Sylwester T. KUREK, Janusz PŁACZEK
THE OUTLINE OF SECURITY ECONOMICS METHODOLOGY
Abstract:
The objective of this article is to present the basic methodology of security economics
theory evolution. We present its science object and relations with other sciences.
It means that we also bring close its attributes as: language, research methods
and programs, functions and usability (pragmatics). We briefly highlight research and
academics centers, which are engaged with economics and defense inquiries.
All presented information can be treated as an outline of these problems, which have
methodical characteristics and knowledge ordering.
1
PREMISES AND ORIGIN OF SECURITY ECONOMICS
Security economics is an evolutionary historical origin knowledge. It appeared as
a result of economics plots of wars and fundamental economics of national security.
Political consciousness of economy during battles and wars grew adequate to war
measures and its development. Years ago tribal wars were not prepared, together
with preparation of food, clothes and armaments. Since the nation grows with
the productions power, it lead to wars. This lead to supply needs for certain products.
Governments and commanders noticed the connection between military power and
economy. Experienced leaders understood that greatness of army in the field depends
not only on number of the nation but also of economy potential. Financial support was
always very important key. For ages this was a problem for the rulers.
During mercantile times, trade exchange was identified with the power of nation.
During classical times the production role was emphasized, which is the main source
of nations wealth at the same time with military power. During physiocratism times
the most important thing was self-sufficiency in food productions – important factor
during economic blockade. It is known, the level of military techniques enforced
the method of fight, and always enforced new requirements of back-ups, which is
dynamics and structures if society reproductions process. The war economy system was
established during the Ist World War and became new science discipline – war
economics.
War economics between the Ist and IInd World Wars put a great contribution in
economic preparations to new World War. Especially the role of industry and technical
progress of battle equipment. At those times obligatory rule was ”economy works for
the front line needs, for the army”. Then the new effect of arms race between the two
opposed economy-political systems appeared what projected on the economy grows.
Even if there was a peace between the two blocks, the level of budget nation did not
allow to resign of typical war economy action. Economic-defense studies needs are
important now, especially during peace times. That is why war economics is called now
defense economics.
They focused on connections between space planning and defense system, on creating
economy mobilization plans, energy and food system, as well as economy calculation
role on economy-defense system. Both names (war economics & defense economics)
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have traditionally historical meaning tied between national defense and national
economy. Today the security economics is propagating and developing.
There are essential number of premises indicating of defense economics evolution
towards the new science discipline – security economics. The most important premise is
political changes in Europe at the turn of 80’ and 90’ in twenties century. At that time
the Warsaw Pact and Berliner Wall was demolished. The nations of central Europe
moved on towards democracy system and its economy towards free world market
model. These nations limited its defense’s budgets and numbers of army forces.
In the literature of those times it was noticed the changes to analyzing of national
economy to strengthen the security in crisis, not military but terrorist crisis, natural
disaster or lack of food, energy and water supplies. They are very important issues
besides that Poland is a member of NATO (since 1999) and European Union (since
2004). The complete opening of Poland caused also the information penetrating from
the Western countries. The real military threat cannot be excluded, which causes the
necessity of permanent capability of military standard levels. There is always
probability of local outbreaks or the necessity to participate in alliances operations. It is
important to define the strategic challenges and potential source of menace for
the country (alliance) as well as operation prevention actions.
Prevention strategy in modern World has greater and greater meaning and is more
efficient. That is why it should be developing, its methods should be modernizing, and
people should be informed better. The extra military menace and its meaning grow
more and more. There is a number of threats growing nowadays: organized crime,
terrorism, atomic weapons, economic wars, information’s blockade, financial
dependence or technology espionage. We are constantly bombarded by media with
the effects of natural disasters or damages to the ecology. To resist against all these
threats we need to employ the organized, well trained forces with mobile equipment.
On one side there is the army (national and alliances) on the other side there is
the whole governmental machinery (extra military). But this system (crisis and security
reaction system) is not ideal and needs much effort to be improved. The war economy
in the army is far away from the analysis as well as the economy in the army.
