Ethics, Scientists, Engineers and the Military - Ethical Engineering for International Development and Environmental Sustainability - page 345

'defence' research establishment of its kind in Europe, with only Los Alamos in the
USA of a similar size. DERA has since been split (with a further proliferation of
acronyms) into the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) and
QinetiQ. This was accompanied by the loss of a considerable number of jobs, many
in science, engineering and technology, as well as opposition, including from
parliament, to the creation of privatised 'defence' research organisations (Langley
et al. 2005 ). One of the aims of the privatisation of DERA was the demilitarisation
of some of the scientifi c, engineering and technology workforce, since military
research budgets were reduced by 50% between 1990 and 2000. However, QinetiQ
remains fi rmly military (Langley et al. 2005 ).

7 The Economy and Military Spending

It is often assumed that reductions in military spending lead to increases in
unemployment. However, this is in fact not the case (if appropriate compensatory
measures are taken), and military expenditure generally leads to fewer jobs than the
same public expenditure in expanding civil markets (Voss 1992 ). A number of studies
have shown (Anderson et al. 1991 ; Knight et al. 1996 ; Medoff 1993 ; Melman 1988 ;
Winn 1984 ) that military spending reduces economic growth and productive
investment and creates fewer jobs and lower total income than spending on educa-
tion, public transport, health care and construction for home weatherproofi ng, and
that increased non-military spending encourages new technologies and raises living
standards. In particular, education and public transport spending create twice as
many jobs as the same amount of military spending, and education spending leads
to both a greater number of jobs and jobs with higher wages (Pollin and Garrett-
Peltier 2009 ). Therefore, high military expenditures could be seen to overall reduce
rather than create jobs, and it could be argued that through military work, scientists
and engineers are indirectly and probably unwittingly contributing to reducing the
availability of employment. It has been suggested that (signifi cant) cuts in military
spending in Eastern Europe and the Middle East could lead to 50% long-term
increases in growth, with smaller but still signifi cant increases in other regions
(Knight et al. 1996 ).
An inverse relationship has also been found between the share of gross domestic
product allocated to military research and development and international com-
petitiveness (Kaldor et al. 1986 ), though the authors are cautious about arguing for
a causal relationship (Evans et al. 1991 ). However, the study suggests that high
military research and defence spending adversely affect (UK) civilian industry for a
number of reasons including the following:

1. The loss of signifi cant opportunities in the civilian markets, as the military take
up an excessive share of the limited pool of highly qualifi ed and skilled labour.
2. The erosion of knowledge and a reduction in the ability to compete in increas-
ingly competitive high-technology civilian markets, due to military markets
being less competitive than civilian ones.