KNOWLEDGE TRANSFERS AND R&D MANAGEMENT: AN INQUIRY INTO THE PROBLEM OF TRANSATLANTIC COMPLEMENTARITIES

Innovation is not simply a body of practice but also a body of behaviors, a complex frameset of interactions, learning processes and co-evolution between actors and institutions. This paper elaborates on the opposition between cooperative-learning and competitive-learning situations and on three knowledge levels in technology diffusion: technical, systemic and strategic. It inquires into some aspects of transatlantic cooperation from the perspectives drawn by knowledge-based analyses of R&D management. Illustrations are drawn from defense aeronautics (the JSF F-35 fighter jet and the F/A 18 fighter attack jet). The paper stresses the importance of the emergence of a 'big picture' in S&T policies and delineates the strategies associated with knowledge transfers in international cooperation among the participants (industry and state) in the programs.Knowledge, Learning processes, Technology diffusion, International cooperation, Technical change,

The European Security Order between American Hegemony and French Independence

We investigate the impact of historically rooted domestic constructions of purpose and ambition on the patterns of discord and collaboration in the Franco-American relationship over the course of the postwar and post-cold war periods. We stress the importance and tenacity of domestic historical constructions for explaining and understanding the foreign policy strategies that would otherwise confound a power-based analysis. The Franco-American bilateral relationship, in particular, illustrates the persistence and tenacity of each nation's historically constructed foreign policy conception during the bipolar distribution of power during the cold war and the contested unipolarity of the post-cold war era. We conclude with an assessment of the salience and relevance of domestic elements of foreign policy role and purpose for explaining and understanding how their bilateral relationship has affected the European security order into the second decade of the twenty-first century

THE TRANSATLANTIC DEFENCE R&D GAP: CAUSES, CONSEQUENCES AND CONTROVERSIES

This paper describes the huge gap in defence R&D expenditure between the United States and Western Europe, considers the causes and consequences of this transatlantic defence R&D gap and analyses some of the controversies that surround it. The paper notes that concerns about the R&D gap are as old as NATO itself and should be placed in the context of wider debates about transatlantic burden-sharing. Current efforts to promote European cooperation on defence R&D may help Europe to spend more wisely in the future but will do little to reduce a transatlantic gap that has at its heart profound differences in strategic outlook between the United States and Europe.Defence R&D, Transatlantic relations, NATO, Burden-sharing, European science and technology policy,