r/PoliticalScience • u/Yunozan-2111 • Aug 14 '26

Resource/study Good Books to understand how the current relationship between military production and the civilian political economy?

I am especially interested in how a specialized military economy can transitioned into civilian goods like green energy, food , water and the others?

5 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

1

u/RhodesArk Aug 14 '26

This is the classic "swords to ploughs" question. It's a bit hard because the economy hasn't been tuned for total war production since WWII. However, this overview of the Marshall Plan shows how the Allies demobilized after world war II and used industrial policy to reconstruct: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/marshall-plan.

Today, on a smaller scale, we call this the "dual use sector". While States have international obligations to prevent proliferation of dual use technologies under the Wassenaar agreement, this has been severely diminished as NATO militaries shift away from defense primes and towards a more civilianized supply chain. This is manifesting into national policy, for example in Canada (https://www.canadianinnovators.org/content/sovereign-capability-building-a-canadian-dual-use-industrial-commons), but perhaps is best viewed in Israel's dual use cybersecurity/cyberwar industry and the integration of Unit 8200 into the cybersecurity industry globally. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/what-is-israels-secretive-cyber-warfare-unit-8200-2024-09-18/

Tl;Dr: it is called Dual Use industrial policy

1

u/Yunozan-2111 Aug 17 '26

Really though I keep hearing Israel is a digital rentier-state though and R&D facility for multinational tech conglomerates in Wall Street not its own independent tech sector like South Korea, Japan and now China has currently

1

u/RhodesArk Aug 17 '26

Rather than a rentier state, I'd suggest that it works like a regulatory sandbox for western tech firms. Tools and algos that would be banned for privacy, or intrusion on the west can be field tested at scale in Israel; sometimes even getting state support. Everything from tower based MITM, consumer device rooting, and data analytics have their roots in pilot tech deployed in Israel. Far from a Rentier, the State actually encourages companies to engage in grey market hacking; something the US is only now gradually shifting towards.

1

u/Yunozan-2111 Aug 18 '26

Basically its software laboratory for US technology firms but is this still a structural vulnerability since its still dependent on US technology and machine base of hardware for it to function?

1

u/RhodesArk Aug 18 '26

More than a laboratory, it is a real world deployment with no rules or concerns about social licence. Translation tools, facial recognition, and cell based surveillance were all tested overseas in Iraq/Afghanistan before being deployed domestically. Israel is similarly lawless, particularly within its occupied zones, and encourage American firms to enter the country because of the "technology transfer". It's a win win for the companies and the state, because the former couldn't test at scale domestically without violating the law while Israel gets patents, talent, and technology.

Is it a strategic vulnerability? Yes, most likely, but the same could be said about Israel's dependence on the United States more generally. To my mind, this is just the natural relationship between a hegemon and its client.

1

u/Yunozan-2111 Aug 19 '26

I mean how different is then America's relationship with Turkey and South Korea? These two are seen as client regimes especially the former but with more material manufacturing base

1

u/RhodesArk Aug 19 '26

Not different at all. South Korea was a literal military dictatorship until the 1980s. Their shipbuilding, light manufacturing, and defense industries are run by cheobols with deep roots in the US defense base.

Turkey is more difficult to paint with such a broad brush because it is more democratic than Korea, on average over the past 50 years. Remember that Ataturk's legacy remains strong and the Erdogan era isn't representative of all of Turkish history. Nonetheless, the Americans have used Kurdistan as an insurgency laboratory for low level conflict since the 1970s. On the heavier side, Turkey has had domestic licence American fighters for years and have now begun producing their own airframes. They've applied those two specializations to create platforms such as the Bayaktar.

1

u/Yunozan-2111 Aug 19 '26

I am talking about economically like is South Korea's Chaebol system similar to Israeli tech-eco system is it more advanced because it produces actually material products on the market?

1

u/RhodesArk Aug 20 '26

I really don't want to get into why they different because it's a politically charged topic. Chaebols are intertwined with the government, acting like regiments in the military. They don't really compete and so the value of the currency and the policies of the state really impact their value. The state comes first and there's no Samsung without SK (but also possibly the other way around too).

Israel is funded differently. I don't want to make this a magnet for antisemitism or nonsense, so I'll simply say that Israel is able to draw outside capital with far fewer restrictions. They have established ties within the finance capital system which enables them to draw investment from abroad without a direct investor in the state.