German Military Deployments Going Global

Chancellor Angela Merkel said German deployments overseas, “will soon encompass the entire globe.”

“For decades, we Germans have benefited from the fact that our partners gave us the feeling of reliable security,” Thomas de Maizière, Germany’s defense minister, said during the debate last month. “Now we are in a position and have the duty, even, to make our impact felt.”

It was not that long ago that every German military action brought with it mass demonstrations, public hand-wringing and probing questions about the country’s militarist past. But the shadow of history continues to recede here and Germany is, for better or worse, quietly approaching a normal relationship with its armed forces.

“Europe has more responsibility for its own security, and Germany has to step up to that, particularly considering its new economic power in Europe,” said Constanze Stelzenmüller, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin.

Conscription was suspended indefinitely here in 2011 as part of a drive to professionalize and modernize the armed forces. In August, the Constitutional Court ruled for the first time that the German military could be deployed at home under exceptional circumstances, like in the wake of a terrorist attack.

“Naturally, a great deal has developed further in terms of the acceptance of deployments outside of this country and outside the NATO territory,” said Col. Ulrich Kirsch, chairman of the German Federal Armed Forces Association, which represents the interests of active and former military personnel. “But the Germans are, now as before, difficult to inspire for military operations.”

Military business is another matter. Germany is the world’s third-biggest arms exporter, behind only the United States and Russia, sending weapons not only to NATO members and allies like Israel but increasingly to the Middle East and beyond. As the business grows, critics at home question sales to undemocratic countries like Saudi Arabia.

Germany’s military industry employs an estimated 80,000 people, jobs Ms. Merkel wants to protect, especially less than a year before September’s parliamentary election. In October, German opposition helped doom the proposed merger of two aerospace giants, British-based BAE Systems and the consortium EADS, in part out of concern that German jobs and influence might be lost in the new entity.

The German government approved military exports in excess of 10 billion euros, or over $13 billion, for the first time in 2011, the magazine reported.

That is an especially impressive feat considering that military expenditures in Western and Central Europe fell 1.9 percent in real terms that year, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Those cuts have “prompted unease in many quarters that European countries risk losing global influence as they fall further behind the United States in military capabilities,” the institute said in its most recent annual reporton military spending, “while rising powers such as China rapidly catch up and even overtake them.”

Germany’s path forward could well determine the shape of Europe’s military affairs for years to come. Whether that is through a growing leadership role and the assumption of more responsibility for regional security or a limited, some say cynical, emphasis on protecting its own interests still remains to be seen.

“Germany is back in the game as one of the most important countries in the Western Hemisphere, but the kind of responsibility that goes with that is not really reflected in German government behavior,” said Olaf Böhnke, head of the Berlin office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “If Germany wants to be in a leadership position, you need stronger military engagement.”

“This conflict-averse basic attitude still remains, and one has to deal with it,” said Martin Kahl, a political scientist at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg. “People feel safer than before. There is no enemy on the European continent who could lead a classic conflict.”

After World War II, West German politicians rejected military force for any goal other than self-defense, and a strong pacifist streak developed in the public. The end of the cold war brought the beginning of a long period of halting change. Allies, particularly in the United States, have repeatedly called for Germany to take more responsibility and a larger share of the burden.

“I don’t think it’s healthy for the future of Europe to give Germany this refuge where Germany handles the economy and doesn’t have to deal with the dirty stuff,” Mr. Böhnke said.

The biggest turning point was probably when Germany participated in airstrikes in the Kosovo war in 1999, a break with the taboo against offensive operations.

“A country of our size,” Mr. Köhler said, “with its focus on exports and thus reliance on foreign trade, must be aware that military deployments are necessary in an emergency to protect our interests, for example, when it comes to trade routes, for example, when it comes to preventing regional instabilities that could negatively influence our trade, jobs and incomes.”

A public outcry ensued, and Mr. Köhler resigned. But the German Navy was essentially already doing what Mr. Köhler described in his comments, as part of the multinational mission to combat piracy off the coast of Somalia. The government announced plans to suspend conscription just a few months after Mr. Köhler quit.

Parliament made it official in 2011, toppling in the process another of the remaining hurdles between Germany and a normal military.

“The suspension of conscription officially recognized the fact that the German Army had become a professional army,” said Ms. Stelzenmüller from the German Marshall Fund. 

Via: "The New York Times"

Pentagon Propaganda ‘Fiasco’ Gets Scrutiny In House

Wasteful War Propaganda and The Dirty Deeds Of The Pentagon's Corporate Contractors Are Exposed

By John Glaser,
May 10, 2012
Courtesy Of "Anti-War"

A member of the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday threatened an amendment to block funding for Pentagon propaganda efforts, citing reports critical of their management and others exposing the Pentagon’s contractor for tax evasion.

Recent reports published by USA Today exposed the dubious nature and exorbitant costs of the Pentagon’s “Information Operations,” (IO) which the newspaper described as “the modern equivalent of psychological warfare,” or war propaganda.

