ABSTRACT
The perspective presented by the media, consultants, and most academics is that this is merely the transitional cost of change in demand. The few social scientists who have written in this field tend to replicate the optimistic view that we are witnessing the effects of an historic decline in military confrontation. This chapter explore the interpretation of the changes at work in the European arms industry. It argues that the transition from the Cold War era to a new order entails not just a “build-down” but rather a restructuring. The form of military production that came into being with the Cold War, namely the Military-Industrial-Complex, is collapsing. German rearmament was prohibited for a decade after the Second World War, and the bulk of defence spending thereafter has been on personnel rather than equipment. In the 19th century, the parallel emergence of new nation-states and the spread of capitalist industry resulted in the industrialization of the arms industry.
