10

The armament industry has considerably changed over the last ten years. Most certainly, the cold war has had undeniable repercussions on the industrial sector and has led it to put itself back into question. However, it does not account on its own for the regrouping wave that has broken over the defence industries. Indeed, in homogenizing the rules by which companies function and by smashing to pieces the national frames, globalization has largely encouraged “mega-restructurings”. Moreover, in a surrounding context of privatization, the internationalization of companies encourages the generalization of a more or less diluted shareholding, which aims at achieving objectives that are sometimes distant from those of governments in place. Now, this industrial sector is by nature highly strategic. States could not fail to react to this potential loss of control.