Book Description

Since World War II, the United States has done much to support economic, political, and social development in the Third World. At the same time, its policies toward developing nations often reflect an overly narrow conception of national and global security in which the influences of the modernization process seem scarcely to have been taken into account. Both strains in US policy are mirrored in strong academic traditions upon which policy-makers have drawn liberally in the postwar years. Developmentalists and security scholars alike will find much that is familiar in the case studies presented in Military Industry in Taiwan and South Korea. Dr Nolan's discussion of the stresses of rapid economic and political development in both states draws deeply on the modernization and dependencia studies of the last two decades, while her treatment of the 'security environment' within which domestic policies must be made will satisfy the international relationist concerned with states as actors within the international system. Throughout, Dr Nolan provides a detailed presentation of the behaviour of both polities that will be of interest to North-east Asian area specialists and students of US arms policy.