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I thought I'd put up something I'm mulling over at the moment for general discussion. I'll start off by providing an extremely brief historical background and then I'm interested in hearing the views of you gentlemen (I'm generalising on most historical points for ease of consumption).


Prior to roughly about 1850, armaments were only ever produced on a limited scale, generally for domestic consumption. Muskets and cannon were hand-produced, and arsenals could only turn out new models so slowly that re-arming with a new model was measured in decades rather than years. Weapons production and technology was generally speaking, reasonably static. In the 1850's however, machinery made possible the mass production of armaments. From that point onwards, there was an ever increasing amount of money pumped into developing and creating weaponry, and an equivalent amount of effort pumped into selling it abroad. Generally speaking in the 1860-1914 period, you have the premier armaments firms of Vickers, Armstrong, Krupp and Schneider (of British, British, German and French origin respectively) selling armaments all over the world. They sold warships to South America, small arms in the Balkans, and set up local factories in places like Italy. In terms of countries capable of researching new weaponry, improving existing weaponry, and producing weaponry generally, only Britain, France and Germany could do all three.

From a more economic angle, the armaments industry is a tricky one for a businessman. The things that persuade your customers to buy your goods or not, namely, political/international scenarios, are almost completely outside of your control. A government can come in determined to slash the deficit, and you suddenly have no orders for four years. Conversely, there can be a war, and your orders go through the roof. In the former case you can end up going bankrupt for lack of orders, and in the latter, the orders are infinitely too large for you to fulfill in the required timespan. Therefore traditionally, companies such as those named previously have exported armaments, because having access to a global market meant that there was generally sufficient orders coming in from different directions that an armaments company was made viable. Which is still largely the case today.

Weapons technology costs large sums of money to develop, and retaining the dedicated facilities to manufacture it requires even more. For a country to have military clout (and therefore a strong international position) it needs to keep ahead of the armaments game both technically, and industrially. But if a state wants to maintain a sufficient armaments base and strength without being dependent upon other countries, the only alternative to export is vast financial subsidies for the armaments industry. That's something that most countries quite simply don't have the economic resources or political willpower to do. Even today, the only ones that could potentially be said to have both of those things in sufficient quantity are the US and China.

The rest of us (France, Russia, the UK, Japan) have to rely on exporting our armaments in order to sustain our armaments industries. If we didn't export our weaponry, we wouldn't have the capacity to maintain the industry, because either the political willpower or economic means would be lacking to subsidise them. Therefore it sensibly follows that in order for us to maintain our technological lead in armaments and maintain our pre-eminent position in the world in terms of military strength, we have to sell arms. If we stopped tomorrow, our technical and manufacturing base would begin to deteriorate. In ten years, we'd be dependent on other nations to produce our countries weapons, with all the political/international issues that the word 'dependency' entails. Within twenty years, the only levers we would have to influence other nations would be economic (we wouldn't have the production facilities/technical expertise to mount a full-scale war), and within thirty years, we'd be potentially open to invasion from any stronger power who maintains those industries that we'd have abandoned. We would, in short, have been reduced in prestige, power, and all around importance.



So the question I'm posing is this:- Is it worth having to deal with the morally dubious issue of exporting armaments in order to preserve military independence and international primacy?

(With regards to 'primacy', I'm speaking relatively. I'm aware the UK does not draw close to the US in military/economic terms, but the UK is still capable of kicking the crap out of most countries currently in existence, and giving a damn good fight to those that are left).

EDIT:- Just to clarify, by 'armaments industry', I'm referring to the production, export and development of planes, warships, missiles, artillery, tanks, shells, the works.

One of the main things wrong with exporting weapons is, someone will use those weapons against you.
Countries will buy the most up to date weapons available. So to sell weapons, they need to be nearly as effective as the ones in use by your own forces. This isn't a good idea. Custer,Afghanistan. ETC ETC.

 loki old fart wrote:
One of the main things wrong with exporting weapons is, someone will use those weapons against you.
Countries will buy the most up to date weapons available. So to sell weapons, they need to be nearly as effective as the ones in use by your own forces. This isn't a good idea. Custer,Afghanistan. ETC ETC.

That is generally considered a risk. For example, in WW1, the Turks were firing Armstrong guns at the British soldiers in Gallipoli.

