his first volume in the Security and Defence Management Series focuses on practical aspects of democratic defence management through the eyes of practioners. Outlining in simple terms the key issues defence professionals must address to ensure good governance of the defence sector from within the defence establishment, the book provides an introduction to these issues for new defence professionals in transition democracies.
Written for both students and practitioners, Management of Defense Acquisition Projects enables the reader to understand the broad range of disciplines and activities that must be integrated in order to achieve successful acquisition outcomes. This second edition features significant updates throughout, and totally new chapters.
The U.S. Department of Defense accounts for over half of federal government discretionary spending and over 3% of GDP. Half of all federal employees work for the Department. The annual budget for the military not only provides for those salaries, it covers the baseline and wartime operating expenses of the force, and hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in new capabilities and technologies. Given the materiality of the defense function and amount of resources it consumes, the processes for budgeting for defense and managing the funds is important to understand. This text provides a fully integrated view of defense budgeting. It takes the position that defense budgeting is a specific instance of public budgeting, and public budgeting is a specific instance of public policy. In order to fully understand how the nation budgets for defense, it first lays a theoretical and conceptual foundation for public policy and public budgeting. That is followed by an assessment of the political and policy context for defense, including the overarching federal budget process and role of Congress in setting defense policy. Only then does the text explore the specifics of defense budgeting: how, by whom, and why the budget is crafted. Beyond the topic of budgeting – formulating, requesting, and legitimating the request for funds – the book tackles financial management topics. Included are discussions of federal appropriations law, funds management, accounting requirements, intragovernmental business transactions, and contemporary topics of defense policy such as funding overseas contingency operations in an era of deficit control legislation. This book is an appropriate reference for both students and practitioners of defense budgeting and financial management. It would also be appropriate in a general public budgeting course. Most public budgeting texts focus on state and municipal governments and there are few that address the federal system. This book fills that gap and provides a specific example of federal budgeting.
This textbook provides an accessible overview of US defense politics for upper-level students. This new edition has been fully updated and revised, with a new chapter on intelligence and new material on unmanned drones, women in the military, the Tea Party, and other key issues. Analyzing the ways in which the United States prepares for war, the authors demonstrate how political and organizational interests determine US defense policy and warn against over-emphasis on planning, centralization, and technocracy. Emphasizing the process of defense policy-making rather than just the outcomes of that process, US Defense Politics departs from the traditional style of many existing textbooks. Designed to help students understand the practical side of American national security policy, the book examines the following key themes: US grand strategy; who joins America's military; how and why weapons are bought; the management of defense; public attitudes toward the military and casualties; the roles of the President and the Congress in controlling the military; the effects of 9/11 and the Global War on Terror on security policy, homeland security, government reorganizations, and intra- and inter-service relations. The textbook will be essential reading for students of US defense politics, US national security policy and homeland security, and highly recommended for students of US foreign policy, US public policy and public administration.
Military and defense organizations are a vital component to any nation. In order to maintain the standards of these sectors, new procedures and practices must be implemented. Emerging Strategies in Defense Acquisitions and Military Procurement is a pivotal reference source for the latest scholarly research on the present state of defense organizations, examining reforms and solutions necessary to overcome current limitations and make vast improvements to their infrastructure. Highlighting methodologies and theoretical foundations that promote more effective practices in defense acquisition, this book is ideally designed for academicians, practitioners, researchers, upper-level students, and professionals engaged in defense industries.
The authors have done a masterful job of charting the important story of DARPA, one of the key catalysts of technological innovation in US recent history. By plotting the development, achievements and structure of the leading world agency of this kind, this book stimulates new thinking in the field of technological innovation with bearing on how to respond to climate change, pandemics, cyber security and other global problems of our time. The DARPA Model provides a useful guide for governmental agency and policy leaders, and for anybody interested in the role of governments in technological innovation. —Dr. Kent Hughes, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars This volume contains a remarkable collection of extremely insightful articles on the world’s most successful advanced technology agency. Drafted by the leading US experts on DARPA, it provides a variety of perspectives that in turn benefit from being presented together in a comprehensive volume. It reviews DARPA’s unique role in the U.S. innovation system, as well as the challenges DARPA and its clones face today. As the American model is being considered for adoption by a number of countries worldwide, this book makes a welcome and timely contribution to the policy dialogue on the role played by governments in stimulating technological innovation. — Prof. Charles Wessner, Georgetown University The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has played a remarkable role in the creation new transformative technologies, revolutionizing defense with drones and precision-guided munitions, and transforming civilian life with portable GPS receivers, voice-recognition software, self-driving cars, unmanned aerial vehicles, and, most famously, the ARPANET and its successor, the Internet. Other parts of the U.S. Government and some foreign governments have tried to apply the ‘DARPA model’ to help develop valuable new technologies. But how and why has DARPA succeeded? Which features of its operation and environment contribute to this success? And what lessons does its experience offer for other U.S. agencies and other governments that want to develop and demonstrate their own ‘transformative technologies’? This book is a remarkable collection of leading academic research on DARPA from a wide range of perspectives, combining to chart an important story from the Agency’s founding in the wake of Sputnik, to the current attempts to adapt it to use by other federal agencies. Informative and insightful, this guide is essential reading for political and policy leaders, as well as researchers and students interested in understanding the success of this agency and the lessons it offers to others.
This new textbook seeks to explain how US defense and national security policy is formulated and conducted. The focus is on the role of the President, Congress, political partisans, defense industries, lobbies, science, the media, and interest groups, including the military itself, in shaping policies. It examines the following key themes: US grand strategy; who joins America's military; how and why weapons are bought; the management of defense; public attitudes toward the military and casualties; the roles of the President and the Congress in controlling the military; the effects of 9/11 on security policy, homeland security, government reorganizations, and intra- and inter-service relations. The book shows how political and organizational interests determine US defense policy, and warns against the introduction of centralising reforms. In emphasizing the process of defense policy-making, rather than just the outcomes of that process, this book signals a departure from the style of many existing textbooks.