International Political Variables of Russian Aircraft Industry

Abstract

The economic aspects of intergovernmental relations reflect the cause and effect links of international political trends. The world history of development of high-end technologies shows a strong interdependency between scientific progress and international cooperation. Reinforcement of economic cooperation between Russia and European countries and the USA in the post-soviet period, on the one hand allowed to significantly expand the range and intensity of intergovernmental cooperation. On the other hand, this cooperation boiled down to purchasing great amounts of high-end products. In the end, Russian companies hadn’t managed to establish any joint ventures or R&D projects with foreign partners or acquire foreign technological know-how. Consequently, in a short period of time a number of sectors of the national economy became fully dependent on foreign supply. The present article describes the current status of Russia’s civil aviation industry which had been seriously affected by the government's inefficient economic policy-making. The research is based on the quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the aviation industry programs and shows that their implementation is dependent on the international situation. In this respect, the author makes several proposals regarding the optimization of one of the most important sectors of the national economy; all the while taking into account the current level of technological development of Russian industry.