Subsequent USA Today reports exposed the Pentagon’s top contractor for IO forfailing to pay up to $4 million in federal taxes, even as they were receiving government contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Just days after these reports came to light, the USA Today reporters were targeted in a coordinated misinformation campaign, with false Facebook and Twitter accounts created in their names and Wikipedia entries and dozens of message board postings about them.

The reporters suspected the IO contractors were involved, and became even more suspicious when the sites disappeared as soon as the Pentagon made formal inquiries. If it was done using federal funds, it could violate federal laws prohibiting the production of propaganda for domestic consumption.

Now, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), is threatening to target the information operations program, calling it a “fiasco” and saying contracts with the largest propaganda contractor, Leonie Industries, should be immediately suspended.

Johnson also called for an investigation into the apparent retaliation attacks against the USA Today journalists reporting on the program, whom he said were “targeted in a possibly criminal disinformation and reputation attack.”

War On The Military-Industrial Complex

By Timothy P. Carney
Examiner Columnist
May 28, 2010
Courtesy Of "The Washington Examiner"

If your family spent a majority of its disposable income on groceries, and you were looking to tighten your belt, you might start by taking a scalpel to your grocery budget.

If Republicans are serious about reining in our out-of-control federal spending, they ought to start with the spending item that takes up 56 percent of our discretionary spending -- defense. Conservatives, in their much-needed attacks on federal overspending, too often give the Pentagon a pass. For the budget of fiscal 2011, taxpayers are spending $708 billion on defense.

Maybe it seems unpatriotic to criticize our military spending. Maybe it seems like you're not supporting the troops to look for defense cuts. But as a tribute to our soldiers, sailors and airmen this Memorial Day weekend, let's start dismantling the military-industrial complex that saps our wealth without helping our troops.

This week, conservative Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., encouraged the president's fiscal responsibility commission to freeze defense spending and institute other reforms aimed at eventually cutting the military budget.

"Total Pentagon spending is higher today in inflation-adjusted dollars than at any time during the last 60 years," Coburn wrote. More poignantly, he added: "America's defenses have been decaying, despite -- perhaps even because of--- increasing budgets."

More military spending might be yielding a weaker military. This may sound absurd, but it shouldn't -- not to conservative ears, at least.

Conservatives understand that big government is, very often, the problem. Bloated bureaucracies are counterproductive. You don't solve problems by throwing money at them. Government spending attracts waste, fraud and abuse. And when you put fallible humans in charge of spending huge amounts of other people's money, cronyism and corruption ensue.

Conservatives and libertarians don't oppose welfare because they resent helping poor people or resist foreign aid out of disregard for the world's poor. We want a smaller Health and Human Services budget in part because we think it will yield better health and leave humans better served.

These arguments also apply to defense spending.

We are spending more and getting less. Coburn writes: "As the defense budget has grown over time, our forces have shrunk. Secretary Gates noted in a recent speech that current submarines and amphibious ships are three times as expensive as their equivalents during the 1980s and we have fewer of them."

Part of the problem is the ballooning bureaucracy. "The Department of Defense," Coburn writes, "has far too many headquarters, staff, and bureaucracy that merely create more work for subordinate units."

Another part of the problem is the military-industrial complex. Conservatives now realize how the big banks gave us the bailouts, Big Pharma gave us health care "reform," and a gang of green bandits is angling to rip us off through a climate change boondoggle. Well, the defense contractors have been playing this game for decades.

Huge corporations, headquartered in Northern Virginia, depend mostly or entirely on the U.S. military for their profits. Bureaucrats and congressional staffers spend other people's money while protected from strict scrutiny by the veil of national security.

Defense contractors have spent more than half a billion dollars on lobbying since 2006. Former New York Sen. Al D'Amato represents United Technologies as does House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's, D-Calif., former chief of staff. Linda Daschle, wife of former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., lobbies for Boeing, General Electric and Lockheed Martin. Jim Dyer, former chief of staff for the House Appropriations Committee, claims Lockheed, GE and General Dynamics as clients.

To the staffers and politicians, these wealthy lobbyists serve as a walking reminder: If you play ball, you can get the sort of cushy job I have in a few years.

Politicians also use defense contracts as job programs -- as pork. This robs from taxpayers, but it also robs from our troops.

We need a military, and we're at war, so we can't completely avoid opportunities for corruption in defense. But we can minimize them. Coburn proposes some procurement reforms, but conservatives know that the best reform is often a pay cut. Republicans ought to call for some retrenchment at the Pentagon.

Timothy P. Carney is The Washington Examiner's Lobbying Editor. His K Street column appears on Wednesdays.

Crowdsource Intel, Edit DNA

DARPA's New Plan

By Katie Drummond
February 2, 2010 | 6:02 pm
Courtesy Of Wired Blog

The Pentagon’s mad science agency has big plans for next year: crowdsourcing military intelligence, creating an “immune system” for Defense Department networks, and even research that might one day lead to editing a soldier’s DNA.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, just released its budget for the upcoming year. And, as you might expect from the Pentagon’s way-out science and technology division, there are some wild new projects on tap.