The action field moved for peacefully forming of economy security basis which means
the economy resistant to modern, extra military threats. The clear stream has been
aroused connected with the crisis reaction during peace times. We should consider the
macro and micro scale of the researched effect. This issue concerns local needs
of certain economy or industry brunches as well as groups of countries, alliances,
continents or even the whole globe. Summarizing it means the need of extending
present defense economics research of the new elements. The new matters of extra
military field should be included into new discipline = security economics. The range
of his discipline has been evolving constantly, that is why the identity accents in its
name as well as the relations between and the merits connections (figure 1).
ME < DE < SE
ME ⊂ DE ⊂ SE
ME
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DE
SE
ME – military economics
DE – defense economics
SE – security economics
Figure 1. The range of economic-defense disciplines
2
THE OBJECT AND SUBJECT OF INQUIRY
To correctly define the security economics we should define two basic concepts.
Security, according to general principles, is understood as a lack of threats or protection
against threats. To understand it on political basis (nation) we can say it is a result
of organized protection and defense against all military and extra military, foreign and
domestic threats, employing all governmental forces. In fact there is a symbiosis of the
security threats elements, in the first place – extra military characters. Economics has
been defined as a part of economy which researches economic activity in certain field
of national economy. Its objective is to define by science methods the effective
instruments of economic policy and the economic rules on this field. Both definitions
correspond with each other very well. They indicate how to manage, in what form, by
what instruments. All of these is to efficiently economics managing against all threats.
That is why economics connects two groups of science – military and economy. It’s
also connecting with the political since. We can state the following: < security
economics is a particular science discipline, which researches essentials, forms and
methods of national economy functions, which is ready to fulfill the national security
task and it analyses and evaluate the economic security level of the country. It concerns
effectiveness of economic resources during peace, crisis and war times.
The objective of the economics is to help create a rational security policy. It should
search the answers for the questions: What? When? How much? How Many? How?
Who? And Why? How to use it. The main task is to look for the way of efficient
management of the national reserves to create national security. The subject
of the security economics is the correctness of the building economy process system,
which should be focused on the three different states of the nation: peace, crisis and
war. The research program should be complex, included time of nation economy,
alliance of the countries in not peaceful times of existence. There are several issues
included in this discipline such as: dividing of burden defense within a framework
of alliances, managing security and defense systems in crisis, civil-military cooperation,
economic-technical possibility support in natural disasters time, social-economic costs
of armament conversion, reconversion of army personnel and economical terrorist’s
premises.
The research objects of this discipline (specialty) are economy basis of the security and
defense of the nation (EBoSaD)1, particularly defense economy in different types.
The research includes the connections of economic process to create a rational security
policy. Defense economy which is the EBoSaD core is a fundamental part of any
nation, and every nation must utilize part of the nation’s economy for its own defense
policies. This part has been always variable, grows during military crisis. There were
situations in history during world power wars where the part of defense economy was
very slight. In the Middle East there is a paradoxical situation where in peace time,
the nations finance the security needs like in war.
There are four types of defense economy: 1) peaceful defense economy – when burden
of gross domestic product is less then 7-8%; 2) war readiness economy (sometimes
crisis) – when it’s over 8%; 3) war economy – it’s over 14-16%; 4) demobilization
economy – when burden of gross domestic product is diminishing in a short time.
1
More about economy basis of security and defense of nation structure vide: Stachowiak Z., Kurek St.,
Kurek S.T., Bezpieczeństwo ekonomiczne Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, AON, Warsaw 2004.
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The above factors are relatively general and have to be compared to few years period.
For some countries they mean “hot war” for others don’t mean anything more than just
doubling the defense expenses. Besides that these factors must be observed, because
the indicate the based irrelativeness of connections of economy and defense.
The ability of defense state economy (majority in EBoSaD) to achieve the next stages
of readiness (or decreasing) means that defense state economy is very flexible.