However, the flip side of the coin is that you can seize/stop armaments to potential hostiles (see the two Turkish battleships we took over at the start of WW1), and ultimately, hostiles will most likely acquire armaments from somewhere anyway. You can choose not to sell planes to a hostile power, but the odds are strong that they'll just buy them from one of your competitors instead, namely Russia or China. If an outbreak in hostilities is not likely, it is usually considered by most governments to be well worth the risk.

 Ketara wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:
One of the main things wrong with exporting weapons is, someone will use those weapons against you.
Countries will buy the most up to date weapons available. So to sell weapons, they need to be nearly as effective as the ones in use by your own forces. This isn't a good idea. Custer,Afghanistan. ETC ETC.

That is generally considered a risk. For example, in WW1, the Turks were firing Armstrong guns at the British soldiers in Gallipoli.

However, the flip side of the coin is that you can seize/stop armaments to potential hostiles (see the two Turkish battleships we took over at the start of WW1), and ultimately, hostiles will most likely acquire armaments from somewhere anyway. You can choose not to sell planes to a hostile power, but the odds are strong that they'll just buy them from one of your competitors instead, namely Russia or China. If an outbreak in hostilities is not likely, it is usually considered by most governments to be well worth the risk.

It's a pity we can't equip the rest of the world with SA80's. It would save a lot of lives.

 Ketara wrote:
So the question I'm posing is this:- Is it worth having to deal with the morally dubious issue of exporting armaments in order to preserve military independence and international primacy?

No, I don't believe so. I feel the US arms trade leaves us with pretty bloody hands. Lord of War was a fictional movie but I believe the thrust of it was pretty accurate - assault rifles are the real WMD's.

Furthermore, as a lay person, I'm not sure that we need our arms trade to keep from falling behind. In terms of innovation, we haven't done a whole lot for the bread-and butter arms. The current M4 is just a polished version of a 60 year old rifle, and the Marines recently decided to switch to a "new" pistol, which is of course a 104 year old design whose sole innovation was "adding a accessory rail". So I don't buy the we will stagnate if we don't keep up these industries argument.

Yes.

If we don't sell them somebody else will. It's better to have nations depend on your arms than to depend on another nation making them for you.

I guess it starts to get ambiguous when you think about different types of weapons and their uses/applications. It might be worth thinking about some examples?

I wonder whether opening up the public market for firearms in Europe would have any significant effect in terms of helping fund the more military orientated side?

 Medium of Death wrote:
Yes.

If we don't sell them somebody else will. It's better to have nations depend on your arms than to depend on another nation making them for you.

I guess it starts to get ambiguous when you think about different types of weapons and their uses/applications. It might be worth thinking about some examples?

I wonder whether opening up the public market for firearms in Europe would have any significant effect in terms of helping fund the more military orientated side?

Unless taxes resulting from firearms sales went to the government for military budgets, no.

It'll be a cold day in Cuba before any European governments will open their weapon stock piles and let them be sold. All that will happen is the manufacturers will gain a new venue to sell weapons to.

 Ouze wrote:


No, I don't believe so. I feel the US arms trade leaves us with pretty bloody hands. Lord of War was a fictional movie but I believe the thrust of it was pretty accurate - assault rifles are the real WMD's.

Furthermore, as a lay person, I'm not sure that we need our arms trade to keep from falling behind. In terms of innovation, we haven't done a whole lot for the bread-and butter arms. The current M4 is just a polished version of a 60 year old rifle, and the Marines recently decided to switch to a "new" pistol, which is of course a 104 year old design whose sole innovation was "adding a accessory rail". So I don't buy the we will stagnate if we don't keep up these industries argument.

In modern day terms, you are correct in that the basic assault rifle does not fall into the 'keeping up with the neighbours' argument. Alas, modern day wars rarely consist of just assault rifles, and they're only the tiniest chunk of the international arms trade anyway. Warships, missiles, aeroplanes, EW capabilities, and more all would quite easily have such an argument applied to them. If you stunt/stop development for thirty years and China does not, where does that leave you when it becomes an issue?

I thought this was in relation to small arms only. For the larger things, no - I think we need to keep up.


Although assault rifles make up the "tiniest chunk" of the international arms trade, what percentage do they make up of casualties inflicted?

 Ouze wrote:
I thought this was in relation to small arms only. For the larger things, no - I think we need to keep up.


