103

p The Defence Department accounts for the bulk of the US direct military expenditure. In the period from 1950/51 to 1969/70 its share of the total was 88.3 per cent by our
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104 Table 11 The Defence (million | Department Budget dollars; per cent) Item of expenditure Fiscal 195! 1953 1955 1957 I960 Military personnel ..... 7,469 6,715 3,976 1,602 440 —437 11,913 10,379 17,123 2,336 1,913 —54 11,062 7,905 12,997 2,349 1,582 —364 11,409 9,487 13,488 2,406 1,968 —323 11,738 10,223 13,334 4,710 1,626 —416 Operation and maintenance Procurement ....... Research, development, test and evaluation ..... Military construction . . . Family housing ...... Civil defence ....... Revolving and management funds and other ..... Total .......... 19,765 43,610 35,531 38,435 41,215 years 1904 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1973* 1974* 105 14,195 11,932 15,351 14,771 12,349 11,839 16,753 14,710 14,339 19,787 19,000 19,012 21,954 20,578 23,283 23,818 22,227 23,988 25,880 21,609 21,584 27,527 21,540 15,600 27,206 21,662 16,490 7,021 6,236 6,259 7,160 7,747 7,457 7,166 7,622 8,069 1,026 580 107 1,007 619 93 1,334 647 86 1,536 482 100 1,281 495 108 1,389 572 87 1,168 614 80 1,068 244 87 1,220 464 90 —452 —741 281 389 1,927 -1,661 —951 699 3,089 49,760 46,173 54,409 67,466 77,373 77,877 77,150 74,200 78,200 28.6 23.9 30.8 32.0 26.7 25.6 30.8 27.0 26.3 29.3 28.2 28.2 28.4 26.6 30.1 30.6 28.5 30.8 33.5 28.0 28.0 37.0 29.0 21.0 34.8 27.7 21.0 14.2 13.6 11.5 10.6 10.0 9.6 9.3 10.3 10.2 2.1 1.2 0.2 2.2 1.3 0.2 2.5 1.2 0.2 2.3 0.7 0.1 1.7 0.6 0.1 1.8 0.7 0.1 1.5 0.8 0.1 1.4 0.3 0.1 1.6 0.6 0.1 — —1.6 0.5 0.6 2.5 —2.1 —1.2 0.9 4.0 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 Military personnel ..... 37 8 27.3 31 1 29 7 28 5 Operation and maintenance Procurement ....... 34.0 20 0 23.8 39 2 22.2 36 6 24.7 35 1 24.8 32 4 Research, development, test and evaluation ..... 8 2 5.4 6 6 6 3 11 4 Military construction . . . Family housing ...... 2.2 4.4 4.5 5.0 3.9 Civil defence ..... Revolving and management funds and other .... —2.2 —0.1 —1.0 —0.8 —1.0 Total .......... 100 100 100 100 100

p * Estimate.

Sources: Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1957, p. 238; 1963, p. 256; 1965, p. 254; The Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 1968, pp. 456-57; Fiscal Year 1971, p. 82; Fiscal Year 1974, pp. 214, 345, 364.

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estimates and has since increased. President Nixon’s message, to Congress on the budget in January 1973 indicated that in 1973/74 this share would go up to 92.9 per cent as against 87.2 per cent in 1962/63 and 85.4 per cent in 1955/56. Table 11 shows trends and shifts in the structure of Defence Department expenditure.

p Military Personnel Maintenance. Before the era of imperialism, military equipment was not sophisticated and its standards varied but slightly from country to country. Military power depended primarily on such factors as the number of soldiers, their training, endurance and courage, the military skill of commanding officers. Therefore, the bulk of direct military expenditure went to maintain and train army personnel. As military technology developed, and armies became mechanised, the share of expenditure on personnel maintenance declined.

p Between 1950/51 and 1972/73 this expenditure in the USA totalled 365,000 million dollars, about 30.6 per cent of all Defence Department spending over the period. The USA spends relatively less on armed forces personnel than other imperialist powers and relatively more on military equipment and strategic stockpiles.

p In the post-war years, the absolute volume of maintenance spending is far in excess of the pre-war level. This is attributable, first, to the increased numerical strength of forces and, second, to the higher per capita cost of their maintenance and, especially, training. In 1939, the US regular forces had 328,000 officers and men, whereas by mid-1965 the figure had grown to 2,653,000, i.e., eightfold. It was stated in the President’s message to Congress on the budget for 1965/66 that the Administration was planning a reduction in the US armed forces but ’when the Vietnam escalation was started their strength shot up to 3,500,000 officers and men. In recent time, there has been a certain reduction in the US troop strength as part of the implementation of the Nixon Doctrine.

p A salient feature of the US armed forces is the high proportion of Air Force and Navy personnel.

Modern weapons require more and more time and money for training servicemen in handling them. For instance, 64,500-72,400 dollars is allocated to train one crew member 107 of the aircraft carrier Forrestal in peacetime, and 52,100- 58,500 in wartime. The maintenance and full course of training of one student of the US Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., costs 11,000 dollars. The overall annual expenditure on the West Point Academy runs at 88.5 million dollars.  [107•1  The training of the US military personnel cost 4,300 million dollars in 1967/68 and 4,400 million in 1968/69. The training of Air Force personnel is particularly expensive. Although 85 per cent of the US Air Force personnel are high school graduates their training standards fall short of the present level of aviation technology. The Secretary of Defence, in a statement in February 1968, said that an average of 1,500 million dollars a year was spent on the training of US Air Force pilots. The table below presents data on the cost of training crews for different types of combat aircraft (in thousands of dollars).

