Politics and ethics in post-Cold War demilitarization: Empirical evidence for decision traps and value tradeoffs.

Abstract

For several years following the Cold War, it has been difficult to reduce military expenditures because of the reliance of communities and individuals on the economic benefits. Maintaining armed forces that exceed security needs may contribute to arms proliferation and a variety of opportunity costs domestically. Individuals in the defense infrastructure may therefore be in a "decision trap" in which the risks of protecting one's livelihood become difficult to justify. In the survey reported in this article, groups receiving military income gave greater support to military expenditures than the general public. To consider whether this could be explained as a decision trap, the effect of removing economic incentives was evaluated. After military bases were closed in two communities, individuals who lost military income were found to support economic conversion at levels comparable to those found in the general public.costs when other important programs cannot be supported. In Canada, the Minister of National Defence established an advisory group on base closures in 1991, to "elaborate a procedure that would allow for more rational responses by government to DND [Department of National Defence] proposals, and to develop principles that should apply to closing military installations in Canada" (Minister's Advisory Group on Defence Infrastructure, 1992, p. 15). Although a discussion of similarities and differences in Canadian and U.S. military expenditures is beyond the bounds of this article, and although Canada has much lower levels of military spending, in both Canada and the United States the reduction of military expenditures has been difficult to implement because it conflicts with the employment needs of many communities and sectors of the work force.This study looks at factors affecting views about maintaining Cold War levels of military spending. How do people rationalize supporting work for which there is no longer a need, and that may actually be harmful to others? To look at motivations and justifications, we have surveyed Armed Forces personnel, veterans, defense production employees, former defense workers, and members of the general public.Several different terms have been used to refer to situations in which there is conflict between immediate self-interest and broader social consequences: social dilemmas (Dawes, 1980), social traps (Cross & Guyer, 1980; Platt, 1973), and commons dilemmas (Dawes, 1973;Hardin, 1968). This type of conflict seems to characterize the situation currently faced by many defense workers. On one hand, there is a need to maintain one's livelihood and to provide family support. But on the other hand, with the end of the Cold War, maintaining high levels of militarization cannot be justified. High levels of military spending are likely to increase national debts, use money that could be better spent on a variety of other programs (schools, roads, environmental protection, and so on), and contribute to arms races and wars. To the extent that their own interests conflict with the n...

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“…The need for further validity testing does not lessen the importance of the results reported here however, since it may be very difficult to get an acceptable response rate from individuals facing ethical dilemmas involving non-hypothetical economic incentives (cf. Summers and Morin, 1995). Aside from the importance of decision traps in explaining social issues, this is a central issue in measuring them.…”

“…Situations in which many people discount long-term risks in favor of smaller, individual benefits can collectively produce a great deal of harm in the long term. Multi-billion dollar problems such as the collapse of the Atlantic fisheries (Summers, 1995; in press), the interests of the military-industrial complex in maintaining the Cold War (Summers and Morin, 1995; Summers, 1996), and for example, the accumulation of the national debt can be explained on the basis of the "discounting" of long-term social costs in favor of more immediate personal benefits.…”