Although assault rifles make up the "tiniest chunk" of the international arms trade, what percentage do they make up of casualties inflicted?

Hard to say. Are we talking American produced ones, Western produced ones, or assault rifles generally? Or was it more of a rhetorical question?

And no, I'm referring to the entire armaments industry, the whole shebang. I'll make an edit to make that clear.

 loki old fart wrote:
One of the main things wrong with exporting weapons is, someone will use those weapons against you.
Countries will buy the most up to date weapons available. So to sell weapons, they need to be nearly as effective as the ones in use by your own forces. This isn't a good idea. Custer,Afghanistan. ETC ETC.

My limited understanding is that, for the US at least, we usually sell airplanes and stuff that is a little bit worse than what we use ourselves. We might sell you the latest fighter jet, but it will only be 90% as good as our version. Or something along that line.

I might be wrong about that and I would imagine that it varies on who exactly we are selling to.

 d-usa wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:
One of the main things wrong with exporting weapons is, someone will use those weapons against you.
Countries will buy the most up to date weapons available. So to sell weapons, they need to be nearly as effective as the ones in use by your own forces. This isn't a good idea. Custer,Afghanistan. ETC ETC.

My limited understanding is that, for the US at least, we usually sell airplanes and stuff that is a little bit worse than what we use ourselves. We might sell you the latest fighter jet, but it will only be 90% as good as our version. Or something along that line.

I might be wrong about that and I would imagine that it varies on who exactly we are selling to.

You're right.

Egypt has the 2nd largest stock pile of Abrams tanks in the world. But their kidding themselves if they think they'll stand up to our Abrams.

 d-usa wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:
One of the main things wrong with exporting weapons is, someone will use those weapons against you.
Countries will buy the most up to date weapons available. So to sell weapons, they need to be nearly as effective as the ones in use by your own forces. This isn't a good idea. Custer,Afghanistan. ETC ETC.

My limited understanding is that, for the US at least, we usually sell airplanes and stuff that is a little bit worse than what we use ourselves. We might sell you the latest fighter jet, but it will only be 90% as good as our version. Or something along that line.

I might be wrong about that and I would imagine that it varies on who exactly we are selling to.

Russia only ever sells 'export' (downgraded) versions of its equipment. The Soviet export tanks were deliberately made a lot worse than the original version in order to fool the West which was often able to capture export versions from third-world countries.

A lot of people in Russia also think that a major reason for Putin's "invasion" of Ukraine was that he wanted to put a stop to Ukraine undermining Russia's weapon business by selling the same old Soviet stuff as Russia at lower prices and being the better, non-export versions. Ukraine inherited a lot of the Union's weapon industry.

Producing for export keeps plant and employees occupied profitably, and defrays the cost of development. Most of the construction work done in things like tanks for example, is in the chassis, engine, and gun. Therefore it makes sense to sell a modified version without the EW loadons, shells, sighting equipment, and suchlike, as a way of addressing the concern of such weaponry being turned against you.

The problem with that approach, is that if you strip it down too much, it becomes inferior to what someone else is offering. Remember, they don't HAVE to buy from you. If you only offer a really bad Abrams variant, the customer will simply look elsewhere to buy. The trick is to offer something competitive against 95% of the world, but inferior to what you're building for the home forces.

This is where the military-industrial complex actually began to originate from. Originally, arms producers could sell their weapons and patents to whoever they wanted wherever, with no concern for 'keeping it within the family'. By subsidising a small part of their research costs, the Government gained influence on exactly what sort of technology is sold overseas by acquiring partial legal lights to the patents and suchlike.

I'm going to say yes, but then I would, as I work for one of the worlds biggest arms dealers.....

Actually, now I've looked at the latest industry wide figures I can find (2010), It's the biggest in the world with combined sales for 2010 of $5,070,000,000.

 Ketara wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
I thought this was in relation to small arms only. For the larger things, no - I think we need to keep up.


Although assault rifles make up the "tiniest chunk" of the international arms trade, what percentage do they make up of casualties inflicted?

Hard to say. Are we talking American produced ones, Western produced ones, or assault rifles generally? Or was it more of a rhetorical question?

And no, I'm referring to the entire armaments industry, the whole shebang. I'll make an edit to make that clear.

