Abstract
The 1967 withdrawal of the French government from negotiations on the Anglo-French Variable Geometry (AFVG) military aircraft programme cast a long-lasting shadow over armaments cooperation between Britain and France. This paper explores the reasons behind the collapse of those negotiations and illustrates the balance that sovereign nations have to strike between defending their own interests in joint projects and seeking mutual benefit from them. The AFVG negotiations provide further evidence of the difficulties that governments face in harmonising their military requirements, replacement schedules and budgets and the role of domestic interests not least industry. Our account of the AFVG goes further and emphasises the impact of power asymmetries between the French and the British, and the escalating commitment of the British to what many observers saw as a failing course of action.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 51-73 |
| Number of pages | 23 |
| Journal | Histoire, Économie et Société |
| Volume | 2010 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Dec 2010 |
Keywords
- European armaments collaboration; Anglo-French relations; international negotiation