The Requirements of International Clients

Liam Fox – our International Trade Secretary, says it’s a cause for celebration that Britain exports weapons around the world. Michael Fallon, our Defence Secretary agrees. As the defence budget soars to £37 billion watch him revel in the industry at the biggest arms fair in the world “And what better place to bring the message home than DSEI, where the kit is the star of the show and where the globe’s investors gather in one place.”

Fallon said: “And as we look to life post Brexit and seek to spread our wings across the world, it’s high time we do more to compete for a share of this international export market. We’ve already got an enviable reputation in advanced manufacturing, we’re leaders in intelligent systems, we already build wings for half the world.

And the UK continues to perform strongly in the international market, securing defence orders of £5.9bn in 2016, retaining its position as the second largest defence exporter globally over the last ten years

But now it’s time to build exportability into our thinking from the off, aligning it with the requirements of international clients, allowing for the open architecture that can plug and play with different bits of capability.”

Surrounded by Raytheons Paveway IV, Dragonfire and a host of wonderfully named kit he was in his element.

“Robots will never replace humans. It takes a soldier to search a house, calm a villager, win hearts and minds in a war zone. But we’re letting the machines take the load so people can get on with hard work of saving lives.”

Bristling with arms and focusing on high tech and big data he is high on the combination of money, power and weaponry: “Science fiction has become science fact” he declares – read this extraordinary speech here.

But what exactly are the the requirements of international clients?

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The message was clear: the UK is significantly stepping up military industry and arms exports.

It looks like after the idea of selling Jam didn’t work out so well, this is Plan B.

 

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  1. bringiton says:

    Fox should be struck off as a GP (if he is still registered) since he is clearly in breech of the hippocratic oath.
    Selling equipment designed to kill amd maim human beings is completely at odds with his professional ethical standards.
    However,that probably goes for anyone in the medical profession who support the Tory party which is completely berefit of any ethics.
    The Tories are 100% about making money for themselves,at any cost to others.

  2. David Barrie Grieve says:

    Why does this article not mention the increasingly imperative need for rUK to increase it’s money raising enterprises.

    Companies that make some of the life extinguishing weapons also provide employees under contract to fit them to war planes in situe before they are deployed to continue the utter annihilation of Yemen. (for example)

    Money making to attempt to survive bankruptcy after UK exit from the EU.

  3. David Barrie Grieve says:

    Why does this article not mention the increasingly imperative need for rUK to increase it’s money raising enterprises.

    Companies that make some of the life extinguishing weapons also provide employees under contract to fit them to war planes in situe before they are deployed to continue the utter annihilation of Yemen. (for example)

    Money making to attempt to survive bankruptcy after UK exit from the EU.

    Oh yes, including the aftermath of cash-cow removal by Scottish Independence.

  4. Alasdair Macdonald says:

    During the mid 60s when a friend of mine was in his fresher’s year studying economics he should me in disbelieving terms a section in his textbook about the crisis there would be if there was “an outbreak of PEACE!”

    This was barely 6 years after President Eisenhower in his final speech warned of the power of the ‘military-industrial complex’. It is arguable that President Johnson’s redistributive ‘Great Society’ programme was derailed by the Vietnam War. Indeed, taking a charitable view of the ‘new’ Labour Governments of 1997/2010, an argument can be made that “Blair’s Wars” were a factor in causing the redistributive social policies to grind to a halt.

    Messrs Fox and Fallon are operating in the interests of the military-industrial complex.

    1. IDL says:

      Not actually surprised by that. I remember a teacher talking about the great strides in technology that arrive on the back of the competition to win a war.I think he meant a war that was an existential threat to ‘the empire’ rather than kinds of elective wars that our leaders have more recently committed to.

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