I was referring to assault rifles in general. I know it seems like I'm harping on a small facet, but for me, it's most important element. Russia exports Su-50 fighters, which is a reasonable advanced fighter jet. How many people, reasonably speaking, are going to be killed by a multirole fighter? Not many, in my opinion.

On the other hand, how many people will be killed by AK47s, and AK74s, and their variants? I mean, you mention morally duious as part of the question, and I feel like actual harm inflicted plays into that. Small arms, like assault rifles, are the real weapons of mass destruction.

How many assault rifles does the US export to troubled regions around the world? Genuinely curious, as in practically every video of the Middle-East/Africa I see, they tend to be toting ex-soviet and antiquated gear.

Would it be correct to categorise your viewpoint as being that which industries receive export/subsidies should be carefully considered, as specific ones can cause more harm than good? And that you don't feel that small arms should qualify for export/subsidies?

If so, how would you square trying to pass a law that says, 'Bombs, missiles and aircraft are A-okay, but revolvers and rifles are not'?

Are we getting into "Lord of War"? I think we are!

I think the soviet rifle thing might be part export and part "the union collapsed and their weapons ended up everywhere".

I also imagine that once sold, a gun/rifle will be around forever and will do much more damage just because it requires minimal upkeep. A rifle produced 70 years ago is still able to kill you as dead as one produced today and is easily fixed, and Cold War era assault rifles will work for many more decades. A tank is much harder to maintain and much harder to keep armed, and a fighter jet even more so.

No idea how to square that up or if it should be squared up.

The most destructive and effective assault rifle in the history of mankind is the AK47 which the Soviets sold the designs to dozens of nations. Knock offs are being made in third world countries in machine shops. The 7.62X39 cartridge is an effective man killer and the western 1st world nations have nothing to do with their production. Over 100 million are thought to be in circulation.

The M-16 and M-4 carbines produced by the United States are only in circulation in nations where the US all but gives them away. Somewhere around 8 million are in circulation and any group that wants firepower but has to pay for it without US Foreign Aid goes for the AK. Most M-16 "sales" are little more than corporate welfare for the US arms industry, foreign aid often has stipulations that money has to be spent on US arms-makers. If the aid gets cut off the M-16's get put away as soon as the 5.56 runs out and the AKs come out.

I can't speak to most of the weapons used by European armies. The SA80 and FAMAS F1, each have less than a million in circulation, most of which are likely in the hands of their own soldiers. Price wise it's hard to compete with the cheep AK and the basically free M-16. Even then adding all the western small arms ever made for internal use or for export still don't add up to a tenth of the world wide AK family production.

People simply don't know how really easy it is to make an auto-loader assault weapon. In WWII they were made in bicycle shops. They weren't sniper rifles but they spit a lot of bullets. Take away the assault rifles of the west and the third world will simply crank out their own variants of the AK or the good old grease gun.

Face it, what we western nations dump into the pool is insignificant. Use a magic wand to make them all go away and the bad guys will still be well armed with effective weaponry for slaughtering the people they find icky.

 loki old fart wrote:
It's a pity we can't equip the rest of the world with SA80's. It would save a lot of lives.

How would that save lives?

Landmines. Not IED's but actual landmines are a pain in the ass.

 Ketara wrote:
How many assault rifles does the US export to troubled regions around the world? Genuinely curious, as in practically every video of the Middle-East/Africa I see, they tend to be toting ex-soviet and antiquated gear.

Would it be correct to categorise your viewpoint as being that which industries receive export/subsidies should be carefully considered, as specific ones can cause more harm than good? And that you don't feel that small arms should qualify for export/subsidies?

If so, how would you square trying to pass a law that says, 'Bombs, missiles and aircraft are A-okay, but revolvers and rifles are not'?

The back street gun shops in Pakistan will make you any gun you want. AK47 - AR15 they don't care.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hordini wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:
It's a pity we can't equip the rest of the world with SA80's. It would save a lot of lives.

How would that save lives?

They're rubbish.

 Hordini wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:
It's a pity we can't equip the rest of the world with SA80's. It would save a lot of lives.

How would that save lives?

Pretty sure the joke is that it's such a terrible gun you can't actually kill anyone with it.

 loki old fart wrote:

 Hordini wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:
It's a pity we can't equip the rest of the world with SA80's. It would save a lot of lives.

