Technology and the defense industry: real threats, bad habits, or new (market) opportunities?

Renaud Bellais ()
Additional contact information
Renaud Bellais: ENSTA Bretagne_SHS - Département Sciences Humaines et Sociales ENSTA Bretagne - ENSTA Bretagne - École Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées Bretagne

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: Technology has been playing a central role in defense spending or arms-producing countries since World War II. Although there has been no major threat or conflict since the 1990s, defense R&D absorbs a large share of military expenditures, as well as public R&D. This technology-centric paradigm results from uncertainties surrounding defense matters and the need to avoid strategic surprises. However, one can wonder whether such a paradigm is still adapted to today's defense needs. This is a trend strongly driven by the supply side: defense firms have developed a business model that cannot survive without launching new programs, hence a high level of defense R&D. This explains both an overinvestment in technology, resulting in the development of unaffordable technologies or unsustainable performance targets, and the technology-centric model that defense firms favor in side markets like security.

Keywords: Defense; R&D; technology; security; procurement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-09-02
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-00947395v1
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Journal of Innovation Economics & Management, 2013, 2013/02 (12), pp.59-78

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.science/hal-00947395v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00947395

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().