Abstract
The creation of the Union of South American Nations (USAN) aroused expectations about joint development and production of military aircraft in South America. However, political divergences, technological asymmetries and budgetary problems made projects canceled. Faced with the impasse, this article approaches features of two military aircraft development experiences and their links with the regionalization processes to extract elements that help to account for the problems faced by USAN. The processes of adoption of the F-104 and the Tornado in the 1950s and 1970s by countries that later joined the European Union are analyzed in a comparative perspective. The two projects are compared about the political and diplomatic implications (mutual trust, military capabilities and regionalization) and the economic implications (scale of production, value chains and industrial parks). We argue that both processes generated convergence, though countries involved already shared threat perceptions and a military alliance, which compelled them to cooperation. Thus, the successful joint development of military aircrafts within USAN would require a previous level of convergence not yet achieved.
Highlights
Anderson Matos TeixeiraThe creation of the Union of South American Nations (USAN) aroused expectations about joint development and production of military aircraft in South America
The creation of the Union of South American Nations (USAN) has driven the debate on defense cooperation
American defense identity and the establishment of mutual trust (SOARES and MILANI, 2016), since the regional arrangement does not aim at integrating defense structures that still operate within the national framework, the cooperation becomes an alternative among the members
Summary
The creation of the Union of South American Nations (USAN) aroused expectations about joint development and production of military aircraft in South America. The United States was largely responsible for the arrangement and strategically and economically benefited, the activation of the European partners' aviation industry and the resumption of the capacity to produce high-tech weapons in the region had significant economic and political impacts This cooperative arrangement is highlighted as the means by which the bases of defense industry began to act for the domestic favoring of each involved nation, but in the regional set, building what is called global value chain, adding new technologies and capabilities to partner industries, such as the production of wing kits and air intake by German industries, which was lost at the end of World War II. The size of the production scale can be observed in the table below, which presents the number of aircrafts produced by each partner
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