SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL VARIABILITY IN THE GEOGRAPHY OF AMERICAN DEFENSEOUTLAYS

The Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union le d the US to maintain military expenditures at historically high peacet ime levels. Consequently, certain regions and sectors of the US econom y are now dependent on military spending. At the state level, federal military outlays exhibit a large degree of locational persistence, wit h the spatial distribution of these expenditures remaining stable over a four-decade (1959-89) time-period. At the county scale, there is li ttle correspondence between the spatial distribution of federal defens e and non-defense spending. Our findings also indicate that counties i n the 'Defense Perimeter' or 'Gunbelt' (Markusen, 1986; Markusen et al ., 1991) secure significantly higher amounts of federal military alloc ations than other counties. However, those outside the defense perimet er receive significantly greater levels of non-defense expenditures. I n the aggregate, allocations of federal expenditures are roughly equal in the over 3000 counties of the United States.