The Price of Prestige

66 chapter three

types of goods challenges traditional explanations of procurement. Most

existing theories ignore the dimension of conspicuousness and instead

focus on a narrower material assessment of a weapon’s functionality.

Thus, when selecting between substitutable procurement programs, the

conventional approach is to assume that states will chose the weaponry

that best serves their strategic needs (or the needs of the most influential

bureaucracy or interest group). The Vebelenian approach amends this as-

sertion by suggesting that prestige- seeking states will purchase the pro-

curement program that best serves their strategic needs and /or is most

conspicuous.

One obvious functional justification for military procurement is deter-

rence. If procurement is motivated by deterrence, we should expect it to

follow strategic reasoning, taking into account issues such as the probabil-

ity of conflict, the number and type of assets the procured weaponry is de-

signed to protect, the effects of geographic factors, and the force structure

of potential adversaries. Deterrence cannot be generated by secretive pro-

curement programs, as anyone who ever watched Dr. Strangelove would

know. However, the issue of conspicuousness works differently. Under as-

sumptions of complete information, conspicuousness should not be a sig-

nificant factor in a rationalist analysis of deterrence. Deterrence theory

would find it hard to explain, for example, why an Indian purchase of a

decrepit carrier attracted more attention and concern in Pakistan than a

massive Indian purchase of modern submarines that took place around the

same time: “While subsurface vessels may in fact be the Navy’s most puis-

sant weapon, disproportionate attention has been accorded to expansion

of Indian carrier arms, in part, because aircraft carriers are such manifestly

visible instruments of sea power” (Tellis 1990 , 30 ). This has also been the

case for the Chinese carrier program. China’s submarine program is more

advanced and strategically more significant. It does not, however, attract as

much public attention as China’s first carrier, despite the dubious strategic

value of the latter. This observation suggests that although Modelski and

Thompson ( 1988 ) are correct in identifying the submarine as one of the

mainstays of contemporary naval power, it does not play an effective role

as a status symbol, simply because a submerged vessel is not conspicuous

enough. Thus, when seeking to enhance its international profile, Thailand

chose to buy an aircraft carrier and not a submarine fleet.

The second basic dimension of conspicuous consumption is cost. If ac-

tors are cost minimizers, as most primary utility – based theories would lead

us to believe, we should expect them to consume expensive items only if