[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.The second biggest defence company is now Boeing, which had merged with Rockwell and McDonnell Douglas and which ismore successful in the military business than in selling civilian airliners.6 Third ranks Northrop-Grumman, a merger of Northrop, Westinghouse, Grumman and,most recently, the satellite producer TRW (in 2002).Northrop-Grumman offers a similarly vast spectrum of military products and services as Lockheed Martin and does everything from aircraft, nuclear submarines to developing and operatingsatellites.Fourth is Raytheon, the manufacturer of the Tomahawk cruise missiles, which has merged with GM Hughes, E-Systems and Texas Instruments.Raytheonspecializes largely in electronics, network-centric systems (C4I), missiles (Hawk, Patriot, AMRAAM) and space systems (geospatial intelligence and spacebornecommand and control) and the company reported in December 2003 $18 billion insales.These four companies secured contracts, which amounted to about half of the overall DoD spending on research and procurement in 2003 ($58 billion out of $122billion dollars).7 In effect, the Pentagon cannot do much without them.Table 2.5 shows that in several defence product areas there are now only two or three manufacturers left, meaning that the Pentagon has effectively very little choice in terms of manufacturers when it orders a next generation weapons system.5 US Defense Secretary Cohen invited the representatives of the defence and aircraft industries to the ‘last supper’ in the White House in 1993, where he announced that the fat years are over and that the industry had now to consolidate itself by mergers and downsizing.6 Boeing produces parts of the F/A-22, the F-15 and F/A-18 fighter jets, the Apache helicopter, the JDAM and is involved in missile defence research (Airborne Laser), as well as the sustainment of ICBMs.7 According to the Center for Public Integrity database, Lockheed Martin received $22billion, Boeing $17 billion, Northrop Grumman 11.2 billion, and Raytheon $7.6 billion for Pentagon contracts in 2003.The US DoD spent $54 billion on RDE&T and $68 billion on procurement in the same year.See Center of Public Integrity, www.publicintegrity.org/pns/list.aspx?act=top, accessed 06/06/2006.A New Military Industry29Table 2.1 US Contractor Presence for Selected Military Platforms (1990-2000) PlatformCompanies 1990Companies 2000Fixed-wing Aircraft83Launch Vehicles63Rotorcraft43Satellites86Strategic Missiles32Submarines22Surface Ships83Tactical Missiles133Tactical Wheeled Vehicles63Tracked Combat Vehicles32Source: P.J.Dombrowski e.a.(2002), Military Transformation and the Defense Industry after Next, Newport, Naval War College, p.22.The picture is quite similar in Europe, where there is also very little domestic competition in the national defence markets left.For example, BAE SYSTEMS dominates theBritish defence industry, as it is now the largest employer in the defence sector and is involved in virtually every major British/international (European) defence project, including the Joint Strike Fighter, the Future Transport Aircraft, the Type 45 Air Attack Destroyer and the Future Carrier (Feuchtwanger 2004, 15 and 75).With the acquisition of Alvis Vickers in 2004 and United Defense in 2005 BAE SYSTEMS can manufacture the whole range of military equipment from aircraft, land vehicles to ships.In France the Thales corporate group, which was created in 1997 throughmergers and acquisitions of some of the biggest French defence companies (Alcatel, Thomson-CSF, Aerospatiale, Dassault Aviation and Lagardere), has effectivelybecome the country’s main prime contractor in the aerospace business.In Germany, Daimler-Chrysler is now the dominant defence contractor, adevelopment that began with DASA (Deutsche Aerospace Agency) formed in 1989(Markusen and Costigan, 349) and continued with its partial ownership of EADS8(European Aeronautic and Defence Systems), a huge European (German/French)corporate group focusing on the aerospace and defence markets, which was formed in 2000.EADS includes Airbus (civilian airliners), Airbus Military Aircraft (A400M), Eurocopter (Tiger helicopter), EADS Space Transportation (launcher systems) and EADS Astrium (Galileo, Skynet 5, Helios 2B, SPOT 5).Originally the French and the Germans owned equal parts of EADS, but with the recent decision of Daimler Chrysler to reduce its shares, shareholding is now in imbalance (Daimler Chrysler 2006).There are still some other significant players in the German defence market left, most importantly Thyssen (Rheinmetall AG, Blohm and Voss) and Krauss-Maffei-8 Daimler Chrysler holds about 30 per cent of EADS, the French SOGEADE holdsanother 30 per cent, the Spanish SEPI about 5.5 per cent and about 34 per cent are publicly traded.30War as BusinessWegmann (Leopard 2 tanks), Atlas Elektronik (maritime and electronics systems, acquired by BAE SYSTEMS), but those companies have begun to either refocus their activities on civilian products or are trying hard to survive on arms exports.9There is also only one big player left in the Italian defence industry: Finmeccanica, a consortium of companies, which includes Fiat-Iveco (armoured vehicles), Agusta Westland Ltd.(helicopters), AerMacchi (trainer aircraft), Galileo Avionica (command and control systems), Alenia Aeronautics (transport aircraft), Alenia Spazio and Telespazio (space systems).Table 2.2 shows the world’s top ten defence companies.More than half of themare American and the remaining are all European companies.The only exception is the state-owned Russian defence export company Rosoboronexport.Table 2.2 The Top 10 Defense Firms WorldwideCompany2001 Defense Revenue (Millions of US $)Lockheed Martin (US)22,502.0Boeing (US)19,000.0BAE SYSTEMS (U.K.)14,491.8Raytheon (US)11,969.0Northrop Grumman (US)9,337.5General Dynamics (US)7,784.0Thales Group (French)5,581.8EADS, NV (European)5,504.6TRW (US)5,200.0Rosoboronexport (Russian)4,200.0Source: Defense News, 11-17 November, 2002.New Export OrientationDecreased defence spending at home led to a new focus on export, which becamepossible through reduced export restrictions, even for more modern systems like the General Dynamics F-16, which has been sold to 24 countries altogether.During the Cold War arms exports were allowed for mainly political or ideological reasons (bolstering allies and gaining influence), but now economic considerations have become more important (Gold 1999, 254).Arms exporting has the advantage that it makes expensive defence productscheaper in two ways: first it produces revenues not only for the manufacturers but for the exporting states as well, and secondly, it allows the production of larger numbers, thus reducing the price per copy for domestic procurement.There are of course some constraints, most of them having to do with concern over technology 9 German military spending has declined between 2002 and 2004 and is significantly below that of the UK and France, while Germany is still among the world’s top five arms exporters (SIPRI 2005, 318, 354 and 453).A New Military Industry31transfers and the falling international demand for weapons.For example, the US is still trying to stay technologically far ahead of its European and Eastern competitors and is therefore very reluctant to share technology even with her closest allies (Taylor 1999, 66) [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]