Josselin Droff and Julien Malizard, Researchers at the Chair, publish in the journal Defence and Peace Economics an article co-authored with Maxime Menuet, Associate researcher at the Chair.
The article, entitled « Military Operations Abroad in the Long Run: An Economic Approach »A theoretical model analysing the sustainability of military operations over time.
Over the last few decades, a number of Western countries have embarked on a series of military operations abroad, This sometimes involves excessive military commitments, such as the fight against terrorist organisations, peacekeeping operations or humanitarian interventions. These postures pose a high risk to the future deployment capacity and on the ability to ensure a strategy of deterrence to long term.
The article proposes a theoretical model in which military capability is analysed as a stock variable who can regenerate or, on the contrary, burn out when a country engages in a military operation abroad. In it, the authors present a «sustainability theorem», with the identification of tipping points in the conduct of military operations. In particular, excessive involvement in military operations can lead to a form of demilitarisation syndrome.
The model describes and formalises a fundamental trade-off between a country's economic conditions and its strategic ambitions. It sheds light on the dynamics of the military capabilities of major Western military powers such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and France.
The authors suggest several ways of combating the loss of military capabilities:
- The first is to improve the efficiency of production factors, The aim is to increase production for a constant budget and the same quantity of inputs. This solution seems difficult to envisage in the short term, insofar as it would mean greater pressure on men and equipment, which are already extremely stretched, both in external operations and for other missions (reinsurance measures, preparation for high-intensity conflicts, public service missions in the event of natural disasters or epidemics such as Covid 19, etc.). However, the reforms undertaken in recent years to increase the productive efficiency of equipment maintenance are moving in the direction of improving factor productivity.
- The second solution is give up some of its strategic ambitions, once again with constant resources. This would obviously be a strong political decision, relatively similar to the one taken by the UK when it drew up its Strategic Defence and Security Review in 2010, following its over-commitment in Afghanistan and Iraq.
- Finally, the last solution is to leave strategic ambitions unchanged and to increase the financial resources allocated to defence in order to cope with operational contract overruns. Budgetary trends in Europe are moving in this direction.
This article is linked to’other work carried out by the Chair.