B-52 B-47 KC-135 Aircraft Commander .... Copilot 1,290 253 489 140 372 105 Navigator . 238 232 91 Radar Navigator ..... Electronic Warfare Officer 419 82 Gunner 47 Boom Operator 46 Total 2 329 861 614

p Source: Aviation Week and Space Technology, June 20, 1960, p. 140.

p The US armed forces employ about one million civilians in equipment, maintenance, R&D, construction, procurement and other jobs. In the early sixties, a tendency was in evidence towards employment of servicemen in traditional civilian jobs. Between 1960 and 1964, the number of civilians 108 reduced by 52,800, while that of servicemen increased by 202,000. The pay to civilian employees of the armed forces is not listed under the "Military Personnel" item and comes from other special funds appropriated for the operation and maintenance of military equipment and stores, R&D, etc.

p In connection with the Vietnam war the Defence Department decided to employ more civilians so as to transfer non-combatant military personnel to active duty. According to Pentagon sources the replacement of civilians with servicemen in administrative, clerical, supply and technical jobs contributes to a more efficient use of the military personnel funds.

p The effectiveness of expenditure on the maintenance and training of servicemen largely depends on their personal qualities, specifically their educational background and the standards of training in regular forces. In the post-war years, there has been a notable improvement in the general educational standards of military personnel, while the Defence Department has taken a series of measures to improve the training of military cadres, as a matter of exceptional importance.

p The special courses organised by the Defence Department at many American universities play an important part in advanced training of military officers. To date, some 50 per cent of the US Army officers, 35 per cent of the Air Force officers and 20 per cent of the Navy officers have completed these courses.  [108•1  The training of officers at universities costs the Pentagon much less (5,000 dollars per head) than in military colleges (12,000 dollars), while its general standards are higher.  [108•2 

p Military Procurement. At the turn of the century, military technology began to develop at a markedly faster rate than before. World War I revolutionised weaponry, and it kept up its rapid pace of advance in the twenties and thirties. During and after World War II, military technology advanced faster than ever, and in the last 30 years experienced a full-scale revolution, which brought in its wake such formidable weapons as A- and H-bombs, jet aircraft, strategic missiles, nuclear-powered submarines, etc.

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p Between 1945 and 1950 US military technology made greater advances than in the whole period between the Civil War and World War I. Looking in retrospect at military technology as it was after World War II until the end of the Korean war, one will see that most of the weapons and equipment procured today were then non-existent and are products of later development.  [109•1 

Improvements in armaments invariably involved a rise in their cost. For instance, the three battleships of 10,300 tons standard displacement each commissioned in 1895-96 cost 6 to 6.6 million dollars, the two 32,300-ton battleships built in 1920-21, 18 and 20 million dollars respectively. By comparison, the cost of battleships built during World War II 15,000 tons each) ranged from 95 to 115 million dollars,  [109•2  while an aircraft carrier in the Midway class (51,000 tons) cost 90 million dollars. A modern carrier such as the America (64,000 tons) commissioned early in 1965 cost 293 million dollars, and the nuclear-powered Enterprise (75,700 tons) operational since 1961, 444 million dollars. Here is another example concerning aircraft technology. An official spokesman of the Convair Division of the General Dynamics Corporation stated that in 1959 prices the cost of the 200th production aircraft fully airworthy would be in the case of a B-17 740,000 dollars, a B-47 4,400,000 and a B-58 6,400,000. So, the cost of a modern B-58 supersonic bomber is 8.7 times that of the B-17 of World War II. The following data released by the Atomic Energy Commission give an idea of the cost of nuclear charges:

Yield (range) Cost (thousand dollars) Note About 10 kilotons .... 5 megatons ........ 10 kilotons . . ... 750 1,000 350 Planning estimates Later price 2 megatons . . ... 600

p Source: Engineering News-Record No. 21, May 1964, p. 62.

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The rapid advancement and increasing complexity of military equipment accompanied by its steadily rising cost lead to increased expenditure on material support of the armed forces. During World War II, the equipment of a US infantry division cost 19 million dollars, whereas, in 1950 the figure rose to 80 million, reaching 111 million in 1964. The following data show the cost of equipment and maintenance of the various types of US army divisions over a period of five years (in millions of dollars):

Equipment Maintenance (5 years) Total Airborne ..... 282 705 987 Armoured ........ 182 681 863 Mechanised ........ 155 646 801 Infantry .... 111 582 693 Paratroop ........ 76 579 655

p Source: Wehr and Wirtschaft N. 2, 1966, S. 108.

p The procurement of military equipment is listed under corresponding item of the Defence Department budget. The funds available under it go to purchase aircraft, warships and auxiliary craft, missiles and rockets, radioelectronic and communications equipment, tanks and other armoured vehicles, small arms, ordnance and ammunition, etc. Large expenditures for modernising operational military equipment, as well as the financing of federal purchases of military production facilities, are also listed under this item.

p Procurement outlays are a big item of US direct military spending. In the period from 1950/51 to 1972/73 the Pentagon allocated for military procurement over 355,000 million dollars or 30 per cent of its total budget. This enormous expenditure is attributable to the US Government’s efforts to improve steadily the equipment of the US armed forces, to its rapid obsolescence involving the need for early replacement and to its growing cost.

p There have been notable changes in procurement patterns (see Table 12). In the period from 1950/51 to 1964/65, an
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111 Table 12 Defence Department Procurement (million dollars; per cent) Fiscal years Item of expenditure 1951 1953 1955 1957 I960 1964 1965 Aircraft and parts 2,412 7,416 8,037 8,647 6,272 6,053 5,200 Ships 382 1,191 1,009 842 1,744 2,078 1,713 Missiles 21 295 632 1,855 3,027 3,577 2,096 Electronics and communications 193 1,001 636 881 1,093 1,264 897 Armour, ordnance, small arms, ammunition . . 635 4,603 1,334 761 443 1,597 1,309 Other procurement 333 2,617 1,349 502 755 782 624 Total ..... 3,976 17,123 12,997 13,488 13,334 15,351 11,839     Aircraft and parts 60.66 41.31 61.84 64.11 47.04 39.4 43.9 Ships ...... 9.61 6.96 7.76 6.24 13.08 13.5 14.5 Missiles ..... 0.53 1.72 4.86 13.75 22.70 23.3 17.7 Electronics and communications 4.85 5.85 4.89 6.53 8.20 8.2 7.6 Armour, ordnance, small arms,
ammunition . . . 15.97 26.88 10.26 5.64 3.32 10.5 11.1 Other procurement 8.38 15.28 10.39 3.73 5.66 5.1 5.2 Total ..... 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
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average of almost a half of the funds was spent on aircraft procurement. Prior to the escalation of the Vietnam war, however, expenditure on aircraft and related equipment showed a relative decline, while that for missiles and rockets increased. At the same time, the share of expenditure on submarines and naval armaments, including conventional types, was on the upgrade. These changes in procurement patterns are traced to two basic reasons: first, the rapid
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112 (continued from page 111 Fiscal years Item of expenditure 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1972 1973* 1974** Aircraft and parts 6.635 8,411 9,462 9,177 7.948 6,445 5,750 6,052 Ships . ... 1 479 1,398 1 356 1,949 2 066 3.010 2,970 3 902 Missiles ..... 2’,069 1^930 2’,2i9 2,509 2^912 3,402 3,104 2’,885 Electronics and
communications . . . 983 1,284 1.595 1,409 1,182 783 973 1,060 Armour, ordnance, small arms,
ammunition . 1 642 3 881 6 447 6 590 5 620 3 271 3 365 2 507 Other procurement . U31 2,108 2,204 2,354 1,857 1,847 2,460 2,400 Total ..... 14,339 19,012 23,283 23,988 21.585 18,758" 18,622** 18,806*« Aircraft and parts . 46,2 44.2 40.6 38.3 36.8 34.4 30.9 32.2 Ships ..... . 10.3 7.4 5.8 8.0 9.6 16.0 15.9 20.8 Missiles 14.4 10.2 9.5 10.5 13.5 18.2 16.7 15.3 Electronics and
communications 6.9 6.8 6.9 5.9 5.5 4.2 5.2 5.6 Armour, ordnance, small arms,
ammunition 11 5 20 4 27 7 27 5 26 0 17 4 18 1 13 3 Other procurement . 10.7 H.’O 9.5 9.8 8.6 9.8 132 12.8 Total ... 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

