Book reviews

Exporting Democracy: Fulfilling America's Destiny. By Joshua Muravchik, American Enterprise Institute (1991) ISSN 0–8447–3734–8. $12.95.

Generals in the Palacio. By Roderick Ai Camp. Oxford University Press, (1992), ISBN 0–19–507300–2, £45.

L'Armement en France. Genèse, Ampleur et Coût d'une Industrie By François Chesnais and Claude Serfati, Editions Nathan, Collection Economie/Sciences Sociales, Paris (1992), ISBN 2–09–190086–9.

The Têt Offensive. Intelligence Failure in War. By James Wirtz, Cornell University Press, New York (1991), ISBN 0–8014–2486–0. $38.50.

Restructuring of arms producton in Western Europe. Edited by Michael Brzoska and Peter Lock. Oxford University Press, Oxford (1992), ISBN 0–1982–9147–7. £25.00.

What is Proper Soldiering? A study of new perspectives for the future uses of the Armed Forces of the 1990s. By Michael Harbottle. The Centre for International Peacebuilding, Chipping Norton (1992), £3.50.

The Strategic Defence Initiative By Edward Reiss, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1992), ISBN 0–521–41097–5. £30.00.     

Chalk vs Guns: Some economic consequences of an announced French scenario 1

This paper explores whether defense contractors' manufacturing technology advantages over purely commercial firms might be associated with differences in their workforce and organizational practices. It uses unique original data collected specifically to test workforce and organizational complementarities in implementation of advanced manufacturing technology in small manufacturers. Findings are that defense contractors: (1) have higher and deeper rates of advanced manufacturing technology use; (2) have greater perceived success in achieving manufacturing goals; (3) are more likely practitioners across a diverse spectrum of advanced workforce and organizational practices. Then, (4) econometrically, the defense contractors' higher reported levels of achievement in implementing advanced manufacturing technologies are positively associated with those organizational and workforce practice differences.     

Landmarks in defense literature

Achtung-Panzer! By Major General Heinz Guderian, Translated by Christopher Duffy with Introduction and Notes by Paul Harris. (Arms & Armour Press £16.99. ISBN 1-85409-138-7, 220 pages)     

Fighter aircraft acquisition in Croatia: failure of policy delivery

The possibility for Croatia to obtain new fighter aircraft is not new, as this option has been publicly debated for at least a decade. A sudden decision to advance the acquisition of a limited number of fighter aircraft was made in 2017 with an international tendering process concluding in early 2018. Through open source material, this paper will look at this procurement process by examining the relationship between policy and strategic thinking on the one side, and policy delivery on the other, and evaluate why the tendering process failed in achieving envisaged results. The paper concludes that the problems facing the Croatian aircraft acquisition process stem from at least two interrelated factors: firstly, at the operational level, the failure of the procurement was the direct result of mismanaged tendering procedures linked to the wider public administration reform process; and secondly, at the strategic level, inherently complex civil-military relations and related cultural aspects which have not been adequately addressed over the past decades. The result was a failure to deliver on government policy, something which this paper argues will need to be addressed over the medium to long term.