Arms Trade: A 'Booming' Business

President Barack Obama recently signed into law the 2010 military budget,
saying that it takes the "necessary steps toward reshaping priorities
of America's defense establishment and changing the way the Pentagon
does business."

It was not quite that dramatic. For 2010, total military spending is
$680 billion. For the 2009 budget, when the defense budget and war
costs were added together, the total budget came to $654 billion. So,
while some systems were cut, the overall budget increased by 3.9% or
$26 billion. This is not the end of business as usual at the Pentagon.

But it was (is) a beginning. The budget does accomplish the
elimination of-- or deep cuts in-- about a half dozen major weapons
programs. Usually cancelling even one major system is a big deal -- and
it often doesn't stick due to the lobbying clout of the
military-industrial-congressional complex.

The $11.2 billion Presidential Helicopter program was eliminated.
Missile defense systems were cut, a portion of the Army's Future Combat
System was terminated at that $160 billion program was reorganized.
These are steps in the right direction, but there is a lot more work to
be done....

And the Pentagon and White House's efforts to buck the military
industrial complex's business as usual are significantly undermined by
the Pentagon and Whie House's approach to an inter-related (but often
overlooked) issue--the arms trade.

The best current example of the linkages between military spending and the arms trade is the C-17 Globemaster,
a large cargo plane manufactured by Boeing at a cost of $250 million
per plane. This plane ship supplies, troops and even vehicles from
bases and supply depots in the United States to the far flung corners
of Overseas Contingency Operations.

Every year since 2006, the Pentagon has stated that no more C-17s
are needed. In response, Secretary Gates put the program on the
chopping block for the 2010 budget. But, because they are manufactured
in 43 states and Boeing has a first-rate lobbying operation, the planes
have lives to soar and ship another day. In October, the Senate
approved $2.5 billion in the 2010 budget for 10 more C-17s, over the
Administration's strong objections. That money is still in the final
version of the budget that Obama signed, although with the caveat that
there are funds for up to ten planes.

If the Pentagon does not need more C-17 planes, and Congress keeps
funding them and Boeing keeps building them, where do they go?

They go to foreign buyers. Already United Kingdom, Qatar, Canada and Australia are flying the planes, and the United Arab Emirates and India have both expressed interest.

The appetite for U.S. weapons systems has not been sated by a string
of strong export years. In fact, it looks like we are just getting
started.

Vice Admiral Jeffrey A. Wieringa is the head of the Pentagon's
Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which oversees Foreign Military
Sales (FMS). In a recent blog post,
the Admiral crowed about his bumper crop of weapons exports for 2009.
"We can take pride in the fact that we achieved a new record," Wieringa
wrote, pointing out that not only was the $37.9 billion in weapons sold
in 2009 higher than ever before, it was 465% higher than a record low
of $8.1 billion in 1998.

A few recent arms sales notifications, some of which may be included in
the 2009 total, and some of which may be counted in next year's figure,
are as follows:

• $134 million in Boeing Chinook helicopters to Morocco
  $3.2 billion in Lockheed Martin F-16s to Egypt
  $7 billion in Boeing F-18 fighter planes to Brazil

Looking ahead, the agency is optimistic, projecting $38.4 billion in foreign military sales for 2010.

Given the arms trade glut, this news from the United Nations could not
be more timely: On Friday, October 30th, the General Assembly voted
overwhelmingly to pursue "common international standards for the import, export and transfer of conventional arms."
Only Zimbabwe voted against the measure, and 19 other nations abstained
including China and Russia --which are both major weapons exporters.

The last time this issue was on the front burner at the UN, the United
States was the only nation to vote against formation of a 2012 UN
Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty. But now, with a new administration
and a new tenor in international relations, the United States is on
board.

In advance of the October vote, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
articulated U.S. support for the effort, saying "the United States is
committed to actively pursuing a strong and robust treaty that contains
the highest possible, legally binding standards for the international
transfer of conventional weapons." Organizations that have been working
on this issue for years welcomed the shift in U.S. policy, except for one significant reservation (see below).

The General Assembly conceded to a U.S. demand for the "rule of
consensus decision making" in the process. For many, consensus
decision-making conjures up images of long meetings of people sitting
cross-legged on the floor using non-violent communication and copious
amounts of butcher paper; but in the UN it is more like giving a veto
to any nation that wants to block a treaty. This aspect of the U.S.
position may have to change if a substantive treaty is to be developed.

As Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, explains,
the United States' "insistence on consensus is likely to prove
counterproductive. It will give any country that wants to derail the
process the opportunity to do so."

John Bolton, who served as State Department Undersecretary for Arms
Control and then UN Ambassador under Bush, takes a different view. At
the UN meeting on small arms in 2001 he gave a speech that could have been written by the National Rifle Association. His tenure at the UN was a high point for the NRA
and other members of the gun lobby. responded to the news of the ATT
treaty by raising the specter of jack-booted UN officials eager to take
guns from law-abiding Americans. Bolton, who is now at the American Enterprise Institute
railing against arms control in all forms, said that the treaty "has
little or nothing to do with the international trade in conventional
arms. This will strengthen the hand of a government who wants to
regulate private ownership of firearms."

To the contrary, the General Assembly went out of its way to
acknowledge "the right of all States to manufacture, import, export,
transfer and retain conventional arms for self-defense and security
needs."

Adoption of an Arms Trade Treaty is still years away, but as billions
of dollars in weaponry are exported every year to the profit of war and
the manufacturers, it deserves our attention and support.