p * Estimate.

p ** Total obligational authority.

Sources: Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1957, p. 238; 1963, p. 256; 1965, p. 254; The Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 1966, p. 492; Aerospace Facts and Figures 1970, New York, 1970, pp. 10-11; Space Daily, February 1, 1971, p. 136; Aviation Week and Space Technology, February 5, 1973, p. 14.

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progress of military technology as exemplified by the development of new, future-oriented weapons systems and the resulting obsolescence of operational equipment. Second, changes in military strategy, notably, the transition from the doctrine of "massive retaliation" to that of "flexible response" which induced the USA to increase its conventional armaments in addition to its nuclear-missile build-up.

113

p The escalation of the US war of aggression in Vietnam had a marked effect on both the volume and structure of military procurement. To satisfy the growing claims of the Vietnam war, the US Administration had to increase sharply military outlays, which totalled 11,839 million dollars in 1964/65, 14,339 million in 1965/66, 19,012 million in 1966/67, 23,283 million in 1967/68, and 23,988 million in 1968/69. These years saw an increase in both the absolute and relative volume of the procurement in the Defence Department’s total spending.

p The Vietnam war demanded a drastic increase in the procurement of combat aircraft, ammunition and other conventional weapons and equipment. Since the beginning of the Vietnam escalation expenditure on aircraft procurement showed the steepest rise in absolute terms: from 5,200 million dollars in 1964/65 to 8,411 million in 1966/67, 9,462 million in 1967/68 and 9,177 million in 1968/69. So after a steep increase outlays on aircraft procurement levelled off at a high pitch, but their share in the Defence Department’s total purchases slightly declined. According to American press reports, before March 1968 the US Air Force had lost more planes and helicopters in Vietnam than in the whole of the Korean war, and in terms of value, four times more. Before 1972, the total cost of US aircraft (3,632 planes and 4,839 helicopters) destroyed in Indochina amounted to almost 10,500 million dollars.  [113•1 

p Ammunition procurement grew at a particularly rapid rate in the years of the Vietnam escalation. In 1966/67, it ran at 3,600 million dollars, a 4.5-fold increase from 1964/65.  [113•2  The former US Defence Secretary McNamara stated at one time that in February 1966, the consumption of air-delivered munitions alone by the US forces in South Vietnam was two and a half times the average monthly rate in the three years of the Korean war.  [113•3  According to the American press, in the latter half of 1967, the US forces in South Vietnam consumed monthly 80-90 thousand tons and in the summer of 1972, 100 thousand tons of air munitions. In the period 1966- 114 72, the USA spent in Indochina 6.8 million tons of air munitions and 7.3 million tons of ground munitions at a total cost of over 28,000 million dollars.  [114•1 

p Between 1965 and 1967, both the absolute and relative volumes of missiles procurement declined appreciably. Since 1968, however, they have again been on the upgrade.

p Operations and Maintenance. The mounting supply of military equipment to the US armed forces has swelled its quantity in possession of the Defence Department. This has entailed an increase in expenditure on its maintenance. From 1950/51 to 1972/73, the Defence Department spent for it 315,000 million dollars, or 26.5 per cent of its total disbursements over the period.

p The size of expenditure on operations and maintenance is mainly dependent on the overall quantity of military equipment in possession of the armed forces and equally on its performance characteristics. For instance, the fact that 25 per cent of the US strategic bombers are on round-the-clock duty in the air involves greater expenditure on their operation and maintenance.

p The Vietnam war demanded a big increase in spending on the operation and maintenance of combat equipment: from 12,349 million dollars in 1964/65 to 19,000 million in 1966/67, and 22,227 million in 1968/69. The following example illustrates the scale of US operation and maintenance expenditure in Vietnam. Strategic B-52 bombers (the operation of each costs over 1,300 dollars an hour) made a ten-hour flight from the Pacific Island of Guam to South Vietnam  [114•2  where they dropped their lethal cargo. A US army unit in South Vietnam consumed roughly three times as much fuel as it did in World War II or the Korean war. According to some estimates, the US forces in Vietnam consumed some 5.3 million tons of petroleum products a year. In 1965/66, the US armed forces consumed a total of 41.3 million tons of petroleum products and in 1966/67, 44.7 million tons.

p Military Construction. Allocations listed under this item of the Defence Department budget go to finance the building 115 of airfields, harbour facilities, missile bases and testing ranges, air defence, ABM and civil defence facilities, strategic roads, barracks, operational, training, medical, administrative, repair and production, research and development centres, warehouses and depots, electric power stations, family housing, and a wide range of other military installations, as well as the purchase of land for military building projects.

p The character and volume of military construction widely vary with standards of military technology. Before World War II, comparatively small funds were spent on military construction, mostly for building barracks, strategic roads, airfields and harbour facilities. After the war, the main types of military construction were missile sites and testing ranges, air defence and anti-missile facilities, air force and naval bases, training centres and proving grounds.

p Intercontinental ballistic missiles can be fired only from special sites equipped with launching, maintenance and storage facilities, tunnels, personnel shelters, communications equipment, etc. The construction of missile sites often accounts for a sizable share of the total expenditure on missiles. For instance, the construction of the surface and underground launching facilities for a squadron of fifty Minuteman missiles cost twenty million dollars. The launching facilities of an Atlas missile squadron cost 28 million dollars, Atlas-E, 37.2 million, Atlas-F, 44 million, Titan 1, 50 million, and Titan 2, 35 million. Construction of missile testing ranges also requires large outlays. The USA is developing a comprehensive strategic anti-aircraft and anti-missile defence programme involving enormous construction work.

