Gennady Gornostaev  
Chief of Section 
Russian Foreign Economic Relations Research Institute under the 
Ministry of Economy of Russian Federation 
Master of Economics

One of the major peculiarities of the modern world economy is its constantly increasing globalizaton. The cost and the complexity of armaments were quickly growing in the second part of the 20^th century. This fact as well as the limited national resources and markets forced many countries to develop foreign military and economic relations. Since the end of the 50's the USA began to pass to its West-European partners licenses on armaments production. International consortiums that were financed from the member-countries' budgets were established on the basis of the governmental agreements on licensed armaments production. Under the US requirements the consortiums' management structure were unified within NATO. Later the West-European countries also began to sell licenses on armaments production both to each other and the third world. Thus, in the post-war years the creation of the international mechanisms for coordinating the activities on armaments and military equipment production and purchase enabled to strengthen international flows of military-use goods and services. International production and sale structures appeared. The process of the military production globalization started developing.

The international programs on armaments design were the next step of intergovernmental cooperation. The active government policy aimed at military industry modernization, management improvement and concentration and centralization encouragement played a significant role. International military-industrial cooperation development required coordinated military and technical policy. The US - West-European cooperation in the field of military products design and manufacturing were developing under the NATO Counsel guidance. 

The international cooperation programs between the American and the West-European military-industrial companies are the most advanced. The largest programs are usually conducted with the US companies' participation or leadership. Although the West-European companies don't agree with their role of junior partner they accept it because of smaller economic capabilities and interests to use the American R&D achievements. Military-industrial cooperation is widely practiced in Western Europe where both multilateral and bilateral armament design programs are developed. Germany, France and the United Kingdom have the largest experience of participation in such programs.

The development of the international AME design and production cooperation programs resulted in further growth of the national military complexes' interdependency. National military scientific and production structures became a part of the global production chains. Firms that organize these chains are united in consortiums that operate the activities of the production chains. First of all this form of the international cooperation develops within certain military and political blocs and treaties. The global production chains are flexible and seek to attract the most dynamic structures of the national military complexes that possess the most advanced military and technical achievements.

As the result of the globalization national military production became dependent on the level of foreign military and economic relation development. In its turn, such increased dependence reduces the military and technological security of the country. It's clear that first of all the leading industrial countries will benefit from the globalization of either military production or the whole world economy.

The Russian defense plants suffer from superfluous personnel and production facilities, disintegrated research, design and production units, low diversification, out-of-date management and institutional organization. Russia has trade-mediator model of foreign military and economic relations. Its defense plants practically don't participate in the international cooperation programs and are hardly affected by the globalization process. The main reason is that Russia have no strategy to develop the defense complex under the continuing globalization of the military production.