| ID | 081555 |
| Title Proper | Mind the Gap |
| Other Title Information | security 'crises' and the geopolitics of US military spending |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Mercille, Julien |
| Publication | 2008. |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | US politics seems to be chronically afflicted with high levels of military spending justified by security "crises", the current upsurge under the Bush administration being only the latest episode in a long series. This paper addresses the question, "Why are the levels of US military spending so high?" to which it provides a "radical" geographical answer. Although in the conclusion I offer thoughts on how my points apply to the current situation, I do not claim that the analysis applies directly to the post-war period as a whole, but only to that of the case study, the bomber and missile gaps of 1955-1961, two successive "crises" that led to increases in defence expenditures. I argue that although the "immediate" causes of the "gaps" and ensuing military spending may be found at the national and local scales, some of their fundamental roots are to be located in US post-war plans to organise the global space of the capitalist world economy. I will show how such plans?-?as found in important declassified documents like NSC-68 and the Gaither Report as well as those related to the Vietnam War and counterinsurgency policies?-?explicitly called for military spending to maintain American hegemony. Moreover, those documents reveal geographical assumptions reminiscent of Mackinder's geopolitics, hegemony and world-systems theories. Finally, examining the geopolitics and geoeconomics of US military spending makes a contribution to a subject to which geographers have paid only limited attention |
| `In' analytical Note | Geopolitics Vol. 13, No.1; 2008: p54-72 |
| Journal Source | Geopolitics Vol. 13, No.1; 2008: p54-72 |
| Key Words | Geopolitics ; Secuirty ; Defence Expenditure ; United States |