Military analysts are already overwhelmed by too much information. Instead of training more analysts or handing data over to computers, Darpa wants to improve how the military uses its intelligence info by turning it into an open call for contribution. The $13 million dollar project, called “Deep ISR Processing by Crowds,” looks “to harness the unique cognitive and creative abilities of large numbers of people to enhance dramatically the knowledge derived from ISR systems.”

Crowdsourcing is already used among businesses and other government agencies, to generate more innovative ideas that draw on as many sources as possible. Darpa wants that innovation to take over individual analysis and decision-making:

Novel frameworks will be developed to capture the experience base of users and systems to allow problem partitioning, quantitative confidence assessment, and validation in environments that may be partially compromised by adversaries.

When it comes to cybersecurity, Darpa’s taking inspiration from nature, with “Cyber Immune” — a defense model for the Pentagon’s computing systems that’s able to detect an attack, fight back and even heal itself automatically to prevent subsequent infiltration.

The current model for cybersecurity, dubbed “perimeter defense,” uses firewalls that hackers try to break through. Once they make it inside, they’ve got free rein, and the compromised system is vulnerable to ongoing outside attacks until the firewall is rebuilt. Instead of technicians who patch holes as they find them, Darpa wants a system with the instincts to go it alone, and that “assume[s] security cannot be absolute, yet … can still defend itself in order to maintain its (possibly degraded) capabilities, and possibly even heal itself.”

Of course, Darpa’s also living up to its mad-science rep, with ambitious plans to fast-track mastery over the human genome. Darpa’s budgeted $7.5 million in hopes of “increas[ing] by several decades the speed with which we sequence, analyze and functionally edit cellular genomes.”

Editing DNA could have widespread implications, but Darpa seems most interested in two: microchip implants that restore senses and movement in traumatic injury patients, and the ongoing Darpa goal of boosting troop performance in the field:

On the other end of the size scale, a primary goal is to apply microsystem techniques to soldier-protective biomedical systems. One example is an in-canal hearing protection device that will provide enhanced hearing capabilities in some settings, but be able to instantly muffle loud sounds of weapons fire. This one example will improve inter-personnel communications and at the same time drastically reduce the incidence of hearing loss in combat situations. For these examples and many more, the goal is to bring exceptionally potent technical approaches to bear on biological and biomedical applications where their capabilities will be significant force multipliers for the DoD.

Photo: USAF

Tags: cyber, DarpaWatch, Info War, Medic!, Paper Pushers & Powerpoint Rangers, Science!, You can run...

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Stop, Look, Listen

Before We Jump Into The Abyss

By Justin Raimondo,
November 11, 2009
Courtesy Of Anti-War

We hear daily reports that President Obama has made this or that decision about how many more troops to send to the Afghan front; the numbers vary. This Reuters report headlines "four options" the president is considering, but then names only three: sending 15,000, 30,000, or 40,000. Is the fourth option getting the heck out of that hellhole, before we destabilize the entire region?

No way, no how. The numbers may change, but what doesn’t vary is the fact that this is quite obviously a political and not a military decision: it’s all about what’s happening in Washington, and not about what’s occurring on the ground in Afghanistan and environs. And the Washington political culture, which sees government action as the cure-all for society’s ills, is not about to take inaction as the cure for anything. We must "do something" – even if it means playing right into al-Qaeda’s hands.

America’s leaders never knew what hit them on 9/11, and they still don’t. The U.S. response was to launch a conventional war against nation-states – Afghanistan, then Iraq – when neither of these constituted the real enemy.

Now we are inching into Pakistan, which is rapidly being destabilized by our efforts. Seymour Hersh’s latest report from that country draws a dark portrait of a nation on the brink, with President Asif Ali "10 Percent" Zardari sitting atop a volcano – one that could erupt in a nuclear-powered explosion that sets the world aflame.

With the Pakistani military and civilian establishment seething with resentment at the imperiousness of their American patrons and overlords, and the corruption of an entire society feeding into a fundamentalist backlash, the whole country seems ready to come apart at the seams – and this, ironically, is the latest rationale for massive U.S. intervention.

It doesn’t seem to matter that our intervention caused the initial disruption – more action on the part of Washington is always the answer to every problem. The harder we press the Pakistanis, the more they resent us and the closer we come to pushing them into a religious-nationalist reaction and the possibility of a military coup – a coup, I might add, in which the resulting government would be no more favorable to our efforts in Afghanistan and elsewhere than, say, the former regime of Mullah Omar. Pakistani military officers in the know urge us to negotiate with the Taliban, but Washington is deaf to their pleas. Even now, according to Hersh, we are making arrangements to seize Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal in the event it’s in danger of falling into Islamist hands.