p Military construction appropriations in 1972/73, including family housing, totalled 1,312 million dollars, or 1.8 per cent of the Defence Department budget. US spending on military construction from 1950/51 to 1972/73 totalled 39,000 million dollars, or 3.3 per cent of all Defence Department expenditures.

p Research and Development. US outlays on military R&D are growing rapidly. Before World War II, overall federal spending on R&D was fairly moderate, rising from about ten million dollars a year at the turn of the century to under one hundred million in the early thirties. Most of it went into agricultural research, nature conservation and study, and a 116 small share, into military work. In 1938, a mere one-fifth of federal research spending went into military work, and onethird into agriculture.  [116•1  Private firms, universities and colleges conducted and financed the bulk of research work: in 1940, they provided about eighty per cent of all research money.

p During World War II, important changes were made in the organisation and financing of research, and federal spending on research and development was increased drastically to meet the war demand. Vigorous efforts were made to organise regular research to improve military equipment and develop new types of weapons. Special teams of scientists, engineers and military personnel set up for this work were generously financed by the federal government. The atom bomb development alone, or the Manhattan Project, cost 2,000 million dollars. Specialised research projects making extensive use of general progress in science and technology culminated in revolutionary developments in military technology, such as the atom bomb, the radar, the proximity fuse, to mention but a few.

p US expenditure on military research and development has been growing particularly rapidly after World War II, the bulk of it coming from the Defence Department budget. In 1949/50 Defence Department expenditure on R&D totalled 1,600 million dollars, whereas in 1969/70 the figure rose to 7,200 million. (In 1940, the US military R&D effort amounted to a meagre 30 million dollars.)  [116•2  Between 1950/51 and 1972/73, the Defence Department’s total R&D expenditure was approximately 118,000 million dollars, or 10 per cent of all military spending over the period. This figure, however, does not represent all of the Defence Department’s expenditures on R&D. A share of this expenditure (in the early fifties, a particularly large share) is listed under military budget items on procurement, military construction, operations and maintenance, and civil defence.

p There is a pronounced tendency towards an increase in military R&D expenditure which was particularly rapid both in absolute and relative terms between fiscal years 1960 and 117 1961, mainly due to a steep rise in spending on missile systems development. Later, the growth of R&D expenditure slowed down and its share in the Defence Department’s total disbursements diminished since the rapid increase in US military expenditures was attributable mostly to the Vietnam war.

p In a bid to increase further US military power and gain a military superiority over the Soviet Union, the American imperialists annually spend huge sums on R&D programmes, so as to improve the existing and develop new, more effective weapons systems. A considerable share of the Defence Department outlays on R&D goes to finance missile development programmes (see Table 13), including the Poseidon missile project and the improvement of the Minuteman-3 ICBM. A good deal of attention is paid to the development of the B-l strategic bomber, the Trident sea-based ballistic missile system, and the development of new strategic missiles. Large-scale work is in progress to develop military space weapons.

p In the field of small arms, ordnance and ammunition development the attention is focussed on increasing the fire power and also on developing more effective means of antiguerilla warfare for use in certain remote parts of the world with unfamiliar and difficult surroundings.

p It is of interest to see how the Pentagon’s allocations on R&D are distributed among the three military departments. As Table 14 indicates, although the share of the Air Force has slightly diminished, it remains fairly large. On the other hand the shares of the Army and Navy have grown. These changes were attributable to changes in the US military strategy and the decision to equip the US forces in Vietnam with more effective types of weapons and equipment better suited to local conditions. In 1965 US spending on R&D connected with the Vietnam war amounted to 70 million dollars, whereas by 1967 this figure had grown tenfold to reach some 700 million dollars.  [117•1 

p Adding to the Defence Department’s R&D expenditure similar spending of the Atomic Energy Commission and
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118 Table 13 Specification of Defence Department Expenditures on Research and Development (million dollars; per cent) Fiscal years Item of expenditure 1960 1963 1965 1967 1970 1972 1973* 1974* Basic research . 362 838 573 618 509 532 488 518 Aircraft . . . 632 544 1,017 1,199 1,641 1,969 1,836 1,780 Missiles .... 2,059 2,241 1,901 2,456 2,280 1,801 2,095 2,254 Ships and craft . 154 219 249 288 305 494 583 620 Ordnance, combat vehicles and related
equipment .... 222 208 330 357 332 363 350 414 Space exploration 512 946 921 961 638 389 408 603 Other 769 1,380 1,245 1,410 1,746 2,036 2,259 2,366 Total .... 4,710 6,376 6,236 7,289** 7,451** 7,584** 8,020** 8,555** Basic research . 7.69 13.14 9.2 8.5 6.8 7.0 6.1 6.2 Aircraft .... 13.42 8.53 16.3 16.4 22.0 26.0 22.9 20.8 JM/ssiles .... 43.72 35.15 30.5 33.7 30.6 23.7 26.0 26.3 Ships and craft . 3.27 3.43 3.9 4.0 4.1 6.6 7.3 7.2 ( rdnance, combat vehicles and related
equipment .... 4.71 3.26 5.3 4.9 4.5 4.8 4.4 4.8 Space exploration 10.87 14.84 14.8 13.2 8.6 5.1 5.1 7.0 Other . . . . 16.32 21.65 20.0 19.3 23.4 26.8 28.2 27.7 Total .... 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

p * Estimate.

p ** Total obligational authority  

Sources: Monthly Labor Review, May 1964, p. 514; The Magazine of Wall Street, February 5, 1966, p. 482; Appendix to the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 196U, 1968, p. 308; Space Week, January 29, 1971, p. 30; Aviation Week and Space Technology, February 5, 1973, p. 14,

119 Table 14 Defence Department R&D Expenditures by Military Departments Department of Department Department Other Fiscal Total, the Air Force of the Navy of the Army year mil. dollars mil. per mil. per mil. per mil. per dollars cent dollars cent dollars cent dollars cent 1961 6,131 3,300 53.8 1,435 23.4 1,207 19.7 189 3.1 1962 6,319 3,493 55.2 1,364 21.6 1,280 20.3 182 2.9 1963 6,376 3,301 51.8 1,429 22.4 1,355 21.2 291 4.6 1964 7,021 3,722 53.0 1,578 22.5 1,338 19.1 383 5.4 1965 6,236 3,146 50.4 1,294 28.8 1,344 21.6 452 7.2 1966 6,259 2,948 47.1 1,407 22.5 1,412 22.5 492 7.9 1967 7,160 3,229 45.1 1,791 25.0 1,634 22.8 506 7.1 1968 7,747 3,800 49.1 2,003 25.8 1,434 18.5 510 6.6 1969 7,457 3,386 45.4 2,045 27.4 1,521 20.4 505 6.8 1970* 7,451 3,081 41.4 2,272 30.4 1,639 22.0 459 6.2 1971* 7,109 2,810 39.5 2,196 30.8 1,602 22.5 501 7.0 1972* 7,584 2,928 38.6 2,411 31.8 1,792 23.6 453 6.0 1973* 8,020 3,120 38.9 2,542 31.7 1,885 23.5 473 5.9 1974* 8,555 3,213 37.6 2,709 31.7 2,109 24.7 525 6.0

p * Total obligational authority.

