Understanding weapon acquisition processes : a study of naval anti-submarine aircraft procurement in Britain, 1945-1955

Abstract

Few attempts have been made to systematically examine weapon procurement activities within states, and particularly within the United Kingdom, despite the central role they play in determining the outcomes of both inter-state disarmament negotiations and outbreaks of international armed conflict. This thesis seeks to correct that deficiency. The types of issues and areas of study that have served as a focus for existing work were reviewed, and generated an initial assumption that studies could either be undertaken inductively, as narrative history, or deductively, through the medium of a set of interpretive perspectives or models of the processes involved. Nine propositions were derived from the existing literature on the subject to serve as a framework within which the latter type of study could be conducted. These included a descriptive, phased model of a weapon procurement process: propositions about the impact of internal and external factors upon it and the dominance of specific factors at particular points in its evolution: propositions designed to explore the incidence of rational, purposeful behaviour within and between the governmental and industrial organisations involved, as compared with 'bureaucratic politics': and propositions designed to explore the impact of the 'variables of time, cost and quality upon, the evaluation of a project; to assess the importance of human compared to process factors; and to compare. the intra-governmental and public discussion and debate on a project. A narrative account of the evolution of the British naval anti-submarine aircraft programme between 1945 and 1956 was then constructed, based in part on hitherto inaccessible sources. In parallel, this narrative history was analysed through the medium of the nine deductive propositions generated earlier. These propositions were then reassessed in the light of this analysis, and an attempt made to combine them into a single, coherent model of the processes encompassed within a weapon project.

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