Our continuing and deepening alliance with India – the only country not a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty with which we’re engaged in nuclear commerce – rightly troubles Islamabad. Indeed, it is their main concern, quite apart from the growing Islamist insurgency within their own borders. Pakistan and India have fought two wars over the disputed region of Kashmir – yet another legacy of British imperialism we must now bear the brunt of – and U.S. actions have done nothing to tamp down the growing tensions. Kashmir, which is overwhelmingly Muslim and pro-Pakistani, is no more a part of India than is South Dakota; despite that, we treat New Delhi’s claim on a par with Islamabad’s – yet another reason for the Pakistanis to resent their "Big Uncle" in Washington.

We can’t withdraw from Afghanistan, say the warbots, because that will leave nuclear-armed Pakistan easy prey for Osama bin Laden and his confreres. This argument is nonsensical in several respects, the most obvious being its circularity: our deepening involvement has fueled the recent surge in support for the Pakistani Taliban insurgents, whose attacks on government installations (including the central military headquarters) have underscored the essential weakness of the current regime. More U.S. interference cannot strengthen the government’s position, only weaken it – yet we barrel ahead, oblivious to the quicksand in which we and our allies are sinking.

The frantic behind-the-scenes machinations to secure Pakistan’s nukes have the disturbing aura of a self-fulfilling nightmare: the more we assert our presence and advertise our primacy, the more likely it is that the whole delicate fabric will come apart in our hands.

Bin Laden’s boys don’t need a "safe haven" to launch attacks on the U.S.: 9/11, and, more recently, the Ft. Hood massacre, taught us that. But we refuse to learn. We’re still fighting this war the old way, and we don’t even see the enemy. Oh, we rail against bin Laden and are supposedly still trying to capture him, yet all our mighty efforts are aimed at proxies: the Taliban, their Pakistani allies, and states that allegedly "harbor" terrorists. What’s needed is the kind of precision that only superior intelligence-gathering capabilities can provide us with. Instead, we go wading into southern Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan armed with a blunderbuss, when what we really need is a well-sharpened stiletto.

The president is taking a long time to make his decision about what course to follow in Afghanistan, and I, for one, am glad of it. The White House realizes the vastness of the stakes and is understandably reluctant to rush right in without at least preparing its political allies for a most unpromising fight. Nevertheless, the only option that makes any sense – ending the "Af-Pak" misadventure before it gets out of hand and shifting to an intelligence-based covert offensive – is not on the table.

Before we jump into an abyss from which there is no extrication, we need to stop, look, and listen: stop the war, look at the damage we have already done to the societies we’ve invaded, and listen to what our enemies are saying before we undertake to engage them in battle.

Bin Laden has said more than once [.pdf] that he intends to draw us deeper and deeper into hostile territory, where, bankrupt and besieged, we’ll be caught flat-footed as al-Qaeda strikes once again deep within our own territory. Mocking us, the destroyer of the twin towers has observed that he has only to hang a scarecrow in some distant field and label it "al-Qaeda," and the Americans come running with their armies of occupation. In the meantime, however, as he put it in another message,

"As for the delay in carrying out similar operations in America, this was not due to failure to breach your security measures. Operations are under preparation, and you will see them on your own ground once they are finished, God willing."

Our government’s actions aren’t protecting us; instead, we are endangered as never before. Rather than defeating the enemy, our foreign policy has only empowered him. That is the record since 9/11, and if we don’t stop, look, and listen, we are headed for catastrophe sooner rather than later.

NOTES IN THE MARGIN

Well, our new, more subtle approach to fundraising seemed to work for a while. On the first day we garnered around $6,000 in contributions, the best we’ve done in quite a while. The second day, however, wasn’t so great – about half that, roughly. So it looks like I’m going to have to throw subtlety to the winds – it never was my shtick, anyway – and start up with my usual hectoring.

Okay, look: the comprehensive daily coverage of international affairs provided on this Web site doesn’t come free. Oh, I know, you don’t have to pay to get our content – you’re most definitely not dealing with Rupert Murdoch here. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have costs. Everyone does. Those costs aren’t all that great. $70,000 per quarter is peanuts when we’re talking about running an organization that reaches a million-plus readers every month. Talk about efficiency: we’re reaching more readers per dollar than the evil Murdoch and his minions could ever conceive of in their wildest dreams. And we’re doing it with no organizational or institutional support: we have no big donors, there’s no highfalutin’ think-tank behind us, and we’re not beholden to any political party or faction. Here you get the facts, without the spin, about what is going on in the world and how it affects you.

Whatever contribution you make, it’s a small price to pay for the truth about U.S. foreign policy, so please let us go back to the subtle approach. It’s so much less intrusive than our traditional table-banging method. You know we deserve your support – and now is the time to give it. Contribute today!

