Evaluating Latin America’s Contemporary Defence Offset Experience

Resumen

Although Latin American states came late to the offset party, over the last decade they have enthusiastically embraced this controversial trading mechanism. Procurement scale is nowhere near the high levels of selected countries in the Middle- and Far-Eastern parts of the World, but as this paper demonstrates important civil-military offset projects have led to the transfer of work packages, training and technological capabilities among a range of Latin American states. Of course, the nature and extent of offset programmes are influenced by procurement scale but the industrial level of recipient countries is also an important explanatory variable, and thus the impact of offset warrants academic investigation via development tiers. The overarching conclusion is that while Brazil, a major industrial 1^st tier country, enjoys impressive offset-induced development, the offset experience of other 2^nd and 3^rd tier states, save for the exceptional case of Venezuela, is no less positive.