551. The Future of the U.S. Defense Industry
- Author:
- Vance D. Coffman
- Publication Date:
- 10-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Let me begin with a review of where we are some nine years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and after 14 years of continuous declines in the defense budget. Current expenditures are now at their lowest point since before the beginning of World War II; in terms of share of GDP, the share devoted to defense is less than three percent. As a portion of the federal budget, it is at its lowest point in modern history. As a benchmark, during the Kennedy Administration, defense represented about one-half of the federal budget. Today it is about one-seventh.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy, Industrial Policy, and War
- Political Geography:
- United States and Berlin