Read more by Justin Raimondo

• The Lap Bomber Mystery – December 27th, 2009
• The Awards! – December 22nd, 2009
• The Rising Tide – December 20th, 2009
• Calling Dr. Pangloss – December 17th, 2009
• The War Democrats – December 15th, 2009

Cut War Spending By Cutting Wars

Posted by Benjamin H. Friedman
Courtesy of CATO-at-LIBERTY

InsideDefense reports ($) that the White House’s Office of Management and Budget will give the Pentagon a spending increase — two percent real budget growth annually from fiscal years 2011 to 2015. The boost amounts to $60 billion over the period. The proposed FY 2011 non-war military budget will therefore be $556.4 billion rather than $541.8. That’s a win for Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Previous plans had called for spending to grow only with projected inflation–0 percent real growth–but Gates resisted, arguing that the cost of defense programs grows faster than inflation.

The growth would relieve pressure on research, development and procurement spending on weapons and platforms. Embracing counterinsurgency has caused the military to spend more on labor and less on technology. The wars have encouraged Congress to annually increase benefits and pay for military personnel and veterans while expanding the size of ground forces. Thus real personnel costs, which Jim Arkedis recently estimated at over $300 billion a year, have soared. If overall spending doesn’t rise, the easiest place to find money to cover these costs is in new technology. You can’t really cut operational costs, which are also growing, without cutting the size of the force.

Those dynamics encouraged Gates’ proposed cuts to big ticket procurement items, like the F-22, last spring. His acolytes called him a revolutionary, but he was just balancing the books. The cuts harmed the high-technology end of the defense industry and outraged the Congressmen who protect the jobs it provides. As Stephen Daggett of the Congressional Research Service shows in this October House testimony, more procurement cuts were inevitable without a spending boost. This one isn’t big enough to solve the problem, but it mitigates it. That’s too bad, because the technology/manpower fight was pushing more of the military-industrial complex to attack the counterproductive idea of fighting terrorism with counterinsurgency.

There is some grounds for hoping that the spending increase won’t occur. OMB issued a half-hearted denial, saying that the President hasn’t decided yet, and, in general, future defense spending plans rarely hold up. New actors and pressures emerge with time. Still, for those of us who want a restrained defense posture, which would allow massive spending cuts, this decision, like the double-down in Afghanistan, is dissapointing but not surprising.

Obama seems to have convinced Fareed Zakaria that he wants to cut down on defense commitments, but there is no evidence of such thinking in his administration’s personnel and stated defense goals. The administration wants the military that most of Washington does, one meant both to cause social transformation in unruly states and so dominate the world that allies and enemies don’t explore their own military potential. I don’t know what the minimum cost of chasing those dreams is, but clearly it’s not cheap. Gimmicky efforts to legislate away procurement overruns may hoodwink liberal defense spending skeptics, but they don’t save real money. That requires lessening your defense ambitions. Plan for less war, and you can cut force structure and buy and hire less.

Benjamin H. Friedman • December 8, 2009 @ 4:43 pm

Army Camera Promises Super-Wide Surveillance

• By David Hambling
• August 19, 2009 |
• 2:30 pm |
• Categories: DarpaWatch, Drones, Spies, Secrecy and Surveillance

Courtesy Of Wired Blog NetWork

The ability to provide real-time surveillance of large areas may be getting closer, as the Army launches a quest for a 2.3 gigapixel camera that could be packaged aboard a drone or a manned aircraft. The new device would be smaller and lighter than previous systems – and it would work in the infrared range too.

Airborne surveillance is moving fast. We’ve seen the 66-megapixel Angel Fire and 39-megapixel BuckEye sensors being used in operations, while the even more powerful Gorgon Stare is being flight tested next year. In February we reported on Darpa’s Autonomous Real-time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance - Imaging System (ARGUS-IS ), a 1.8 gigapixel flying eye which will be mounted in a 500-pound pod carried by a Predator or A160 Hummingbird robocopter. The ARGUS-IS makes for an impressive camera, with the resolution and processing power to track a large number of separate items including “dismounts” — people on foot — over a wide area, as well as “a real-time moving target indicator for vehicles throughout the entire field of view in real-time.”

But ARGUS-IS is already looking old. Now the Army is asking for something even more powerful. In a new request for solicitations, it outlined the concept for a novel visible/infrared sensor that will cover a much larger area on the ground — with much higher resolution.

The sensor is required to be lightweight with low power consumption and to have significantly lower operating costs compared to existing systems, and must be able to operate from small aircraft, either manned or unmanned. In terms of specifics, the Army is looking for 2.3 gigapixels running at two frames per second. By my reckoning, this suggests continuous coverage of area of around sixty-two square miles at 0.3m resolution with a single sensor. That’s quite a step up from Angel Fire, which covers a tenth of the area at much lower resolution. And the new camera will work in the near-infrared range as well. This is useful for analysis, as sometimes things that are invisible in the normal range can be picked out easily in infrared; it also means that people can be illuminated without being aware of it.

