THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE NATIONAL DEFENSE STOCKPILE

It is really a cynical playing of politics with this issue of the strategic stockpile. I don't like being on watch while this kind of nonsense is going on. (Humphrey, 1983, p. 67) Few government programs display both the political salability and the vulnerability to political manipulation that characterize the National Defense Stockpile. This article analyzes the ways in which changing institutional constraints have shaped the nature and extent of parochial manipulation of the National Defense Stockpile over more than half a century of U.S. stockpiling experience. Focusing on the roles of Congress and the executive branch in establishing the relevant institutional rules and accommodating constituent pressures within the framework of those rules, this article examines the use and perpetuation of the strategic materials stockpile for personal political gain.