In the main arms-producing countries, Ministries of Defence are looking for alternative ways to acquire defence capabilities. Over the past two decades, several reform projects have been experimented to go beyond the model inherited from the Cold War, but they did not succeed in delivering expected results. One may wonder whether such defence acquisition systems correspond to their core mission: supplying boots on the ground with adequate capacities. The research agenda and reforms programmes are biased since they focus mainly on “how” to procure. While reforming existing mechanisms seems to fail or to deliver well below expectations, one may wonder in fact whether the true question should concern “why” and “what” to buy with regard to military needs but also the place that technology takes in conceiving defence capabilities.

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte.

International audienceThis paper presents an overall economic perspective of the main trends at work in the geographic pattern of the national defense in France. The framework assumes a public planner aiming to maximize the social utility of defense under a dual constraint: financial constraint and geographic constraint with an historical legacy. Through an analysis of current changes in the defense organization, we stress a play of forces between geographic concentration and geographic dispersion. On the one side, the current trends in defense organization show an economic rationalization that modifies the geographic pattern with waves of geographic concentration. On the other side, the dispersed spatial configuration of defense, legacy of several centuries of history, exercises all its influence on the current restructuring of defense. Such play of forces can be examined in the light of "decreasing cost" concept. In the framework of the "decreasing cost" concept, the paper proposes an overview of both social and regional costs caused by the rationalization process of defense.Cet article propose une mise en perspective économique des principales tendances observées dans l'organisation géographique de la défense nationale en France. On considère un décideur public cherchant à maximiser l'utilité collective des armées sous une double contrainte : une contrainte financière et une contrainte géographique héritée de l'Histoire. On identifie un jeu de forces entre concentration et dispersion géographique. D'un côté, les tendances récentes dans l'organisation des armées montrent une logique de rationalisation économique et de concentration géographique. D'un autre côté, la configuration spatiale dispersée de la défense, héritage de plusieurs siècles d'Histoire, pèse de tout son poids dans les restructurations. Ce jeu de forces peut être éclairé par le concept de " coût de régression ". L'article propose alors un aperçu général des coûts sociaux et territoriaux associés à la rationalisation de la défense en utilisant le concept de " coût de régression " comme grille de lecture

F or a state, sovereign technologies must be mastered in order to freely carry on sovereign missions with the required level of independence or, at least autonomy vis-à-vis foreign entities. Such technologies can contribute to civilian systems (e.g. nuclear power plants, railways, water supply) or defense systems (e.g. combat aircraft, submarines, frigates). In the literature, technology transfers were traditionally considered to be mainly side products of defense export contracts. They can also be seen as a complete and strategic dimension required by importing states to achieve technological leaps forward and become more independent throughout a system's lifecycle.Technology transfers have strategic implications for firms as well as states regarding national competitiveness and international security. Sovereign industries constitute a good illustration of Ahmad et al. (2014, p. 27)'s assessment: "Where the leakage concerns knowledge related to an organization's valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable (VRIN) resources that sustain competitive advantage, recovery can be significantly more challenging." Therefore, technology transfers are at the core of complex negotiations between countries.Industry is adapting both its organization to respond to customers' expectations, especially through training-based technology transfers. As a result, knowledge and skills management have become highly strategic issues. This paper proposes to open the black box of technology transfer processes by leveraging the literature on knowledge management, with a focus on training activities associated with international contracts. Training is seen not just as a "favored bridge" for technology