The more flexible it is the faster and better it is able to fulfill its defense functions. For
a certainty it is a fundamental characteristic of modern defense economy. This
flexibility is defined as ability to change even for a huge organization with negligible
loss of time or resources. It depends mostly on management skills, moral readiness
of the nation to meet new challenges and on the economy function. It is said
the economy is more flexible if it has more reserves at its disposal (production,
transportation). Also the mobility of labor force, technological ability means the key
roles are managers, engineers and scientists.
Defense economy is a real core EBoSaD of the country and it has its own role to play.
The basic goal is to create premises to build the financial basis of the security and
defense and to ensure the survival of civilians during crisis or war. Its aim is to
effectively exploit the existing economical potential for the sake of the security.
The typical examples of the peaceful defense economy tasks are: to prepare and
constantly update the economy mobilization plan in case of threat or war; to maintain,
support, train, equip the army as well as building of the military objects; to adjust
technological infrastructure to defense and security state requirements; to create
conditions for the survival of civilians in the extreme situations, e.g. preparing civil
defense; to gather state reserve; to prepare production and technical (repair) bases in
the industrial branch during the threat times and during the war; to run the science and
research studies in defense and security fields; to participate in the task and operations
for the alliance’s armies and in realizing the defense investments.
The basic economy elements of the security and defense which speaks of its readiness
for the action are among others: defense industry, strategic reserves of the state,
economy-defense infrastructure, science-research centers, international economydefense cooperation and defense logistic. The key role is state economy organizations
who manage the security and defense of the state.
The important premise that define EBoSaD is considering the conditions of economy
functions. The main conditions of this type are: geographical position of the state;
economic and military alliances; level of economic growth; level of reserves
(manpower, materials and assets (cash, gold reserves etc); location of defense-economic
potential; and volume of defense expenditures.
To characterize the security economics among the nationwide knowledge we may
separate three attitudes: 1) considering security economics in military sciences taking
into account that it appeared together with war occurrence as of the war science we can
learn from the military conflicts; 2) including security economics in political science as
a inquiry of the internal and international political relations, because war is a political
act; 3) including security economics to general economy science as one of detailed
economics. The object of its interest is a state economy but in a defense function.
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At the same time we reject the thesis that security economics can be a separate science
discipline. We are sure that security economics lies in the middle of these sciences. It
also depends on the place of lectures and science centers. In Poland for two years
security economics was a specialty of economy sciences. Currently it is included in
military sciences as a result of stereotypical premise, that if it is security, it must be
connected with military uniforms. It should not be connected this way. We understand
that the government is responsible for national security, but individually businessmen
and consumers create economic systems and have bigger roles to play, about which
A. Smith in XVII century had written.
3
LANGUAGE, SCIENCES STREAMS AND RESEARCH METHODS
Each science discipline has its own specific language. There are different categories
which describe the current state. These categories are historically based, they are
changing all the time as well as conditions of functioning and surroundings. In security
economics there are specific descriptions connected with functioning of security and
defense of the economy of certain nation. Some of the categories are brought from other
science disciplines, but there are some new ones that describe certain process better.
Most often categories are: potential, reserves, expenditure, cost, analysis, evaluation,
value, parameters, factors, mobilization, methods, model, and allocation. These
categories are narrowed to specific of the field e.g.: reserves – to manpower, objects,
financial and information; potential – to economy, defense or military; mobilization – to
economy, technical infrastructure, economy subject; expense – to defense, military,
armaments, or extra military.
To explain the specifics of this language we should also explain and highlight
the isolation from the other sciences, which are sometimes even close to these sciences.
We need to specify the following categories: economic-defense potential, which roots
are in general economy category and has its roots also in exact and military sciences;
economic mobilization, which moved some mobilization rules of the armies to economy
ground; strategic raw materials – their roots are in the word “raw materials” but it shows
exact group necessary for security and defense needs; war economy – expresses clearly
the impact on different country with the economic tools to force the beneficial
behavior; intensity of economy – which means the ability of the economy to resist
against bad conditions due to military actions of the enemy;
In the extra military category we can specify the following: compensation of defense
purchasing; crisis management (reaction); trans-frontier migrations; action supporting
of the host state; double-use equipment; economic espionage; and civil-military
cooperation.
