U.S. in driver’s seat

For all the shenanigans by other nations, this is a business which has the United States very much in the driver’s seat.

Lockheed Martin (the world’s largest arms exporter), Boeing, and Raytheon are among the leading U.S. companies approved by the U.S. government to export equipment and knowledge to enable the Saudis to build their domestic arms manufacturing capacity.

As these buyers develop their own factories, so they will not only become less dependent on the United States, but they will also be able to export weapons to anyone they like.

Saudi and UAE arms factories

The U.S. Congressional Research Service noted in a 2017 report that the UAE established the Emirates Defense Industries Company (EDIC) in 2014.

It has signed contracts with foreign customers, including Algeria, Russia, Kuwait, Libya, and Saudi Arabia. For example, UAE equipment, including locally made armored vehicles, assault rifles, and personnel carriers, has figured prominently in the Saudi-led coalition’s war in Yemen.

As scholar Jodi Vittori lays out in her new landmark report for Transparency International (A Mutual Extortion Racket: The Military Industrial Complex and US Foreign Policy – The Cases of Saudi Arabia & UAE):

In a way, what’s happening here is eerily reminiscent of the U.S approach to commerce with China. In the effort to gain (or maintain) market share, U.S. corporations in the past have proven all too willing to transfer high technology to the Chinese.

Nobody can be seriously surprised that the Chinese used that know-how — partially transferred, partially stolen — to seek and replace U.S. firms not only in the Chinese market, but in markets around the globe.

What one must be surprised by is how naively and irresponsibly the U.S. government is now repeating that same mistake. The only motivation seems to be the desire to sell more and more U.S. arms.

Geopolitical idiocy

That such an approach is completely irresponsible in a geopolitical context should be clear to everyone. It used to be said that the last thing the Middle East needs is more weapons.

What the Middle East needs even less is its own arms production facilities. While Western arms sales/transfer regimes are already full of holes, this “localizing” approach would make the idea of arms control obsolete.

There is bound to be an even merrier bazaar of local producers selling arms to their “friends.”

Conclusion

At a time when all of Washington, on a rare bipartisan basis, is so concerned with China having stolen intellectual property from the United States, the very idea of major U.S. manufacturers transferring arms production facilities to the Middle East is just about the last thing the world needs.

Count on Washington and the United States only to wake up to that reality in customary fashion – when it is too late.

***Frank Vogl is president of Vogl Communications, Inc., in Washington D.C. and publisher of www.ethicsworld.org. Vogl Communications works with leading financial services firms and economic development institutions.

Mr. Vogl is also the co-founder of Transparency International (and currently an adviser to its managing director) and is a co-founder and member of the Board of Directors of the Partnership for Transparency Fund and a Trustee of the Committee for Economic Development.

He serves as a member of the International Council of the New Israel Fund and of the Advisory Council of the United Nations Association of the Greater Washington Area. A former spokesman for the World Bank, Mr. Vogl was previously the international economics correspondent for the Times of London.

He is the author of many articles and books, and lectures extensively on global ethics and corruption.

****Stephan Richter is the publisher and editor-in-chief of The Globalist, the daily online magazine on the global economy, politics and culture, which he founded and launched in January 2000.

He also is the President of The Globalist Research Center, an online thinktank. Mr. Richter is a frequent guest on leading radio and television programs, including Germany’s “Meet the Press” program on ARD and ZDF’s Morning Show. While based in the U.S., he frequently appeared on National Public Radio as well as on the PBS Newshour and CNN.

A sought after and thought-provoking keynote speaker at executive conferences and retreats, he has moderated more than 150 policy events during his time in Washington, D.C., featuring prime ministers, CEOs, Nobel laureates and heads of international organizations.

His articles and views have appeared in such publications as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Financial Times, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Salon, Japan Times, Le Monde, Les Echos, Die Welt, Der Spiegel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Zeit, Handelsblatt, Manager Magazin, Cicero, NZZ and Foreign Affairs.

For the past ten years, he was the presenter of the Marketplace Globalist Quiz, aired on public radio stations all across the United States as part of NPR’s Morning Report. He also created The Globalist Quiz, a weekly feature exploring the global agenda in an innovative fashion syndicated to newspapers around the world.

From 2002-08, he was a monthly columnist for Les Echos, the leading financial daily in France. He was also the U.S. correspondent for Rheinischer Merkur from 1990-98, as well as a monthly columnist for CEO Magazine.

In addition, he has been a keynote speaker on geopolitical and geoeconomic issues and trends at major international conferences organized by asset managers, investment banks and public policy institutions in Europe, the United States and Asia.

Prior to starting The Globalist, Mr. Richter led a global strategic communications firm based in Washington, D.C., advising ministers and CEOs of governments, leading global banks and corporations, international organizations and foundations around the world.

In that capacity, he served as North American advisor to the German Economics Ministry and Vice Chancellor in the early 1990s, when he successfully shaped the “New Federal States” campaign, designed to create a dynamic brand image for the former Communist East Germany.

In the fall of 1990, at the request of the U.S. Senator Bill Bradley, he drafted the Sense of the U.S. Senate resolution calling for forgiveness of Poland’s Communist-era public debt. It proved a crucial step in the successful conclusion of the April 1991 Debt Agreement in the Paris Club.

For those activities, he was awarded the Cross of the Order of Merit by the President of Poland in June 2014, as part of the country’s celebrations for the 25th anniversary of the arrival of freedom.

Mr. Richter received his J.D. from the University of Bonn, Germany in 1984, was a Rotary Foundation Award recipient in 1980-81 and a Congressional Fellow of the American Political Science Association in 1986-87.

His 1992 book, Clinton: What Europe and the United States Can Expect, correctly forecast the Clinton Administration’s emphasis on fiscal consolidation in U.S. public accounts.

In 2013, he was the co-editor of the book, In Search of a Sustainable Future: Reflections on Economic Growth, Social Equity and Global Governance.

https://www.theglobalist.com/united-states-saudi-arabia-china-technology-transfer-arms-trade/