Co-operating for Capability? French and British Defence Equipment Support Through the Prism of Industrial Policy

European defence policy obviously remains heavily dependent upon the capacity of the French and British armed forces and their respective equipment. What is less well-known, however, are the budgets and methods through which this equipment is maintained and updated in order to transform theoretical capacity into actual military capability. This paper will present data from ongoing research into this issue in these two countries, focusing particularly upon cases (A400M program) where it has entailed co-operation between politicians, bureaucrats, soldiers and industrialists. As will be highlighted, if this co-operation often runs smoothly in the field, its organizational and political structuring is still deeply marked by mutual incomprehension and rivalry. Rather than attribute this phenomenon to ‘national interests’, ‘culture’ or positioning within NATO, the explanation developed here focuses upon the competing approaches to industrial policy which have produced each national institutional ordering. In the British case, equipment support has been an integral part of defence procurement for more than thirty years without, however, generating complete consensus over its goals and methods. Whereas the externalisation of support to industrialists and ‘off the shelf’ purchasing has come to dominate national practice, partisans of a more interventionist, genuine industrial policy are still active within British political parties, administrations, the military and companies. Conversely, if such an approach to industrial policy still dominates French approaches to support and procurement, there are forces within that country who seek to liberalize it. Franco-British co-operation in this matter therefore provides a stimulating object of research whose analysis requires deep attention to be paid to the values which drive actor practices and generate the compromises at the basis of both national and trans-national policy. To determine the latter’s causes and effects a carefully developed combination of tools from economic sociology, political economy and public policy analysis will be deployed.