Armaments, Detente, and Bureaucracy

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Abstract
This study explores the extent to which defense spending of the European nations of NATO and of the Warsaw Pact since 1950 can be characterized as an action-reaction process. Since the level of armament expenditures in any state is an outcome of organizational processes, a model is introduced that represents the “normal” growth of defense spending as a function of bureaucratic momentum. Deviations from these expected levels are then treated as reactions to the potential adversary's pattern of military spending and/or to the fluctuations of tension in Europe. The most important findings are (a) the comparatively low influence of action-reaction and international tension–as opposed to that of bureaucratic momentum, and (b) the differential impact of the hostile alliance's armament expenditures and of tension on, respectively, the NATO nations and the Warsaw Pact countries.

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