International armaments collaboration and the limits of reform

Budgetary pressures have driven a steady expansion of armaments collaboration projects internationally. This has also been the case in Europe where it is estimated that currently one-fifth of European procurement budgets are spent on collaborative weapons systems and the European Defence Agency has the long-term objective of increasing this figure by over 50%. The purpose of this article is to assess whether collaborative armaments projects <italic>can</italic> offer the benefits frequently attributed to them. To this end, the study examines the five combat aircraft projects that European states have collaboratively undertaken since the 1950s.