At this point, the Army is still looking for proposals, and actual working hardware is some years down the line. However, the technology is moving fast and there is little doubt that the following generation will be much smaller than the 500-pound ARGUS. The PANOPTES being developed by Marc Christensen at Southern Methodist University with Darpa funding could potentially cut camera weight by a factor of ten by using a large array of small imaging elements.

Once the technology is developed, anticipated civilian spin-offs will include “improved border and maritime management/patrol, critical infrastructure protection, transportation security, search & rescue, crime prevention, land & sea traffic monitoring, pipeline/powerline monitoring, private infrastructure surveillance/security”
Meanwhile Darpa is also working on something a bit more advanced. This is ARGUS-IR, a version of ARGUS that works in the medium and long infra-red. This is the “emissive” end of the infra-red scale, where warm objects are visible by the infra-red light they emit. ARGUS-IR will only have a trifling 200 megapixels, later to be upgraded to 400. But the ability to see warm objects such as people in pitch darkness through some types of cover will add a new dimension.

The old adage “you can run, but you can’t hide” is becoming more true than ever, and real-time surveillance of huge swathes of territory using small drones will become a practical proposition. Airborne cameras providing a persistent view were a key factor in Task Force ODIN’s success in Iraq; given the new technology, their successors could have even more impact. And those cameras might have some effect on the home front too.

IMAGE: Darpa

See Also:

• Special Forces’ Gigapixel Flying Spy Sees All
• Darpa’s Smart, Flat Camera Is Packed With Beady Eyes
• Navy Seeks Unblinking Eye for Battlefield Surveillance
• Air Force to Unleash ‘Gorgon Stare’ on Squirting Insurgents …
• Air Force Signs on to Darpa’s All-Seeing Blimp
• TiVo Goes to War
• Drone, Copter Team Kills 2400 Bombers in Iraq
• Army’s “X-Ray” Glasses

Japan's Weapons Industry

The Potential Consequences Of Japan’s Resumption Of Arms Exports.

By Gavan Gray
July 13, 2009
Courtesy Of Global Research

Reforms being backed by the Japanese government are likely to see further easing of, if not an outright end to, Japan’s stringent restrictions on military arms exports. That this may well be a necessity due to current trends toward joint development of weapons systems between nations and corporations, should in no way be taken to mean it will not have major consequences for Japan. The Japanese arms industry currently exists to serve the Self Defense Forces but should its raison d’être change from national security to profit-making, Japan is likely to see a major increase in both governmental corruption and the ‘revolving door’ system of conflicts of interest, which have compromised the security of nations such as the UK and USA.

Since the end of WWII the Japanese people have seen their country portrayed, by virtue of its constitution’s renunciation of war, as a uniquely peaceful and nonviolent nation. Yet, in the past decade the push to ‘normalize’ the country, and return to it the full variety of foreign policy options available to other major powers, has seen significant changes occur. Recently, the government has begun to relax a longstanding injunction against the export of weapons, something that will unleash some of the world’s leading industrial manufacturers on the international weapons market. In doing so, Japan greatly increases the influence the arms industry will have upon its national politics. This industry now exists solely as a provider for the Self Defense Forces but, should profitability take over from national security as its raison d’être, the state will, based upon the examples of the US and the UK, have to contend with increased levels of corruption and the promotion of an aggressively militaristic foreign policy.

The Export Ban.

Despite its 62 year old constitution’s proscriptions, Japan began conducting international arms sales in 1953. A ban on sales was first introduced under Prime Minister Sato Eisaku in 1967, though it only forbade trade with what were termed the ‘3 P’s’; states sponsoring terrorism, involved in conflict or under UN arms embargos. In 1976 it was expanded to include all countries though in 1983 Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro granted the US a case-by-case exemption, the first major use of which was the decision in 2004 to allow joint research into Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD). This was followed in 2006 by a decision to permit the export of related technology to the United States. This was hailed as “a significant step forward” by Nippon Keidanren, the Japan Business Federation, and it pushed shares of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries up more than 35% in 2007. Concerns have been expressed by both the Keidanren and the Defence Ministry, that similar future ventures might not be possible should export restrictions remain.

The ruling LDP party is seeking to readjust the ban to its ‘3P’ format. While such calls have been heard for years they have received increased support recently. In October 2007, the Defense Minister, Ishiba Shigeru, issued a Ministerial Directive aimed at pushing the issue to the forefront of Defense policy. Some say that Prime Minister Aso might announce an end to the export ban in early summer with the expectation that Japan’s prowess in miniaturized motors, electronics and robotics will quickly allow Japanese firms to carve out a distinct niche in the global industry.

Japan’s Arms Manufacturers.

Worldwide military expenditure amounted to $1339 billion in 2007, a 45% increase since 1998, with Japan in 5^th place, claiming 4% of the market and $4.8 billion in sales. The leading Japanese manufacturer was Mitsubishi Heavy Industry, ranked 22^nd globally, followed by Mitsubishi Electric (64^th), NEC (79^th) and Kawasaki Heavy Industries (85^th). Unlike leading Western manufacturers, such as BAE Systems whose products are 95% defense related, arms represent only 2-10% of the larger Japanese firms output. The firms are in their entirety, however, as large as the top-ranking companies. NEC with 152,000 employees is just as large as Boeing, the leading international arms producer. As such they have access to all the political and media influence of major corporations.