Sources: The Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 1968, pp. 238-39; Fiscal Year 1969, pp. 274-75; Aerospace Facts and Figures 1970, New York, 1970, p. 63; Space Week, January 29, 1971, p. 30; Aviation Week and Space Technology, Februarys, 1973, pp. 14-15.

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NASA we shall see that approximately 80 per cent of federal R&D spending has a distinct military character (see Table 1.5).

p The growing expenditure on military research and development and the intensified militarisation of American science have been accompanied by an increase in the federal share of overall spending on research and development, both military and civilian. In 1940, this share was 20 per cent, and as large as 90 per cent during World War II. In the early post-war years, the government share showed a marked decline, but since the late forties it began to grow again along with a rapid increase in government spending on military R&D and remained at near 60 per cent (see Table 16).

120

p Table 15

Budget Expenditure for Research and Development

Fiscal year Total, mil. dollars Department of Defence* NASA AEC Other mil. dollars per cent mil. dollars per cent mil. dollars pelcent mil. dollars per cent 1954 3,148 2,487 79.0 90 2.9 383 12.2 188 5.9 1955 3,308 2,630 79.5 74 2.2 385 11.6 219 6.7 1956 3,446 2,639 76.6 71 2.1 474 13.7 262 7.6 1957 4,462 3,371 75.5 76 1.7 657 14.7 358 8.1 1958 4,990 3,664 73.4 89 1.8 804 16.1 433 8.7 1959 5,803 4,183 72.1 145 2.5 877 15.1 598 10.3 1960 7,738 5,654 73.1 401 5.2 986 12.7 697 9.0 1961 9,278 6,618 71.3 744 8.0 1,111 12.0 805 8.7 1962 10,373 6,812 65.7 1,257 12.1 1,284 12.4 1,020 9.8 1963 11,988 6,849 57.1 2,552 21.3 1,335 11.1 1,252 10.5 1964 14,694 7,517 51.2 4,171 28.4 1,505 10.2 1,501 10.2 1965 14,875 6,728 45.2 5,093 34.3 1,520 10.2 1,534 10.3 1966 16,002 6,735 42.1 5,933 37.1 1,462 9.1 1,872 11.7 1967 16,842 7,680 45.6 5,426 32.2 1,467 8.7 2,269 13.5 1968 16,865 8,148 48.3 4,724 28.0 1,593 9.5 2,400 14.2 1969 16,164 7,858 48.6 4,252 26.3 1,654 10.2 2,400 14.9 1970 15,098 7,424 49.2 3,699 24.5 1,346 8.9 2,629 17.4 1971 15,005 7,541 50.3 3,337 22.5 1,303 8.7 2,824 18.8 1972** 15,779 8,031 50.9 3,137 19.9 1,308 8.3 3,303 20.9 1973** 16,480 8,177 49.6 3,131 19.0 1,375 8.4 3,797 23.0

p * Includes expenditure under the R&D heading and similar expenditures under other Defence Department budget headings.

p ** Estimate.

p Sources: The Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 1966, p. 460; Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1967, p. 538; Aerospace Facts and Figures 1970, p. 62; Special Analysis of the U. S. Government Fiscal Year 1973, Washington, 1972, p. 281.

p The growing role of scientific and technological progress in economic and military-economic potential, the need for extensive uses of achievements in science and engineering to solve military and other national problems, as well as the increase in the absolute and relative volume of research and development expenditure have induced the US Government to change its attitude to science. Before World War II, the federal government played a minor role in organising and
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121 Table 16 US Total Research and Development Spending* 1953 1955 1957 1960 1965 1967 1970" 1971" Total (mil. dollars) 5,160 6,270 9.900 13,710 20,449 23,680 26,850 27,850 1 mil. Federal gov- 1 dollars ernment [ per 2,760 3,490 6,100 8,720 13,025 14,451 14,750 14,735 J cent 53.5 55.7 61.6 63.6 63.6 61.0 55.0 53.0 Private com- 1 dollars panies ( per 2,240 2,510 3.460 4,510 6,541 8,145 10,810 11,780 J cent 43.4 40.0 34.9 32.9 32.0 34.4 40.2 42.3 Colleges and 1 dollars universities [ per 120 190 230 330 615 753 930 960 J cent 2.3 3.0 2.3 2.4 3.0 3.2 3.4 3.4 Non-profit  > mil. corpora- 1 dollars tions j per 40 80 110 150 268 331 360 375 J cent 0.8 1.3 1.2 1.1 4.3 1.4 14 1.3

p * Calendar years.

p ** Estimate.

Sources: Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1967, p. 537, 1970, p. 519; 1971, p. 509.