How would that save lives?

They're rubbish.

Hah! Fair enough!

Sorry, I'm not particularly knowledgeable on modern British assault rifles. I know what an SA80 is but I wasn't really familiar with its reputation, although I'm not really sold on the whole bullpup configuration either.

 Hordini wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:

 Hordini wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:
It's a pity we can't equip the rest of the world with SA80's. It would save a lot of lives.

How would that save lives?

They're rubbish.

Hah! Fair enough!

Sorry, I'm not particularly knowledgeable on modern British assault rifles. I know what an SA80 is but I wasn't really familiar with its reputation, although I'm not really sold on the whole bullpup configuration either.

When they first came out, or was it revision 1. They jammed if a speck of dust landed on them. Not the thing you want in the desert.
As my brother found out, in Iraq.(operation grandby - desert storm to you)

In and of itself I don't believe the arms trade is inherently immoral. People's and states have the right to arm and defend themselves, and if some nations can produce what others cannot, there's nothing wrong with offering the means to exercise that right. Nations also have every legitimate right to ensure that allied nations are capable of defending themselves.

I have zero issues for with say, Germany offering Leopard 2's to its European neighbors, or Russia selling surplus ammunition on civilian markets, or the US making its primary new aircraft available to close allies as partners in the program (even if the F-35 is a colossal boondoggle in and of itself).

However, that is not to say that all trade in arms falls under that banner, or that such trade cannot be turned to immoral ends. I'd also be amongst the first to state that I believe the military industrial complex as a whole has effectively run amok in many areas.

The unfortunate circumstance of some nations becoming reliant on exports however in order to viably maintain their arms industries is likewise unfortunate, and can obviously have some unfortunate incentives and results as well. For basic small arms, that market is saturated, there's more than enough Kalashnikov rifles to go around, and that will likely remain the case for many years to come. The assault rifle has become the standard currency of political force and exceedingly common, and that's not likely to change any time soon, and as such, it's difficult to see states wanting to lose their armament industries but it's also not exactly a sellers market these days. More elaborate weapons systems however often have incredible development costs, and as such while they may offer unique and useful capabilities, the only way they may be economically viable to produce is by producing enough for export as well. This problem I believe may only become worse over time as weapon systems become increasingly complex.

I don't entirely agree with the argument.

For example, no-one exports nuclear weapons, which are very expensive to produce.

For another example Israel, a very small country has been able to develop a number of modern weapons without subsidising their arms industry by exporting them.

Thatcher enthusiastically supported the UK arms industry by the export guarantee system. This was necessary to cover the times when the buyer ended up not paying and the bill had to be referred back to the UK tax payer.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

For another example Israel, a very small country has been able to develop a number of modern weapons without subsidising their arms industry by exporting them.

They're arguably subsidized by the US though.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't entirely agree with the argument.

For example, no-one exports nuclear weapons, which are very expensive to produce.

I believe we lease Trident missiles from the US?

Generally speaking though, I think you are correct. Nuclear, biological, and chemical forms of warfare never come up on the market, but the flip side of that is that those forms of weaponry are usually developed completely by state subsidy. The Government foots the bill, and so there is no need for export in order to make up the profit margins.

For another example Israel, a very small country has been able to develop a number of modern weapons without subsidising their arms industry by exporting them.

I believe Israel currently imports and modifies large quantities of arms? They do have an excellent and heavily state subsidised sector for high tech armaments, but they quite simply don't have deep enough pockets to develop everything themselves. The Kfir is based on a Dassault Mirage frame, their corvettes were built in the US (as Israel doesn't have the home shipbuilding capability), their subs were built in Germany, and so on.

Thatcher enthusiastically supported the UK arms industry by the export guarantee system. This was necessary to cover the times when the buyer ended up not paying and the bill had to be referred back to the UK tax payer.

I'm not sure she did that very willingly. But you could view that as validation of the above argument if anything, in that she valued the armaments firms highly enough in terms of a national asset, that they had to be sustained despite their own stupidity. Not unlike the banks today.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

For another example Israel, a very small country has been able to develop a number of modern weapons without subsidising their arms industry by exporting them.

They're arguably subsidized by the US though.

And Germany.

http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Germany-says-it-will-help-finance-four-new-Israeli-warships-384717