The majority of their output is split between ‘kokusanka’, i.e. internal development of such weapon systems as tanks, armored personnel carriers, and some missiles and licensed production of foreign systems, such as Fuji Heavy Industries production of a modified version of Boeing’s AH-64D Apache Longbow. Other smaller companies include; Howa, (small arms), Asahi-Seiki (small-caliber ammunition), Nippon Koki, Daikin Kogyo and Komatsu's Defense Systems Division ( large-caliber ammunition), Sumitomo Heavy Industries (machine guns) and Japan Steel Works' Hiroshima plant (medium and large-caliber guns).

Japanese components have also found themselves sold as part of weapons packages through dual-use clauses permiting export of goods with non-military applications. As such, Japanese chips and cameras have become components in missile guidance systems and armored vehicles, while military troops around the world can be seen riding Toyota, Suzuki and Mitsubishi vehicles. Though such trade ensures that Japan has consistently remained a minor member of the arms trade, the government offers no annual accounting of the licenses granted to export such materials, leaving the general public unaware to what extent and in what areas Japan has dabbled in profiting from the sale of military goods. The annual Small Arms Survey this year ranked Japanese weapons firms considerably lower, in terms of transparency and accountability, than European or North American counterparts, leaving us to wonder whether things will simply degenerate further with the changes likely to take place in coming years.

The Future of the Industry.

Japan’s “National Defense Program Guidelines for 2005 and After” laid out the state’s plan to transform its military. Among the requirements were the need for BMD, a next generation fighter aircraft, transport planes and maritime patrol craft, each of which will be major projects for the Arms industry in the near future and all involving some level of joint research with the USA. Such joint projects are run through the US-Japan Security Consultative Committee (SCC) and initial hesitancy to share tech has been largely overcome through the signing of a General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA). Some of the larger ongoing projects are the development of SM-3 Block IIA, the C-X transport craft, the XP-1 patrol aircraft, hull technology research and CBNR defenses.

Perhaps the largest upcoming project is the search for a next generation fighter plane. Concerns over the $200 million cost of the US’ F-22 have seen Japanese officials consider BAE System’s Eurofighter Typhoon, a joint development among European manufacturers with half the price of the F-22. While these negotiations might be a ploy to press the US on price, Hosoya Takatoshi, president of the Society of Japanese Aerospace Companies, has expressed his desire to see Japan develop closer ties to European companies. If the Typhoon is selected the diversification of Japanese research ties beyond their current American connections would be a significant development.

Projects not yet announced but likely to receive greater attention in the near future include development of new naval vessels to reflect the growing importance of littoral capabilities, a fast, sealift capability for US Marines in Guam and joint development of sensors, communication and ground support systems.

Despite this inevitable expansion of the Japanese industry’s joint development projects, Northrop Grumman Chairman Ronald Sugar expressed the opinion that Japanese firms would be unlikely to emerge as significant competitors to US rivals. Sugar fails to take into account the fact that Japanese manufacturers are likely to develop areas of specialization in which they exceed American and European rivals. Japan leads the US in several technical fields such as nanotechnology, where the government invests $800 million annually. The US Defense Technology Office foresees joint US-Japan research as making the best use of each nation’s strong suits. For the US, this is their underlying weapons systems, munitions and aerospace capability, while Japan excels in the areas of miniaturization, robotics and digital optics. These various strengths are almost certain to come together in the future joint development of Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs).

More than 50 nation’s now use unmanned drones for reconnaissance, intelligence gathering and the elimination of targets. Japan began its own UAV development program in 2005, with the goal of producing two prototypes by 2012, while Fuji Industries already produces a helicopter-based drone used for surveillance purposes. Another area in which Japan is ideally suited is Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs). Britain’s Special Forces are currently field testing a 28-inch long MAV, called the WASP, in Afghanistan. The remote-controlled drone is used for reconnaissance but can be fitted with explosives giving it lethal potential. The US Air Force Research Laboratory has set a 2015 deadline for a second generation of MAVs the size of birds and, by 2030, hope to produce a third generation the size of insects.

Robots have also become a major new military research field. Today US forces in Iraq make use of some 12,000 robots that can be equipped with missiles, rockets and machine-guns. One of the latest models, the remote-controlled MAARS, comes with speakers to broadcast warnings and commands from its operator and, should they prove insufficient, is capable of deploying non-lethal stun rounds or a decidedly lethal medium machine gun. One Air Force Lieutenant General forecast that by 2030 tens of thousands of robots would be regularly employed in conflict zones, robots with two decades of evolution from today’s clumsy models and with far different capabilities. The center for such development in Japan is the Technical Research and Development Institute (TRDI) which has stated its intention to focus on UAVs, MAVs, Robotics and Unmanned Underwater vehicles (UUVs) as significant areas of future research and development with a projected deadline for preliminary models of 2012-17. That Japan will soon enter into new areas of military development is clear but what costs might be involved is harder to predict.

