The Czech Defence and Security Industry: Taking the Pulse to an Ailing Man

Abstract

Covering the period of 1990–2020, the paper summarises the evolution of the iron triangle of the mutual relationships amongst the ministry of defence, defence industry, and the political elite, in the post-communist Czech Republic. In essence, the essay stresses the oddness of this relationship. On the one hand, the government is bound by a partnership to the Defence and Security Industry Association of the Czech Republic (DSIA), a lobbying group of more than 100 organisations that conduct business in defence and security sector in the Czech Republic. Yet, since its creation in 2000, this assemblage of industries within DSIA’s market position is falling, in fact. Neither political parties in power, nor the governments have been able to support national defence industry through the military. Although some subsidiaries of multinational armament concerns are DSIA members, the transnational military-industrial complex utilises DSIA only as a proxy for distribution of their products in the Czech Republic with the assistance of national military elite. Just a few DSIA national members are able to compete internationally with their cutting edge products. Others have evolved into middlemen trading in time-expired Soviet and Czechoslovak equipment retired from the Czech Armed Forces.