In the consequences there are three parallel main streams of science of modern security
economics. First is a continuation of a present stream of war economics with the matters
of: manpower in war economy, war distribution etc. The second has roots in defense
economics, widen of disarmament of economics, crisis management etc. The third one
regards extra military threats as organization and functioning of the state organs,
assortments, state reserves. All of the above science streams should serve the national
security policy in the alliances as well as between continentals.
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Considering the science’s methods there are analysis and synthesis used in many
different science disciplines. Also there are certain statistics method used as induction
and deduction. Sometimes the interviews enrich the analysis. The science method
depends on the task character and source of information. History’s wars and economies
give comprehensive materials for research and study. Also it is important to make
comparisons to today’s conflicts. It is very important to study this kind of historic
material to observe the proper connections which demonstrate the basic war-economy
processes. At the same time the anticipation of discovered trends and rules can help for
the future planning and predicting of the war conflicts.
4
CONNECTIONS WITH OTHER DISCIPLINES
Security economics as each science discipline has its connections to number of
science and disciplines. It takes full advantage of their achievements. The strongest
connections are with different economy branches like industrial, agricultural, transport
and trade economics. Is has also connections with international affairs economics,
geographical economy and the finances of the state. Military sciences also play a
significant role, as well as political and military alliances. This analysis considers
periods of both war and peace. The military equipment, manpower etc – all of these are
keys to the technological progress. The administration, law, exact sciences give the type
of research methods and knowledge. Summarizing there are clear connections between
economy, military and political sciences. And we cannot forget about these disciplines
surroundings especially about the technological, social and political sciences (figure 2).
1
2
8
3
7
6
5
4
Legend:
1. Defense-economic thought
2. Military-economic history
3. War economics
4. Military economics
5. Economic-defense planning and programming
6. Economic-defense simulation
7. Economic-defense policy
8. Economic security
Figure 2. The closer and further surroundings of security economics
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5
FUNCTIONS AND USABILITY
We can say that the functions of security economics are different from other science’s
disciplines. There are three main functions: cognitive, creative and practical application.
The first means information acquiring and their selection. In this area there is a huge
number of information which should be found, ordering and grouped. Nowadays the
inflow of the economic, military and political information is so great that we have to use
special filters to choose the information needed for future research. The next function is
a result of analyses, evaluation and formulating a hypothesis which need further
verification. We can easily say it is a “specific laboratory” where all the products are
put on a test. The third function realizes in the process of postulations and conclusions.
Based on this generalization we can form the statements, which enrich the theoretic
thought of the researched discipline.
We need to consider also the usability of this science discipline. We can strongly
recommend the thesis this economics is extremely useful for the state security. It is
expected to give the answers and solutions, methods and instruments. Also it has to
warn and stimulate offering different questions. There is a need for this kind of research
world-wide to create an efficient security system for the people and nations.
6
RESEARCH PROGRAMS AND THE RESEARCHES CENTERS
It is difficult to describe the most important science problems of the security
economics. It depends on two premises. First – is the institution needs for this kind
of research. The second one is a result of research’s scientists. There are following
standard topics:
1) The field of defense-economic thought: origin; connections and dependences; forming
the opinions; theories;
2) Military-economic history: role of the war loot in the ancient countries power;
economic basis of Middle-Ages wars; growth of the navy during Mercantilism times;
industrial revolution in England and war technology development; economy bases
influence on massive conflicts increase;
3) War economics: war resources mobilization; war catering; war economic effect; war
finances; war resources allocation; war production; war costs;
4) Military economics: finance army planning; resources efficiency; standing army
economics’ dilemma; civil-military cooperation (CIMIC); alliances’ role in economic
supporting; military costs;
5) Economic-defense planning and programming: tools; economy mobilizing planning;
technological infrastructure utilization for the security and defense system need;
economic conditions of the stabilizing missions; economic-social effect of disarmament;
management of defense-economic resource system; economic-defense analyses related
to cost-effect; modern economic mobilization;
6) Economic-defense simulation: economic-defense potential measurement; economicdefense condition valuating; diagnoses methods and techniques; modeling of
the connections;
7) Economic-defense policy: army role in the economic-defense potential; defense
direction; methods of economic-defense policy creating; alliances; decision-making;
arms traffic; analyses and evaluation of the resources; role of resources and strategic
reserves; role of the domestic industry; international cooperation; security and defense
costs; terrorists premises and cost of the terrorists control;
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8) Economic security: modern economy intelligence; economic security of sectors
(energy, raw, finance, food, ecological etc); economic security threats of the country;
methods and resources of the economic security.
