Friday, June 15, 2007
Arms industry questions around the BAe rumpus
One thing about the BAe rumpus is that we are making some very, very powerful and well-financed enemies with every incentive to encourage unfriendly activities directed at us.
For one thing, the company (it seems) is planning to buy US arms manufacturers and move the seat of their operations to the USA. The present publicity is certainly not helpful for any such project. Their gratitude towards us may be limited.
Maybe we should be preparing our ground for this. For example by looking at some of the other issues that could be paraded, and making sure we have our responses worked out . Doing so raises some awkward further questions for BAe.
One argument for having a ‘home-based armaments industry’ is that it means we are not subject to manipulation by foreign suppliers in case of some kinds of hostilities.
Argentina would perhaps offer evidence of this kind of supplier interference from its experience in the late Falklands incivilities. Apparently France not only blocked supplies of fifty Exocet missiles already ordered (Argentina had five operational at start of hostilities) and stopped supplies to Peru in case it passed these on to Argentina, but it also gave the UK full technical details of French equipment and how to counter it, and flew a Mirage and a Super-Etendard plane to the UK so that the RAF pilots could practice against them. Very helpful.
The assumption must be that an UK arms supplier would also make sure that UK armed forces had any necessary information to deal with its own equipment and block some details to other customers. Well perhaps not, if Lewis Page is to be believed, at least when it comes to informing UK personnel.. He says that in the recent Balkans campaigns (Bosnia and Kosova) UK forces had to deal with UK unexploded munitions manufactured by BAe. Nothing surprising about that, some munitions do fail. However he says BAe refused to release technical details of fuses to UK UXM clearance teams ‘for reasons of commercial confidentiality’. So the troops had to work out de-arming procedures from first principle. Now if true that is really something… and would an US based BAe be more amenable? (Lewis Page 2006 pp 641-642)*
*( The Lewis Page book ‘Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs’ makes a number of very specific allegations against BAe which I cannot evaluate. I just say we need to be aware that this kind of statement is being made and ask that the Party prepare some navigation guidelines for tackling these alleged issues before the press gets confused.)
For one thing, the company (it seems) is planning to buy US arms manufacturers and move the seat of their operations to the USA. The present publicity is certainly not helpful for any such project. Their gratitude towards us may be limited.
Maybe we should be preparing our ground for this. For example by looking at some of the other issues that could be paraded, and making sure we have our responses worked out . Doing so raises some awkward further questions for BAe.
One argument for having a ‘home-based armaments industry’ is that it means we are not subject to manipulation by foreign suppliers in case of some kinds of hostilities.
Argentina would perhaps offer evidence of this kind of supplier interference from its experience in the late Falklands incivilities. Apparently France not only blocked supplies of fifty Exocet missiles already ordered (Argentina had five operational at start of hostilities) and stopped supplies to Peru in case it passed these on to Argentina, but it also gave the UK full technical details of French equipment and how to counter it, and flew a Mirage and a Super-Etendard plane to the UK so that the RAF pilots could practice against them. Very helpful.
The assumption must be that an UK arms supplier would also make sure that UK armed forces had any necessary information to deal with its own equipment and block some details to other customers. Well perhaps not, if Lewis Page is to be believed, at least when it comes to informing UK personnel.. He says that in the recent Balkans campaigns (Bosnia and Kosova) UK forces had to deal with UK unexploded munitions manufactured by BAe. Nothing surprising about that, some munitions do fail. However he says BAe refused to release technical details of fuses to UK UXM clearance teams ‘for reasons of commercial confidentiality’. So the troops had to work out de-arming procedures from first principle. Now if true that is really something… and would an US based BAe be more amenable? (Lewis Page 2006 pp 641-642)*
*( The Lewis Page book ‘Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs’ makes a number of very specific allegations against BAe which I cannot evaluate. I just say we need to be aware that this kind of statement is being made and ask that the Party prepare some navigation guidelines for tackling these alleged issues before the press gets confused.)
Labels: BAe, bribery, defence policy, defence strategy, France
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Wednesday, June 13, 2007
More than corruption to think about with BAe
Why on earth did Saudi Arabia buy such a flawed bit of kit as the Tornado fighters and bombers in the first place? That thought is the underpinning of much of the bribery speculation... surely only greased palms could explain such a purchasing decision given the superior equipment on offer elsewhere at the time?
Britain of course itself bought the Tornados and paid thousands of millions over the odds for equipping the RAF. If you accept the arguments in a polemic book* we have to ask whether our defence manufacturing industries are effectively blackmailing British Governments through the politics of job cut threats. Never mind that the armed forces of the crown end up with shoddy UK-built equipment hugely overpriced and decades late.
LibDems are rightly in the lead over the 'bribery is a crime' issue and the Saudi arms deal, and note with interest that theTories are silent on much of this.
Our strength here partly comes because nobody has thought of trying seriously to bribe us - yet. But some of the issues around the deal will hit us in our political target areas - BAe jobs in Bristol for example, not to mention other defence links in Yeovil and Dunfermline.
We are going to have to look seriously at defence procurement policies and why trying to keep 'British Suppliers' in the forefront has cost the UK so dearly. Otherwise the BAe tar baby will stick to us too if we ever get into range of power. Is the purpose of military procurement to get efficent armed forces with modern equipment that can be depolyed nw and the immediate future; or is it to provide massively subsidised civillian jobs in a select range of industries in key parliamentary seats?
* Lewis Page (2006) 'Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs; waste and blundering in the military' Arrow Books. Includes (pp288-289) a skeptical note on LibDem polices and on Paul Keetch.
(According to page at the time of purchase the Tornado fighters did not have the correct radar sytems available and operational, so they were ballasted with concrete blocks in the nose where the radar should have been in order to prerve the aircrafts flght trim. This arrangement was known to RAF wags as 'Blue Circle Radar'. When the Saudis were assessing the aircraft it was in this condition... again why did they even consider it?)
Britain of course itself bought the Tornados and paid thousands of millions over the odds for equipping the RAF. If you accept the arguments in a polemic book* we have to ask whether our defence manufacturing industries are effectively blackmailing British Governments through the politics of job cut threats. Never mind that the armed forces of the crown end up with shoddy UK-built equipment hugely overpriced and decades late.
LibDems are rightly in the lead over the 'bribery is a crime' issue and the Saudi arms deal, and note with interest that theTories are silent on much of this.
Our strength here partly comes because nobody has thought of trying seriously to bribe us - yet. But some of the issues around the deal will hit us in our political target areas - BAe jobs in Bristol for example, not to mention other defence links in Yeovil and Dunfermline.
We are going to have to look seriously at defence procurement policies and why trying to keep 'British Suppliers' in the forefront has cost the UK so dearly. Otherwise the BAe tar baby will stick to us too if we ever get into range of power. Is the purpose of military procurement to get efficent armed forces with modern equipment that can be depolyed nw and the immediate future; or is it to provide massively subsidised civillian jobs in a select range of industries in key parliamentary seats?
* Lewis Page (2006) 'Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs; waste and blundering in the military' Arrow Books. Includes (pp288-289) a skeptical note on LibDem polices and on Paul Keetch.
(According to page at the time of purchase the Tornado fighters did not have the correct radar sytems available and operational, so they were ballasted with concrete blocks in the nose where the radar should have been in order to prerve the aircrafts flght trim. This arrangement was known to RAF wags as 'Blue Circle Radar'. When the Saudis were assessing the aircraft it was in this condition... again why did they even consider it?)
Labels: BAe, bribery, defence policy
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