Although most economists maintain a mistrust of a government's goals when it intervenes in an economy, many continue to trust its actual ability. They retain, in other words, a faith in state competence. For this faith, they adduce no evidence. Sharing little skepticism about the government's...

The second volume of the Handbook of Defense Economics addresses defense needs, practices, threats, and policies in the modern era of globalization. This new era concerns the enhanced cross-border flows of all kinds (e.g., capital and labor flows, revolutionary rhetoric, guerrillas, and...