Europe and the pentagon’s third offset strategy

Abstract

Faced with the prospect of its adversaries mitigating its long-held superiority in sophisticated weapons systems, the US announced in 2014 that it was about to embark on a ‘third offset strategy’ in order to maintain its military-technology edge. In its quest to harness new technologies and operational concepts however, the third offset strategy is likely to raise important questions for Europe and NATO. Daniel Fiott addresses some of the major issues at hand related to alliance politics in NATO and some of the potential defence-industrial effects.