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funding R&D activities, whereas after the war its role has been decisive.

p The militarisation of American science has produced a situation where the biggest share of federal R&D money is spent by the Department of Defence, through which, incidentally, the federal government interferes directly in the organisation and financing of basic and industrial research.

p Before World War II, small research projects were handled by individual armed services using mostly their own laboratories, arsenals and other facilities. During World War II, when the scope of research and development expanded and science acquired greater military importance, a special civilian agency, the Office of Scientific Research and Development, was set up, which had its own -budget and authority to select and approve R&D projects for the armed forces. This office, which had helped stimulate the 122 development of military technology, was abolished after the war, and almost all responsibility for the management of R&D, with the exception of nuclear research, was again vested in three military departments.

p The National Security Act of 1947 started a process which eventually led to greater co-ordination and centralisation of R&D within the armed services in peacetime. Responsibility for co-ordination of R&D was first vested in the Munitions and Research and Development Boards and later, when the Boards were abolished, in the Assistant Secretaries of Defence for Supply and Logistics and for Research and Development. The powers of the Defence Department in the management of military R&D became particularly wide after 1958 when the Office of the Director of Defence Research and Engineering (DDR&E) was set up.

p The next step towards more centralised management of R&D came in 1958 when the Advanced Research Projects Agency was set up to take charge of major long-term R&D programmes on which there was no final agreement as to whether these were within the scope of an individual military department or whether they affected the interests of two or more departments. These and other measures enhanced the guiding role of the Defence Department in R&D work. It should be said, however, that before 1961 most problems relating to the initiation of R&D projects and the evaluation of weapons systems were solved in a decentralised way by the military departments concerned. In 1961, the situation changed drastically. The co-ordination of R&D programmes was greatly increased, as was the centralisation of decisionmaking pertaining to these programmes. The role of the Director of Defence Research and Engineering, who is directly responsible for administering military R&D programmes, grew immeasurably. The DDR&E is also an Assistant Secretary of Defence and his chief adviser on science and engineering.

p As of 1964, the staff of the Office of the Director of Defence Research and Engineering included a total of 561 officials of whom 180 were civilian professionals, 153 military specialists and the remaining 228, both civilian and military, provided clerical help. These figures include the Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Weapons 123 System Evaluation Group, both of which are under the control of the DDR&E.  [123•1 

p The Office of the Director of Defence Research and Engineering has 80 major and a large number of smaller laboratories and research centres employing a total of over 30,000 research scientists and technicians, both civilian and military. Apart from that, the Office supervises the work of a great number of persons engaged in R&D carried by private companies.

p Under the old procedure of drafting the military budget, before 1961, when the PPB system was adopted, the R&D budget of the Defence Department was broken down into the following four accounts: the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and Defence Agencies. Within each of these the budget plan was itemised as: military sciences, aircraft, related equipment, missiles and military astronautics, ships and craft, ordnance and combat vehicles, programme-wide management and support.

p This system of funding R&D activities had a number of essential defects. In particular, as some high-ranking Defence Department officials admitted, it hampered co-ordination of R&D projects, was the cause of too much duplication and led to ill-considered and premature initiation of new projects. Under the old system it was impossible to ascertain which part of the total R&D expenditure went into basic research and which into applied research or into the development of new weapons systems. What is more, the old system retarded basic research essential for developing new weapons systems.

p The adoption of PPB represented a clear advance on the old procedure. Now, R&D conducted within the military departments are brought together and evaluated in the higher echelons as an integrated "program package" which, in turn, comprises "program elements" that include hundreds of projects each. Finally, each project is composed of tasks. For instance, the Pentagon’s overall R&D program package for 1971 covered 495 program elements which included thousands of individual projects and the latter, thousands of tasks.

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p R&D program packages and program elements are planned for a period of five years and form an integral part of the existing five-year programme of armed forces development and funding. Relevant parameters of the programme form the basis on which annual R&D budgets are developed.

p To improve control over the progress of R&D and perfect the cost-effectiveness evaluation of projects in 1963/64 the entire R&D programme of the Defence Department was divided into six categories. The categories were defined in the American literature as  [124•1 :

p 1. Research.

p Research includes all efforts directed towards increased knowledge of natural phenomena and the environment, and towards the solution of problems in physical, behavioural and social sciences, problems which have no clear, direct military application. By definition, “Research” includes all basic research in addition to applied research directed towards expanding knowledge in various scientific areas. It does not include efforts to prove the feasibility of solutions to problems of immediate military importance or of time-oriented investigation and developments.

p 2. Exploratory Development.

p This includes all efforts to resolve specific military problems short of major development projects. These efforts may vary from fundamental applied research to sophisticated experimental hardware, study, programming and planning efforts. The dominant characteristic of this category of effort is that it is pointed towards specific military problem areas, with a view to developing and evaluating the feasibility and practicability of proposed solutions and determining their parameters.

p 3. Advanced Development.

p Advanced development includes all projects that have moved into the development of hardware for experimental or operational tests. Advanced development is characterised by line-item projects, normally involving hardware designed for test or experimentation as opposed to that designed and engineered for eventual service use.

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p 4. Engineering Development.

p Engineering development includes development programmes being engineered for service use but not yet approved for production or operation. This area is characterised by major line-item projects.

p 5. Operational-Systems Development.

p This area includes research-and-development effort directed towards developing, engineering and testing systems, support programmes, vehicles and weapons that have been approved for production and service use.

p 6. Management and Support.

p This category includes research-and-development effort directed towards the support of installations and operations required for general research-and-development use. It includes test ranges, military construction, maintenance of laboratories, operation and maintenance of test aircraft and ships.

p The first three categories—Research, Exploratory Development and Advanced Development—provide the scientific and technological basis for developing new types of weapons and military equipment. Engineering Development and Operational-Systems Development deal with the development, testing and evaluation of specific weapons systems and their adoption for service use. Thus, the above-mentioned R&D categories represent successive stages of a single process which results in the development of new types of weapons and military hardware.

p Advanced Development supplies the connecting link between the successive stages of research effort to provide new scientific and technological knowledge and the development phases where the new knowledge is used to actually develop and engineer specific weapons systems. It is at this stage that military requirements and the available and future technical possibilities are first correlated. Military equipment developed at this stage or individual parts thereof are designed for use as "building blocks" in the engineering of the proposed weapons systems.

The funding of the above-mentioned R&D categories is conducted individually. Table 17 indicates the distribution of the Defence Department expenditures among the six R&D categories. There is no precise information on the structure 126 of R&D expenditures broken down by category for an earlier period since the Defence Department has only recently adopted the new system of allocating R&D funds. As the data in Table 17 show, the bulk of the Pentagon’s expenditure on R&D goes to finance the development of specific weapons systems and programme-wide management and support. In recent years, the share of expenditure on the development of particular weapons systems has declined, while the proportion of expenditure on advanced development has been on the upgrade. About 5 per cent of the Defence Department outlays on R&D goes into basic research.

