International audienceDisarmament has often been presented both as a factor of peace and as a way of reducing the burden of national defence. However, these two assertions are not always borne out by the facts. In the short term, disarmament is expensive and it renders obsolete an important industrial capital if the country is an arms producer. It can be a factor of industrial crisis. The State is at the heart of this process, both in deciding, given the importance of the threats of war, the military expenditure to be incurred, the necessary weapons, the suppliers, the constraints of conversion in the event of disarmament, and the industrial and regional policies to be undertaken to avoid an economic crisis. In 2002, disarmament had already...