At the height of the Cold War, the Paris and Farnborough Air Shows could usually be relied on to produce new military products every year. It was a boom period for prime contractors in the field and for their legions of suppliers and parts manufacturers. A number of programs started in that period, like the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, the EADS Typhoon Eurofighter, Dassault’s Rafale and the Saab Gripen, continue to come off the assembly line.

But their days are numbered (F-22 production is due to end within a year or two) and successors are scarcely to be seen outside of China and Russia.

The U.S. F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, also a Lockheed Martin product, is an exception, but its development remains well behind schedule and its costs are rising. A recent Pentagon projection of total ownership costs over 50 years of development, testing, manufacturing and operational service arrived at the staggering figure of one trillion dollars, causing serious apprehension even among hardened veterans of military budget wars.

As the late U.S. senator Everett Dirksen said: A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money. The same goes for trillions.