Domestic Politics, International Pressure, and the Allocation of American Cold War Military Spending

Abstract

Although foreign policy choices, especially on security questions, are often treated as autonomous state responses to international pressures, these events and conditions do not affect society in a uniform way. International conditions influence policy, but their implications depend on the interests of the domestic political faction controlling the state. Because decisions about military strategy and force structure are closely linked to the international balance of power, they offer an especially demanding test of this argument. This article offers evidence that Republican and Democratic presidents systematically differed on the allocation of resources within the Pentagon during the Cold War. Republicans directed spending toward strategic forces, while Democrats stressed conventional forces. Furthermore, although Soviet gains in relative nuclear capabilities influenced Democrats' decisions about strategic forces, they had little or no influence on Republican choices. These differences make sense in light of research on the two parties' societal constituencies.American Cold War military strategy is usually explained as a straightforward response to international events and conditions. On the other hand, a few scholars have suggested that Democrats and Republicans preferred different strategies and force structures during the Cold War (Gaddis 1982; Jacobson n.d.;Mintz 1988;Schurmann 1974). They contend that Republican presidents favored strategies stressing air power and nuclear weapons, while Democratic presidents focused on conventional forces. This paper presents a statistical test of these partisan differences over strategy and force structure. University, and the University of Texas at Austin. I am especially grateful for the comments of William Berry.1 Mintz (1988, 115) also finds statistical evidence of partisan differences over spending on personnel, operations and maintenance, and procurement. However, he attributes these differences to more frequent Democratic involvement in wars. The analysis presented here will use budget categories more closely related to strategic choices and will control for the effect of war on the allocation of the military budget.

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