Castles, Battles, and Bombs

How Economics Explains Military History

Jurgen Brauer, Hubert van Tuyll

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9780226071640, 9780226071633
• eBook ISBN: 9780226071657
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Economic History
• Index: History

Castles, Battles, and Bombs reconsiders key episodes of military history from the point of view of economics—with dramatically insightful results. For example, when looked at as a question of sheer cost, the building of castles in the High Middle Ages seems almost inevitable: though stunningly expensive, a strong castle was far cheaper to maintain than a standing army. The authors also reexamine the strategic bombing of Germany in World War II and provide new insights into France's decision to develop nuclear weapons. Drawing on these examples and more, Brauer and Van Tuyll suggest lessons for today's military, from counterterrorist strategy and military manpower planning to the use of private military companies in Afghanistan and Iraq.

 

"In bringing economics into assessments of military history, [the authors] also bring illumination. . . . [The authors] turn their interdisciplinary lens on the mercenary arrangements of Renaissance Italy; the wars of Marlborough, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon; Grant's campaigns in the Civil War; and the strategic bombings of World War II. The results are invariably stimulating."—Martin Walker, Wilson Quarterly

 

"This study is serious, creative, important. As an economist I am happy to see economics so professionally applied to illuminate major decisions in the history of warfare."—Thomas C. Schelling, Winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Economics

INDEX

Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations.

Abdullah Ocalan, 290

Aberystwyth, 54, 56

absolute state sovereignty, 129

Abu Abbas, 290

Abu Ghraib prison scandal, 312

Achille Lauro, 290

acquisition, 22

add-on/drop-off fuel tanks, 231

adverse selection, 30–31

Afghanistan War, 1

Africa, civil wars in, 307

African American women, as information gatherers for Union Army, 167

agency efficiency, 313, 318, 319, 327

Age of Battle, xv, 119; and asymmetric information between principal and agent, 156; generals did not as a rule calculate costs and benefits of battle, 154; growing size of armies during, 122; and hidden characteristics of enemy force, 156–57; location of battles, 121; and other principles of economics, 154–57; and principle of diminishing returns, 155–56; and principle of opportunity costs, 155; and principle of substitution, 155; prospect of losing one’s army, 131, 324; rational method of decision making, 324; relation between soldier and general, 126; stress and emphasis on the importance of honor, 126. See also eighteenth-century warfare; seventeenth-century warfare

Age of Revolution, 121

Age of the Castle, 47

Ailleret, Charles, 258; advocate of strategic nuclearization, 246; commander of Commandement des Armes Spéciales, 251; favored immediate strategic retaliation, 257; head of Armes Spéciales, 250; rapid rise to top, 284; role in force de frappe, 252–53, 254; unfavorable view of tactical-use concept, 271

Akerlof, George, 9, 31

Albigensian Crusade, 69

Aledo, 61

Alfonso of Aragon, 94, 109, 110

Alfonso VI, capture of Toledo, 61

Allen, E. J. See Pinkerton, Allan

Allen, Paul, 12

alliances, military: as attempts to build defense clubs, 288; and free rider problem, 280–81

Allied forces, World War II: development of add-on/drop-off fuel tanks, 231; ineffective bombing of Germany from 1940 to 1943, 228; severe information deficits, 227, 326. See also strategic bombing of Germany, World War II

all-volunteer armies: and decisions regarding enlistment and retention, 304–5; higher capital-to-labor ratios, 301; higher productivity, 303–4; impose equivalent tax burden on all taxpayers, 302. See also conscripted armed forces; United States military forces

al-Zarqawi, Abu Musab, 290

American Civil War, 119; “bounty-jumpers,” 352n68; campaigns in East, 162–63, 349n18; cartography, 366n47; civilian spies, 167; “commutation fee,” 352n67; desertion, 194; draft insurance societies, 352n67; draft on both sides, 194; first major war fought in an industrial context, xv...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Other Works
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Preface
• One: Economics
• Two: The High Middle Ages, 1000–1300 The Case of the Medieval Castle and the Opportunity Cost of Warfare
• Three: The Renaissance, 1300–1600 The Case of the Condottieri and the Military Labor Market
• Four: The Age of Battle, 1618–1815 The Case of Costs, Benefits, and the Decision to Offer Battle
• Five: The Age of Revolution, 1789–1914 The Case of the American Civil War and the Economics of Information Asymmetry
• Six: The Age of the World Wars, 1914–1945 The Case of Diminishing Marginal Returns to the Strategic Bombing of Germany in World War II
• Seven: The Age of the Cold War, 1945–1991 The Case of Capital-Labor Substitution and France’s Force de Frappe
• Eight: Economics and Military History in the Twenty-first Century
• Notes
• References
• Index