Chapter 34 Success and Failure in Defense Conversion in the ‘Long Decade of Disarmament’

The ‘long decade of disarmament’ between the mid-1980s and the late 1990s provides ample evidence of the effects of a substantial defense downturn. The chapter starts out with a brief discussion of various concepts of conversion, focusing on a resource-reuse perspective. This is followed by sections on measuring success and failure in the conversion of resources and putting such measures into the perspectives of broader economic theories of change and growth. The body of the chapter is a review of the analytical and comparative literature analyzing the benefits and costs of the reuse of six types of resources, namely government spending, military research and development facilities, defense production facilities, armed forces and defense industry personnel, military land and military equipment, including chemical weapons and nuclear material. The chapter concludes with a brief analysis of various government policies aiming at improving the rate of success of conversion.