Defence Industries in the 21st Century: A Comparative Analysis

Defence Industries in the 21st Century explores the transformation in the global defence industrial production through examining the interaction between international and domestic factors.

With the global defence industry and arms market likely continue to expand and mature, the ways in which this progression could influence international politics remain obscure. In practice, as the contents of this book show, the defence industrial bases and arms export policies of emerging states display significant variance. This variance is the result of a unique balance between domestic and international factors that has shaped the defence industrialisation behaviour and policies of the less industrialised states. One of the most important conclusions of the book is that the interplay between domestic and international factors clearly influences the variation in the emerging states’ defence industrialisation policies, as well as their success or failure. While international factors create opportunities, they also limit the options available to emerging economies. Domestic factors also play an important role by shaping the policy choices of the states’ decision makers.

Exploring the balance between international and domestic factors and the ways in which they influence defence industrialisation in emerging states, Defence Industries in the 21st Century will be of great interest to scholars of Defence Industries, Arms Manufacturing, and Defence, Strategic and Security Studies more generally. The chapters were originally published in Defence Studies, Comparative Strategy and All Azimuth.

Çağlar Kurç is an Adjunct Lecturer at Department of International Relations at I.D. Bilkent University. He was a Fulbright Fellow at the MIT Security Studies Program, and visiting post-doctoral scholar at the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at the Columbia University. His work focuses on defense industrialization in the emerging powers.

Richard A. Bitzinger is a Visiting Senior Fellow with the Military Transformations Program at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, where his work focuses on security and defense issues relating to the Asia-Pacific region, including military modernization and force transformation, regional defense industries and local armaments production, and weapons proliferation.

Stephanie G. Neuman is the Director of the Comparative Defense Studies Program and a Senior Research Scholar at the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. Neuman has participated in study groups on the defense industry and arms control for both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.