SYSTEM 37 VIGGEN

…The largest industrial development project in Scandinavian history competes with the most advanced combat a in service any where today. How did an ostensibly neutral nation of only 8 milion succeed in producing, not to mention developing this remarkable aircraft ?

Dorfer built this book upon the Swedish Defense Ministry's secret archives and upon scores of interviews with the actual dramatis personae of the Viggen story. As he unravels it from the conception in the fifties to the order for 175 aircraft in 1968 Dörfer probes gradually deeper into the politics of the Swedisch technostructure and government-business, civilan-military, and foreign relations.
The author deals with the day-to-day business of national security policy-making with all its service infighting political use of committee and study groups, and implicit bargaining. He turns not to the predictable, well-explored, calm welfare state everyone knows, but to virtually unknown aggressive competitive, cosmopolitan side of Sweden.
Dörfer is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London and took his Ph.D. in Government from Harvard. He is currently a Special Assistant in the Swedish Ministry of Defense.