Table 17 DOD Expenditures on R&D by Categories (million dollars; per cent) Fiscal year Research Exploratory development Advanced development Engineering and operational-systems development Management and support .1964 348.3 1,116.6 611.3 3,610.1 1,031.0 1965 354.0 1,121.7 572.1 3,127.0 1,045.0 1966 379.3 1,141.6 754.9 2,973.3 1,064.2 1968 408.0 998.0 1,250.0 3,630.0 1,800.0 1970 324.4 920.4 960.7 4,006.9 1,245.5 1971 321.4 916.6 1,037.9 3,591.0 1,242.3 1972 321.9 1,005.9 1,456.7 3,271.9 1,155.5 1964 5.2 16.7 9.1 53.8 15.4 1965 5.7 18.0 9.2 50.4 16.8 1966 6.0 18.1 12.0 47.1 16.8 1968 5.0 12.1 15.6 45.0 22.3 1970 4.4 12.3 12.9 53.7 16.7 1971 4.5 12.9 14.6 50.5 17.5 1972 4.1 12.7 18.5 50.1 14.6

p Sources: Defense Management, ed. by Stephen Enkc, pp. 280-81; Business Week, December 16, 1967, p. 65; Electronic Market Data Book, 1971, Washington, 1971, p. 57.

p The data in Table 17 give but a rough idea of the distribution of appropriations between individual R&D 127 categories as it is extremely difficult to observe this principle of dividing and financing different categories and stages of research and development. Not infrequently, within the operational-systems development category, a variety of unforeseen technical pitfalls demand further basic or applied research. There are cases, also, when for some urgent military considerations it becomes necessary to move a project into the engineering development stage before the requisite technology has been fully worked out in the advanced development phase.

p The division of R&D programmes into the above-mentioned categories makes it possible within the framework of each to compare cost and benefit and to evaluate effectiveness from the standpoint of achieving the objectives set and the effort put into a particular R&D category. In the past, for example, basic research and exploratory efforts were justified by the development of new weapons systems which resulted in the introduction into the development phase of a large number of systems the. technology for which had yet to be developed (this incidentally often ended in failure or caused considerable waste), whereas today these projects are not tied to the development of specific military weapons systems and are evaluated on the basis of the contribution they make to the advancement of scientific and technological knowledge. Expenditures on engineering and operationalsystems development are evaluated from the angle of their military effectiveness and cost.

p In the past, individual military departments often initiated the development of a new weapons system before reliable data on its cost and effectiveness were available, in the absence of any clue as to whether the proposed system would justify the production and operation costs involved. Today, the Defence Department insists on a close scrutiny of a proposed project for its likely cost and effectiveness before authorising actual development.

p Top Pentagon officials hold that at the exploratory development stage, when the scientific and technological basis for the development of new weapons systems is formed, it is desirable to study a variety of alternative projects, as well as to examine carefully duplicating projects, but while development is in progress unworkable projects must be sifted out 128 to leave the most effective weapons systems for further development and production. In this situation, it is only to be expected that far more R&D projects are initiated than completed. The scrapping of unworkable R&D programmes is the result of periodical reviews when the draft budget is being drawn up and the decision is taken as to whether a given programme should be transferred from one stage of development to another and when military requirements are specified in the light of changed conditions, etc.

p In recent years, the Pentagon has taken a series of measures to ensure that duplication, which formerly was rather commonplace, is not allowed to happen at the engineering development stage and at the final stages which culminate in the development of specific weapons systems. To eliminate duplication the Defence Department now insists that as early as the advanced development stage, each project be dovetailed with its intended service use and that its potential service utility and cost are ascertained. Today, the development of a specific weapons system cannot be started until it gets beyond the so-called project definition phase, i.e., until its development has not been shown conclusively to be worthwhile.

p The overriding end objective of all military R&D projects in the United States is to achieve superiority over the potential enemy and ensure greater effectiveness of militaryeconomic activity through systematic updating of weapons and materials and streamlining the management of the armed forces development generally.

p Procurement of existing types of weapons and materiel, as well as those which are still in design form, results mainly in a quantitative increase of the country’s military power. Military R&D by contrast are aimed at qualitative improvement of weapons systems’ characteristics (their destructive capacity, accuracy, reliability, the achievement of hitherto unattainable military objectives, etc.) which would enhance the capability of the armed forces to achieve their objectives with greater dependability and with less effort and money, in other words would ensure greater effectiveness of the country’s overall military spending. Otherwise R&D projects become a sheer waste of effort and money since there is no point in equipping the armed forces with weapons which are 129 not superior to comparable existing types from the standpoint of cost-effectiveness.

p The organisational defects persisting in the management of R&D, their subordination to the monopolies’ drive for greater profits coupled with the competition among corporations and other causes linked with the social and economic system of the United States have resulted in a large unproductive waste of funds, duplication and lower efficiency of research. According to some estimates, the Defence Department’s unproductive expenditure due to unwarranted duplication amounted to 2,000 million dollars a year in the late fifties and early sixties.

p The efficiency of military R&D programmes is estimated, basically, by measuring the cost of weapons systems against their combat effectiveness and reliability.

p Following an analysis of the cost-effectiveness formula the Department of Defence has revised R&D programmes and proceeded to discontinue work on many weapons systems on account of either their built-in obsolescence, technological undependability or unjustified expenditure on their development and production. Examples include the scrapping in 1961 of the nuclear-powered aircraft project which had cost a total of 511,600,000 dollars, since development was initiated over ten years previously. In 1963, the Pentagon cancelled the GAM-87 Skybolt project, then in the test stage, which had cost 440 million dollars. Altogether, between 1953 and 1968, the Defence Department cancelled 65 projects which had cost more than 10,500 million dollars.  [129•1 

p The Defence Department’s measures to improve the management of armed forces development also make for greater effectiveness of military R&D programmes. However, these measures could not and have not eliminated all defects and difficulties. For instance, the private monopolies, which fulfil the bulk of R&D contracts, still look upon them as a source of fat profits and this tends to militate against the effectiveness of federal government spending on these purposes. Apart from that, difficulties persist which spring not so much from the socio-economic system of American society as from the 130 highly specific R&D environment. For instance, when military projects are in the planning stage, a number of uncertainties inevitably crop up which make it more difficult to decide on the best direction for the research effort to follow. Similar difficulties often plague the choice of the optimum weapons system.

