Linking Arms: Central Europe's Weapons Sector, 1954–1994

Czechoslovakia and Austria were two of the main weapons producers of the Cold War, but are rarely thought of among the conflict's major players. This publication workshop discusses the book project "Linking Arms", which reveals how arms industries allowed small countries global influence — far beyond the amount that Eastern bloc and neutral states have retrospectively been afforded in scholarship. 

Focusing on Austria and Czechoslovakia between 1954 and 1994, the project compares both states' production and distribution strategies and maps actor networks and infrastructural interconnections common to both. Recovering the perspectives of munitions workers, business and governing elites, and the general public, the book makes three main claims: firstly, that legacies predating the Cold War are crucial for understanding this conflict's dynamics, with historical continuities dating from the Austro-Hungarian period and the Second World War having important effects on states' industrial production and their abilities to navigate international arms markets. Secondly, that "smallness" allowed actors representing Czechoslovakia and Austria in the arms trade room to maneuver and a relative lack of scrutiny not available to larger players. Thirdly, that the project enriches transnational historiography with an argument for the transnational communities consolidated by conflict rather than peace.