A Technologically Guided Explanation of the (Delayed) Emergence of EU Military Research: The Curious Antecedent of the European Aeronautics Research Programme

The present chapter develops a technologically guided explanation around the (delayed) emergence of an EU military research program. The chapter contends that a changing technological scenario, made more critical by the security and economic consequences deriving from the end of the Cold War, came to play a major role in confirming the strategic and political significance of aeronautical industries at European level. The contribution digs into the origins of the EU involvement in research and development (R&D) affairs in order to document how defense research has only very recently come to be part of the European compound. The chapter offers an attentive reading of some of the most salient aspects characterizing the political economy of aeronautical industries and of their R&D functioning to elaborate on technological drivers and implications of policy entrepreneurial choices undertaken in the aeronautics research domain. It is argued that, in a changed global security scenario, a combined set of technological innovations registered a significant impact on both (civil-military) segments of the industry/markets accompanying a shift in the techno-economic paradigm governing aeronautical production. Technological considerations were wisely placed at the roots of the policy entrepreneurial strategies having accompanied the framing of an aeronautics research theme under the 2nd Commission’s Framework Programme. It is contented that the experience of the EU aeronautics research case proved essential in supporting the affirmation of a new model of governance for aeronautics research in Europe. By inaugurating a new order of economic and political relations, the EU aeronautics research case has been regarded as a milestone political development having marked the positive evolution toward the research themes of security and defense.