The Strategic Shift Towards Export-Focused Defense Industries

Nowadays, more and more countries have progressively set their defense industries toward exports. A number of economic, strategic, and operational factors give rise to this trend, which underscores the importance of military exports in view of maintaining a viable defense industrial base. This article discusses reasons for such a phenomenon, as well as multifaceted forms of benefits linked to an export-oriented defense approach.

Transition to export-oriented framing of the defense industries is also well-documented in today’s literature where many studies examine why such a transition could be economically, strategically, and operationally feasible. Indeed, studies point out that countries, especially in the post–Cold War period, have been restructuring their defense sectors to keep themselves competitive and in pace with the shrinking national budgets for defense. For instance, it has increasingly looked at exporting as a source of stability in revenues for both employment and economies of scale to support defense companies.

Economic Incentives for Defense Exports

One of the very powerful points of attraction for countries towards exports of defense is the potentiality of great economic benefit. With the defense budgets lowering at an alarming rate -especially…