| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The 20 years since the end of the Cold War have seen a radical shift in the
nature of the defence industrial sector, with a rationalization of the number
of companies involved. While something similar happened in the civilian
aerospace market, which has become dominated by two giant rivals-the
United States-based Boeing Corporation and the European consortium of
Airbus-it occurred over a much shorter timescale. For example, in the US
defence market Boeing merged with McDonnell Douglas in August 1997;
Lockheed and Martin Marietta merged in March 1995; while Northrop
Aircraft acquired Grumman Aerospace in April 1994.1
Today the defence
market is increasingly dominated by a smaller number of large multinational
companies that have global interests, such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, EADS, Thales, and
BAE Systems. In conjunction with this slow but steady rationalization, most
western countries since the end of the Cold War have sought some form
of "peace dividend" and diverted resources from defence to other areas of
public expenditure.2
For example, the United Kingdom's defence expenditure
dropped as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from 4.6 percent
in 1987 to 2.56 percent in 2010. This drop mirrored much of what was
happening in the rest of NATO, with the average defence expenditure falling
from 1.93 percent in 2001 to 1.58 percent in 2010.3
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