p Today, it takes from five to ten years to develop an operational weapons system and there is a clear tendency towards an increasingly longer lead-time owing to the growing complexity of modern weapons systems. The useful service life of weapons systems currently ranges from five to fifteen years. So when selecting a new weapons system a decision is taken which largely influences military allocations for a fairly long period ahead (from five to twenty-five years), while the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of this decision and of the expenditure entailed depends on many uncertain developments that may take place in the interim: things like advance in military technology and the development of new, more effective ways of attaining a particular military objective, further progress in weapons development by the potential enemy, changes in military policy and strategy, etc. The US Government has been careful to foresee these and similar developments as far as possible with a view to reducing their adverse impact. Great efforts are being made to forecast the future progress of science and engineering so as to provide the managers of R&D programmes with adequate information to be used in long-term planning. Apart from that, the Department of Defence is trying to tailor R&D in such a way as to be capable of greater flexibility in meeting future military requirements. To this end, much attention is paid to those R&D stages which provide the scientific and technological base for the development of novel weapons systems. Now that the rapid progress of military technology has considerably accelerated obsolescence of military equipment (sometimes weapons systems are found to be outdated as early, as the development stage) with the attendant financial waste and other adverse consequences, it is vital to improve advanced development which results in weapons subsystems and the so-called building blocks that can be brought together within a relatively short time to develop a new weapons system modified to meet the changes 131 in military requirements that have come about in the meantime.

p The unprecedented extent of the militarisation of American science ensures the rapid development of military technology in the USA. Over the past 30 years, many novel weapons systems have been developed. The period since the last world war has seen a number of qualitative changes in overkill weapons, changes exemplified in the development of thermonuclear weapons as an advance on atomic ones, in the evolution from strategic manned bombers to ICBMs, from launching pads to missiles placed in silos or carried by submarines, from single to multiple warheads packaged in a large missile and capable of hitting several targets at a time (MIRVs), etc.

p These weapons in possession of the USA serve the schemes of US imperialism aimed at preserving and consolidating its positions in the world and are used as a tool of its great power policy. Hence the pronounced offensive orientation of American military science. This imposes on the US scientists involved in military research tremendous responsibility to mankind for the devastating consequences of a possible world war.

p Interviewed by the West German Der Spiegel on the influence of the military on the US universities and educational system generally, the eminent economist John K. Galbraith said that the United States militarised university research to the extreme and that it was time for scientists to ask themselves whether they served mankind by putting their talent at the Pentagon’s service.

p The militarisation of US science poses a great threat to mankind. The destructive capacity of modern weapons is steadily growing, the development of ever newer and more deadly weapons is accompanied by a rapid rise in their cost which means still heavier burden on the national budget.

p Civil Defence. The USA is taking steps to improve the existing air, missile and space defence system and set up a civil defence system. Top Pentagon officials believe that an adequate anti-missile defence system as a protection for the civilian population largely depends for its effectiveness on the existence of a matching civil defence 132 system. In the absence of a sufficient number of radiationproof shelters in the event of a massive nuclear attack the country’s active defence system will fail to provide dependable protection for the population and this will result in prohibitive human casualties. It is further argued that a wellorganised civil defence system based on an adequate number of fallout shelters can be a far more paying proposition from the standpoint of cost-effectiveness and can save a far greater number of human lives than the further enlargement of the strategic nuclear strike forces and the air and missile defence systems.

p The setting up of a civil defence system is a costly project. For instance, the construction of the standard control centre of the district civil defence system (it is proposed to have eight such centres in different parts of the United States) in an area five kilometres east of Denton, Texas, has cost 2.7 million dollars. This major underground shelter covers an area of 8.1 hectares and is designed to provide protection from the blast of a 20-megaton H-bomb at a distance of five kilometres from the epicentre. The shelter accommodates 500 people and has enough supplies to last them 30 days.

p The Joint Chiefs of Staff find it necessary over the next few years to carry out an enlarged programme of radiationproof shelter construction for the civilian population at an estimated cost of some 5,200 million dollars, of which the federal government will put up 2,000 million and the remainder will come from state and local government and from private subscription. Between 1961/62 and 1971/72 the Defence Department expenditure on civil defence amounted to 1,105 million dollars. Not all federal outlays for civil defence, however, come directly from the budget. For instance, individuals and organisations granted federal loans for housing construction are obliged to build fallout shelters at a cost repaid with corresponding tax reliefs. Thus, although this spending is not listed as such in the federal budget, it reduces federal revenue and is in effect government spending on civil defence. The US overall expenditure on civil defence is far greater than that of the Defence Department, since the authorities of states, private companies and individuals also invest large sums in civil defence.

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The Pentagon’s spending as examined here covers only the bigger items for which the military budget is prepared and approved. Since the structure of military spending has a direct bearing on the power of the armed forces, examination of US budgetary appropriations by program packages is of definite interest.

Table 18 Summary of the Department of Defence Budget Programme (Total obligational authority, thousand million dollars) Fisca years 1962 1964 196C 1968 1970 1972 1973 1974 Strategic forces 11.3 9.3 6.7 7.2 7.4 7.5 7.4 7.4 General purpose forces ..... 17.9 17.9 29.5 30.4 27.7 25.2 25.7 26.4 Intelligence and communications 3.2 4.3 5.0 5.5 5.6 5.4 5.7 6.0 Airlift and sealift 1.0 1.1 1.6 1.8 1.7 1.1 0.9 0.8 Guard and reserve 1.8 1.9 2.3 2.2 2.6 3.3 4.0 4.4 Research and
development .... 4.3 5.0 4.8 4.3 4.9 6.1 6.5 7.4 Central supply and maintenance . . 3.8 4.1 5.6 8.4 9.1 8.5 8.7 8.4 Training, medical and general
personnel activities 4.9 5.5 7.5 12.2 13.7 15.5 16.4 18.2 Programme-wide management . . 2.2 1.8 3.2 3.0 3.8 4.2 4.6 4.6 Total ...... 50.4 50.9 66.2 75.0 76.3 76.8 79.9 83.6

p Sources: Aviation Week and Space Technology, February 5, 1968, p. 15; The Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 1970, p. 76; Fiscal Year 1972, p. 89; Fiscal Year 1973, p. 74.

To speed up the development and deployment of strategic forces (mainly squadrons of Minuteman missiles and Polaris-carrying submarines) the US Government sharply increased corresponding expenditure in the early sixties. Later, spending on the strategic forces began to decline both 134 absolutely and relatively, yet it remained large enough to support their continued growth. In recent years, spending on the strategic forces has again been on the upgrade, with the main emphasis being laid on missiles. By mid-1964, the number of ICBMs and Polaris missiles had equalled for the first time that of strategic manned bombers capable of carrying atomic and hydrogen bombs. After 1964, the balance began to change in favour of missiles. The Pentagon plans to retain manned bombers for the next few years, but their share in the strategic forces will shrink. The smaller expenditure on general-purpose forces is the result of slight US troop reductions and the implementation of the Nixon doctrine.