Structural Changes in the Polish Arms Industry

Abstract

The subject of this article are the structural changes in the armaments industry in Poland after 1990 regarding the background of worldwide transformations that took place at that time, in particular related to the consolidation of enterprises. The aim of the article is to provide answers to the following questions about the current structure of Polish armaments industry. First - to what extent is the structure similar to the concentrated model of the USA and Western Europe arms industry? Second - is the structure of Polish arms industry suitable for rebuilding its position on the global armaments market in the conditions of gradual reduction of protectionist barriers in Europe? Various research methods have been used to achieve the goal of the article. The basic one becomes the analysis of Polish and foreign literature of the subject and unpublished materials from the former Ministry of Economy. The second method - qualitative - uses the technique of free interview. The author interviewed nearly 20 chief-executive officers of Polish armament companies during several specialist military equipment and armament fairs in 2016 and 2017. The basic conclusions of the research are not optimistic. While the structure of Polish arms industry is not very close to the solutions applied in the US and Western Europe, it is more related to the concentrated models in national structures (holdings and concerns) characteristic for Central and Eastern European countries, the process of concentration was executed too slowly and in a random way. Nevertheless, the main problem is that existing structure does not improve the competitiveness of the Polish arms industry in the face of dynamic changes in the European one.