted for 20 per cent of what it cost to build her, whereas in the sixties designing a firstline submarine cost as much as it did to build one submarine of her class. Table 9 illustrates the large share of R&D in the total cost of modern military equipment.

p A sizable share of expenditure on military equipment goes to radioelectronic hardware. For instance, in 1962/63 it
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62 Table 9 Cost of Research and Development Compared with Unit Cost of Production and Total Cost Equipment R&D cost Unit cost minus H&D Ratio of R&D to unit cost Number of R&D cost as percentage of the million dollars equipment total cost Leopard Tank (FRG) 25 0 275 91 1 500 5 7 TSR aircraft ( United Kingdom) Minuteman Missile, Version "C" (USA) ..... 700 450 5.6 3 0 125 150 100 300 56 33 Polaris Missile (USA) ..... 1,475 2.0 737 1,000 42

Source: The Review of Economics and Statistics, November 1967, p. 533.

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accounted for an average of 21 per cent of the total expenditure on the procurement of aircraft and warships, 35 per cent in the case of communication equipment and instruments, and 21.5 per cent in the case of ordnance, small arms, ammunition, tanks and armoured vehicles. With certain types of weapons systems radioelectronic equipment accounts for over half the total cost. For instance, in the case of air-to-air missiles with infra-red homing devices the cost of radioelectronic hardware accounted for 50-80 per cent, and in the case of guided tactical missiles, for 50-60 per cent.

p The growth of military equipment prices is attributable not only to the increasing design complexity, which calls for considerable R&D outlays and extensive use of radioelectronic equipment, but also to the relatively small scale of production of certain types of equipment in peacetime, which precludes any appreciable reduction in production costs through automation and cutting the share of R&D outlays and other indirect expenditures.

p The growing sophistication and high cost of modern weaponry, as well as the drastic reduction in the average service 63 life of weapons systems due to their rapid obsolescence, call for increasing consumption of economic resources for the maintenance and expansion of a country’s military potential. There was time when armies could use their equipment until it became useless through wear and tear. The progress of military technology and the appearance of novel and more effective weapons systems compel armed forces to replace all obsolescent military equipment with new models. Therefore, fully operational weapons systems often have to be scrapped as obsolescent. For instance, the United States has discarded certain types of obsolescent aircraft, missiles and other weapons systems to replace them with new, more advanced models at an extravagant additional expense.

p Military equipment develops and becomes obsolescent at a faster rate than civilian goods. The acceleration of obsolescence and increasingly shorter service life of military equipment inevitably lead to enormous additional expenditure of financial and material resources for military purposes.

p These and other factors are responsible for the increase in the labour intensity and cost of war, the cost of maintenance of a single serviceman and a country’s armed forces as a whole. According to the American economist M. Slade Kendrick, average annual expenditure per US serviceman (in 1926 prices) was under 1,000 dollars between 1861 and 1865, 2,700 in 1898, 3,300 in 1918, 2,300-4,200 between 1922 and 1938.  [63•1  According to our estimates, similar US expenditure (in 1926 prices) was 6,800 dollars in 1943 during World War II, 8,200 during the Korean war, 9,900 in I960, 10,900 in 1965 and 11,300 dollars in 1967.

p An important factor requiring a new approach to the economic preparation of a modern war is the unprecedented destructive capacity of nuclear missiles and the fact that a country’s economy and rear have now become extremely vulnerable to attack. The imperialists know full well that should they unleash a nuclear war against the Soviet Union and other socialist countries their own territory will be immediately subjected to devastating nucler-missile retaliation. This awareness compels the imperialists to take measures well in 64 advance to prepare the population and the economy for a war emergency, ensure the survivability of the economy, develop large stand-by production capacities, accumulate stocks of strategic materials, etc.

p The experience of past wars shows that as military technology develops it is necessary to spend more and more to achieve analogous war objectives. For example, in 54 B.C. Julius Caesar spent about 75 cents per enemy soldier killed, in 1800 Napoleon spent about three thousand dollars, in World War I the United States spent about twenty-one thousand dollars per man killed and in World War II about two hundred thousand dollars.  [64•1  It has been estimated that during the Korean war, the USA spent up to 570,000 dollars per man killed.

p In comparing these rather rough estimates one has to take into account the fact that unlike the past, when the primary target of military operations was enemy manpower, in modern war prime significance is attached to destroying enemy military equipment, defence facilities, industrial centres and similar targets in the enemy’s rear apart from annihilating his armed forces. That is why for an assessment of the military effect in wars of different periods the number of enemy soldiers killed is not a very reliable criterion.

p So far, there is no method for estimating the effectiveness of military expenditures by a universal index. The reason is that changes in military power and in the effects of its use call for examination of a large number of factors. In our view, a country’s military power can be gauged in two ways: 

p first, from the standard of her armed forces viewed irrespective of enemy power; a rough idea of that is given by their total firepower, and power-to-man ratio, logistical support and mobility, by the value of property in possession of the defence ministry, etc.; 

p second, from the prospective ultimate results of the use of her armed forces, i.e., their capacity to achieve major military-political objectives directly in the course of the war. 65 This calls for a special comparative analysis of her military power, possible belligerents and opposing coalitions, which is not the subject of the present volume.

p This dual approach enables one to assess the effectiveness of military expenditures and make a comparison of the relevant indices to ascertain the effectiveness of different variants of solving concrete military problems both at the given stage in the development of military technology and in different historical periods. This method for the assessment and comparison of the effectiveness of military expenditures discloses the following historical tendencies:

p 1. The growing effectiveness of military expenditures per unit of military power viewed irrespective of enemy power and the ultimate war objectives. The development of military technology is attended with reductions in unit cost of destructive power and means of its delivery to target. It is assumed that the destructive power of one H-bomb is several times that of all the explosives used in the history of wars, though its cost is probably a fraction of the latter’s.

p 2. Although unit cost of military power tends to be cheaper, more and more funds are needed to prepare and wage war in terms of both total ancjf per capita expenditure. For instance, the US total direct military spending (in 1926 prices) grew from 1,394,200,000 dollars in 1938/39 to 42,280,300,000 in 1967/68. Over the period, direct military expenditures per serviceman grew 180 per cent to reach 11,919 dollars in 1967/68. Expressed in current prices, this expenditure amounted to over 24,000 dollars in 1967/68.

p The tendency towards increased labour intensity in preparing and waging war is attributable to progress in military technology, the increased material support of armed forces and the improvement of weaponry, both offensive and defensive. This warrants the conclusion about the declining effectiveness of military expenditure for the achievement of ultimate war objectives, which largely depend on the alignment of opposing forces.

p So, the development of military technology is accompanied by two contrary tendencies: the growing effectiveness of military expenditures as far as the destructive capacity of armed forces is concerned and their falling effectiveness as regards the achievement of basic war objectives.

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The history of wars shows that as military technology advances and means of warfare become more sophisticated, the interconnection between war and the economy becomes closer and the role of a country’s economic potential in the course and outcome of a war increases. The economy is the material basis for preparing and waging war and is the decisive factor of military power. However, it would be a mistake to assess and compare the military potential and power of different states solely on the basis of their respective economic potentials. The level of development and the scale of the economy provide objective prerequisites for and determine the ultimate limits of using the material and manpower resources for military purposes. Apart from the economy, military potential depends also on such factors as the mode of production, the moral and political strength of a country, the combat efficiency of her armed forces, the skill of her military leaders, the organising ability of the government, etc.