Development of weapon systems in developing countries: a case study of long range strategies in Taiwan
- PDF / 601,681 Bytes
- 10 Pages / 595 x 842 pts (A4) Page_size
- 98 Downloads / 202 Views
#2000 Operational Research Society Ltd. All rights reserved. 0160-5682/00 $15.00 www.stockton-press.co.uk/jors
Development of weapon systems in developing countries: a case study of long range strategies in Taiwan T-S Jan* and C-G Jan National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan, Republic of China A long period of economic and industrial development has allowed developing countries to evolve into newly industrialised countries (NICs). Simultaneously, the development of their major weapon systems has evolved from foreign weapons acquisition to independent development due to establishing research and development (R&D) capabilities. However, competitive pressures in the international arms market has ®nally led these countries to return to foreign acquisition, consequently rapidly eroding their R&D capability. Balancing foreign acquisition and independent development is a long-term strategic problem for NICs. This study applies the system dynamics methodology to construct a weapon systems development model for Taiwan. This model is used to analyse the impact of acquisition policy. The results here indicate three major possible growth curves for weapon systems R&D capability based on alternative weapon systems acquisition policies. Keywords: weapon systems; system dynamics; R&D; R&D capability; long-range strategy
Introduction Initially the means of acquiring major weapon systems for developing countries was through foreign purchases, this was because of an inability to conduct independent research and development. However, this foreign weapon acquisition policy gradually became problematic. In particular, it hampered independent defense decision-making, costs were invariably high, and political factors restricted purchases. However, following World War II, economic development and technological advances allowed developing countries to carry out aggressive weapon systems R&D. Therefore, countries such as Israel, South Korea, South Africa and Taiwan gained the ability to develop their own weapon systems. Weapon systems R&D is a complicated, costly, and long-term investment. Establishing R&D capability largely depends on training technologists.1,2 Achievements in this type of human resource training and in R&D capability development can initially be extremely slow. However, once weapon systems research skills and capabilities are accumulated via long-term stable policy support, then the maturing of such R&D skills enhances the potential bene®ts from R&D due to shorter development times, reduced costs and improved performance.3 Nevertheless, even with *Correspondence: Dr T-S Jan, Management Science Department, National Chiao-Tung University, Taiwan. E-mail: [email protected]
mature R&D capabilities, the unique political circumstances of developing countries and market competition factors encourage foreign weapon acquisition. Countries operate with a limited national defense budget, and therefore increases in the foreign weapon acquisitions inevitably decrease the weapons R&D budget. This forces weapons R&D institutes to downs
Data Loading...
