Inflation indices and discount rates are necessary tools in the Department of Defense's acquisition process, as the final selection of a system is partially based on potential increases in sustainment costs (inflation) and the present value of future costs (discounting). Inflation indices built for DoD use very broad categories that include operations and maintenance (O & M) as well as manpower, procurement, and research and development. This study addresses the question of how well current inflation indices and discount rates are serving DoD weaponsystem program management. It investigates inflation rates for parts for the Abrams tank and the Bradley armored personnel carrier and shows that the two weapon systems, while both ground systems, experience inflation differently. Although government decisionmaking can benefit from discounting (taking into account the time value of money), choices made using discounted cash flows are not always the least expensive for DoD. Its O & M estimating strategies should be reviewed to reflect changing repair and other costs, since a range of reasonable courses of action exists for many DoD investment decisions. Recommendations for the Office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation to consider when evaluating the inflation and discounting policies that impact the long-term affordability of DoD programs include (1) revisiting O & M costs annually with a 5-year moving-average inflation, to reflect changing repair and other costs; (2) highlighting the role of supply chain surcharges in parts costs in cost estimates used to inform program financial analysis; (3) expanding analysis of investments to ensure consideration of least-cost outcomes.

Defence inflation is a recurring factor in determining defence spending. It is widely reported in official government publications and in the trade press, but remains relatively neglected by defence and peace economists. In this book, international contributors from Finland, Norway, Sweden, the UK and the USA distinguish between defence inflation and cost escalation, and identify the causes of both. They use specific case studies to address a wide variety of theoretical and empirical issues and key questions, including the following: Does defence inflation affect all countries? What are its effects? Why does it occur? How (if at all) can defence inflation be controlled? While most industry and trade press devote considerable ink and space to the discussion of defence inflation, cost escalation, and their consequential impact on the purchasing dollars of the armed forces, economists have been relatively silent. This book aims to rectify this oversight through a multinational survey and analysis of the topic, while also identifying the opportunities for further theoretical and empirical research in the field. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Defence and Peace Economics.

It is still easy to underestimate how much the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War?--and then the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001?--transformed the task of American foreign and defense policymaking. In place of predictability (if a sometimes terrifying predictability), the world is now very unpredictable. In place of a single overriding threat and benchmark by which all else could be measured, a number of possible threats have arisen, not all of them states. In place of force-on-force engagements, U.S. defense planners have to assume "asymmetric" threats?--ways not to defeat U.S. power but to render it irrelevant. This book frames the challenges for defense policy that the transformed world engenders, and it sketches new tools for dealing with those challenges?--from new techniques in modeling and gaming, to planning based on capabilities rather than threats, to personnel planning and making use of "best practices" from the private sector.

East Asian Security examines some of the most important strategic questions about the future of East Asia. It includes provocative essays that explore the overall prospects for war, peace, and stability in the region. Other essays focus on the likely strategies that China and Japan will pursue at the dawn of the next millennium. Students, scholars, and analysts of contemporary issues will find East Asian Security to be a stimulating and valuable overview of these questions.

On August 24-25, 2010, the National Defense University held a conference titled “Economic Security: Neglected Dimension of National Security?” to explore the economic element of national power. This special collection of selected papers from the conference represents the view of several keynote speakers and participants in six panel discussions. It explores the complexity surrounding this subject and examines the major elements that, interacting as a system, define the economic component of national security.