Germany – Generating Air Power in a Corporatist Economy

by Moritz Weiss

Abstract

Producing air power is a challenging task for every government. This paper seeks to shed light on how Germany organized its generation of air power to ultimately arrive at a moderate, yet vital, posture up until today. Given Germany’s multilateral outlook and the structural situation of its defense industries, a collaborative approach was essentially over-determined, whereas its neglect of competition and outsourcing was more deliberately chosen.

Rather than taking a threat perspective of the international environment, I adopt a political economy approach to stress the corporatist nature of the government’s defense-industrial policy-making. According to that, the analysis focuses on domestic politics and the unfolding of the distinct institutional configuration within Germany. More specifically, the paper argues that the often-times formalized coordination between public and private actors has triggered defense-industrial policies, in general, and the generation of air power, in particular.

This is illustrated via three steps: (i) the development and production of the Eurofighter; (ii) the A-400M transport aircraft; and (iii) recent reforms of defense planning. Whereas public-private coordination varies in each of these instances, the importance of corporatist mechanisms is suggested by each of them. The paper concludes by discussing the scope of the argument and its implications for the Republic of Korea’s (ROK) recent efforts to generate air power.

Paper presented to the 19th Air & Space Power Conference: “South Korea’s Search For Sustainable Air & Space Power Strategies” (Seoul: June 28, 2016)

Please contact Moritz Weiss if you are interested in the manuscript.