ABSTRACT
Converting the workforce and industrial base of military economies to the production of goods and services in the civilian sector will entail a very substantial shift in the distribution of resources. The ease with which the transition is made will depend in part on the state of the national and global economies at the time the shift is undertaken. The demands of war production laid claim to the major share of available resources and thus denied them to the civilian economy. In order to comprehend the dimensions of the conversion challenge, it is first necessary to gain a sense of the size and structure of the US military economy. Private firms serving the military are the largest and most diverse category within the military economy. A considerable variety of governmental agencies already exists at all levels to deal with the difficulties of economic adjustment resulting from the cutbacks that regularly occur in the boom-and-bust cycle of the military economy.
