ABSTRACT
Second-tier arms-producing states around the world face a challenging and in some cases a grim future. The growing economic and technological demands of advanced arms manufacturing make it unlikely that the second tier of defence industries will expand much over the next ten to 15 years, either quantitatively or qualitatively. Diversification and defence conversion have likewise met with mixed success. Over the past decade, several second-tier producers particularly Brazil, China, Israel, South Korea, Sweden and Taiwan have scored some noteworthy successes in partly converting their defence industries to commercial production. The readjustment efforts of second-tier arms producers appear to underscore the necessity of some measure of defence-industry rationalisation and globalisation. Experience has demonstrated that such autarkic and introverted second-tier arms industries will almost invariably continue to lag far behind the first-tier industrialised states in technological innovation and implementation.
