ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a panoptic view of defence offsets, through several steps, covering and exploring offsets’ ontology, history, and politics, as well as their latest trends. More specifically, this chapter first illustrates the most authoritative definitions of defence offsets before then showing their limits and suggesting a more comprehensive definition which better conceptualises the phenomenon. Second, after carefully distinguishing between American- and European-offset typologies, the chapter offers a workable synthesis of the two. Third, this chapter discusses the various types and features of defence offsets at length. Fourth, after identifying the conditions necessary for defence offsets to emerge and prosper, it traces their genesis and evolution over time and space. Fifth, the chapter shows the scope and magnitude of defence offsets today, as well as national, international and supranational responses to them. Finally, it explores the recent trend of defence offsets morphing into strategic partnerships between foreign suppliers and local recipients and compares them with spontaneous strategic partnerships established between peers to enhance their future competitive position. Thus, this chapter lays down the conceptual tools necessary to develop a theory of defence offsets, a task that the next chapter will take on.
