Rusty guns and buttery soldiers: unemployment and the domestic origins of defense spending

Scholars and practitioners continue to debate transatlantic burden sharing, which has implications for broader questions of collective action and international organizations. Little research, however, has analyzed domestic and institutional drivers of burden-sharing behavior; even less has disaggregated defense spending to measure burden sharing more precisely. This paper enhances understanding of the relationship between national political economies and burden shifting, operationalizing burden shifting as the extent to which a country limits or decreases defense expenditures, while at the same time favoring personnel over equipment modernization and readiness in the composition of defense budgets. Why do countries choose to allocate defense resources to personnel, rather than equipment modernization? I find that governments slightly decrease top-line defense spending in response to unemployment while shifting much more substantial amounts within defense budgets from equipment expenditures into personnel. This research highlights the intimate connection between Europe’s economic fortunes, transatlantic security, and burden sharing in North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union – of particular interest as a pandemic buffets the transatlantic economy. It also points policy analysts toward factors more amenable to political decisions than the structural variables generally associated with burden sharing, bridging significant gaps between defense economics, security studies, and comparative political economy.

The Soldiers Welfare: The Military Keynesianism Perspective for The Indonesian Armed Forces’s Professionalism

Building professional soldiers into the wishes and commitments of many countries, this is due to the strengthening of threats that are not only traditional threats, but also non-traditional threats. This situation confirms that the presence of professional soldiers will ensure the sovereignty of the state, because the military institution can focus on its duties and functions on the defense of the country. In this context, the Indonesian Armed Forces (Tentara Nasional Indonesia—TNI) is also faced with situations that place TNI institutions to become professionals, relying on democratic civilian government through the defense ministry with an emphasis on improving the welfare of soldiers simultaneously with efforts to modernize Indonesia's defense system. Because the Military-Keynesianism approach believes that improving the welfare of the army is part of the consequences of increasing defense budgets. The paper argues that the increase in defense budget will be correlated with the welfare of the army, although the policy is not directly for the welfare of the army. The article also argues that the increase in the defense budget should improve the TNI foundation as an ideal institution by emphasizing the welfare of soldiers.