The above subjects may be of different shades. In the effect we wanted to show
the connections between theory and practice. We hope, presented problems may be
a program of security economics research.
It is important to point out the research sciences centers and the scientist. There are
seven main centers:
1) British center with Defense Study University Center in York where there are
authorities like: Keith Hartley, Dawid Greenwood, Mary Kalder, Gawin Kenedy, John
Lovering and scientists in other different centers N. Cox, J. Thompson or Ron P. Smith.
2) American center with Texan University in Dallas with the representatives like Tod
Sandler and Daniel Arce, Harvard University with Ethan B. Kapstein, L.D. Olvey, J.R.
Gulden. R.C. Kelley, California University with J. Hirshleifer, M. Interiligator and M.
McGuire. There are also people working at other centers like A.L. Ross, G. Kennedy,
N. Hooper, D. Braddon, P. Dowdall, M. Kaldor.
3) Swedish center with International Stockholm Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and
Peace and Conflict Research Division at Uppsali University. The researchers: Margaret
Sollenberg, Peter Wallensteen, Ian Anthony, Evamaria Loose-Weintraub, Elizabeth
Skons, Saadet Deger, Wuji Omitoogun, Catalina Perdomo, Damian Fruchard, Siemion
T. Wezeman, Peter Satalenheim, Michael Ward.
4) Russian center with Russian Science Academy, Russian Natural Reserves Academy,
National Economy Academy with W.K. Senczagow and W. Chaczaturow.
5) German center with Budesrepublic Academy in Hamburg and Koblence University
where the following scientists published their works: Johannes Gerber, Gunter
Kirchhoff, Gunter Werner, Oswald Hahn, Hans Einhorn and Gunter Kozianka. The
representatives of Military Economy Dachau Association with Joachim Blackert, Elvira
Kuhn, Mihael Ebig, Johann Saalbaum, Patrich Neuhaus.
6) Czech center with Defense University in Bern with Miroslaw Krc, Jiri Nedbal, Jan
Selesovsky, Vladimir Sefcik, Lubomir Odehnal and Ludos Stancl.
7) Polish center connecting with National Defense University with the representatives
like: Zenon Stachowiak, Mirosław Sułek, Stefan Kurinia, Janusz Olszewski, Józef
Wróbel, Janusz Płaczek, and from the younger generation: Marek Juszczyk, Konrad
Stańczyk and Sylwester T. Kurek.
In other European countries (France – J. Aben, J. Fontanel and Italy – Jean Caro) these
problems are also mentioned, but in a very narrow research. In every country all these
problems are being analyzed even if there are no specialists in this field of research.
There is also periodical magazine edited “Defense and Peace Economics” This bimonthly magazine was first edited in 1990 as “Defense Economics”. It is concerned
with subjects like: economical aspects of defense, disarmament, conversions and peace.
The readership of this magazine consists of internationals scientists and authors.
The analyses and researches in the articles speak of mathematical aspects of the
researches.
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7
SUMMARY
There is an authentic need for this kind of security economics methodology analysis in
Poland and in the wider world. Security economics had been written for positive impact
in the science process and to help the economy and political sciences. There are
researches and scientific works as well as monographies and manuals and articles being
published. This subject is lectured at many academics centers. There are numbers
of great research teams of specialists and experts. The scientific thought is creating and
research methodology is creating and verifying. All of these cause that we, as this
articles authors, being at the same time the representative of this thought, we are assure
of the great prognosis of this thought for the future. It will find important place among
modern science.
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