The World's 5 'Best' Defense Firms

Robert Farley, National Interest: The Real Top Guns: The World's 5 Best Defense Firms

After the end of the Cold War, the defense industry witnessed a wave of consolidations, sparked by a speech given by Deputy Secretary of Defense William Perry in 1993. In a talk later dubbed “The Last Supper,” Perry suggested to a group of defense industrialists that the number of major firms should shrink by about half, from fifteen to seven or eight. Perry, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin and others within DoD reasoned that the defense industry of the 1980s was far too large to sustain on a post–Cold War defense budget.

This talk, along with associated changes in Defense Department policy, helped transform the nature of the U.S. military-industrial complex. The next five years saw several major mergers and acquisitions, often with very old competitors becoming part of the same firm. The mergers led to a reduction of production facilities and infrastructure, but allowed firms to capture the intellectual property, tacit knowledge and social relationships owned by their competitors.

WNU Editor: I am surprised that Northrop Grumman is not on the list. For the future .... my money will be on Chinese and Russian defense firms playing a bigger and far more prominent role in global defense/military sales.