21st - century security architecture involving a common European foreign and
security policy. The March 1999 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
bombing campaign of the Kosovo province of Serbia proved that Western European
nations remain dependent on the United States for foreign policy and military
leadership. The United States possesses military capabilities for out-of-area
operations and force projection still lacking in NATO European forces. The U.S.
military is also beginning to distance itself from the military forces of its allies in
Europe in the technological areas of night fighting, communications, computers and
control, precision-guided munitions and a number of other capabilities.

Western Europe is at a crossroads at which it must decide if it wants to develop
military and political capabilities that would give it more independence from the
United States in the first part of the next century. The international security
institutions are in place, and many of the doctrinal and force structure reforms
required to prepare Europe's military forces for the new missions of the next century
have already begun. The last policy response that Western European countries must
initiate in this vein is pooled military equipment research, design, and manufacture.
In order to develop a more independent, capable, and affordable multinational
military capability, Western European countries must pool their equipment
requirements and acquisition programs. This change in defense industrial
production has until now proved a difficult step to take. However, it is a change
that these countries must make in order to prepare for the post-Cold War world and
to do it in an affordable manner. This book addresses the problems involved with
this process in a specific defense industry, the armored vehicle industry, in three
countries, Britain, France, and Germany, and makes recommendations on how to
proceed.

This study was possible because of the guidance and assistance I received from
several people, whom I would like to thank here. First, this book would have been
infinitely more difficult had it not been for the five years of help given to me by Dr.
Herman M. Schwartz, a professor in the Department of Government and Foreign
Affairs at the University of Virginia. I would also like to thank Dr. Keith Hartley,
the director of the Centre of Defence Economics at the University of York, in
Britain and Dr. Todd Sandler, a professor in the Political Science Department at
Iowa State University. Dr. Hartley's prodigious and groundbreaking work in this
field and the personal time he made available to me for guidance and interviews
provided expert insight into the school of defense economics. In addition, I
received timely support and advice from Jack Richardson, director of U.S.
Programs at Wegmann USA, and Mr. Digby Waller, senior economist, at the
International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) in London. I finally would like to
thank Dr. Robert L. O'Connell, a fellow analyst and successful writer at the NGIC
who gave me helpful criticism and assistance.

This book is also more realistic and relevant because of the time and help given
to me by businessmen in this industry, in my attempt to develop a better
understanding of the armored vehicle industry and its peculiar structural
characteristics. During the four years that I researched this topic, many defense
industry engineers, production managers, financial managers, and marketing

-xii-