Costs and Consequences

Development of high tech weapons systems was shown to have inherent dangers when North Korean defectors testified that smuggled Japanese technology has been an integral part of North Korea’s ballistic missile program. Additionally, research in other areas, particularly nanotechnology, is currently moving faster than the ability of regulatory bodies to ascertain potential dangers. Beyond this is the moral issue of where such systems will be used. According to the Congressional research center, in 2005 the US provided more than $11 billion in sales to 25 countries with human rights problems, 10 of which were classified as undemocratic.

Even where the use is sanctioned, human error or malfunction can lead to massive loss of civilian life. Boeing’s Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) is the most widely used ‘smart’ bomb in the US arsenal, yet it has an officially recognized failure rate of at least 2% and has been responsible for killing civilians, allied troops and US Special Forces as well as its intended victims. Similar problems exist with UAVs with Pakistani officials estimating that recent strikes have killed 687 civilians along with the 14 al-Qaeda leaders targeted by the attacks. Should Japan embark on a similar road of providing weaponry to other states, even when not directly involved in the conflict themselves, Japan will still bear a moral burden for any failures, in the design or use of their weapons.

Political Implications.

Efforts to legislate the international arms trade have met with repeated failure at both the UN, where efforts by a group of Nobel Peace Laureates to advance an ‘Arms Trade Treaty’ have borne little fruit since 2003, and in the US where the arm’s industry’s political connections have repeatedly trumped efforts to impose moral guidelines. The political pull of the Arms Industry is lubricated by what

Transparency International estimates to be roughly half of the $80 billion spent annually on political bribes and pay-offs.

In the UK Dick Evans, chairman of BAE Systems, was known to be one of “the few businessmen who can see Blair on request”. Robin Cook, Labour’s Foreign Secretary said: "I came to learn that the chairman of BAE appeared to have the key to the garden door to No 10. Certainly I never knew No. 10 to come up with any decision that would be incommoding to BAE."

Corruption charges brought against Evans were dropped by the Attorney General due to what he referred to as pressure from Downing Street. The UK is also a choice example of the revolving-door system whereby government employees take up work with defense contractors and vice versa. Among many others, Michael Portillo, Defense Secretary from 1995-7, arranged deals worth up to $500 million apiece for BAE and then became a non-executive director of the company. Roger Freeman, former Minister for Defense Procurement became chairman of Thales. And, Jonathan Aitken, another former Minister for Defense Procurement and a chairman of Le Cercle, was jailed for perjury regarding his involvement in arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

In the US similar conflicts of interest could be seen in Dick Cheney’s various entanglements with Halliburton, his wife’s role as former board member of Lockheed Martin and Bush’s nomination of the same company’s ex-President, to serve, consecutively, as Secretary of the Navy, Deputy Secretary for Homeland Security and Deputy Secretary for Defense. Such ties are by no means limited to Republicans though. Richard Blum, the husband of Senator Dianne Feinstein, acting Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, received millions of dollars in profits from the 75% share of stocks he holds in defense contractor Perini. Such ties remain under Obama, who bypassed his own ethics rules to appoint William Lynn, a Senior Vice President at Raytheon, to the position of Deputy Defense Secretary.

Japan’s Moral Fallibility.

Japan has its own version of the revolving door, a system known as ‘Amakudari’, or ‘descent from heaven’. In 2005 alone 106 senior defense officials took up positions with private corporations. Criticism of the system has led to legislation aimed at banning government facilitation of the practice yet this will clearly have no impact upon independent collusion. In 2005 80% of the $20 billion in defense spending was discretionary, allowing wide leeway for bribery and bid-rigging. In 1998 a senior Defense Agency official was charged with cooking the accounts of a contractor in return for an amakudari position. In 2001 two high-ranking former Fuji executives received jail sentences for bribery and the Defense Agency's Parliamentary Vice-Minister took his own life following involvement in the scandal. In 2003 Nippi Corporation admitted it had been overcharging the Defense agency for years, while 2006 saw staff at the Defense Facilities Administration Agency also arrested for bid-rigging.

The largest recent scandal began in 2001 with overbilling of the Defence Agency for $1.5 million by Yamada Corporation. In supporting their claims Yamada forged documents purporting to be from BAE Systems, and, when government ministers sought a face to face meeting with a BAE representative, Yamada hired a stand-in to fill the role. The Vice Defense Minister at the time, Moriya Takemasa, expressed outrage but it was not long before it turned out that he had himself been accepting bribes worth over $30,000 from former Yamada Director Miyazaki Motonobu. In return for Miyazaki’s favours Moriya is alleged to have awarded his company lucrative deals with General Electric. The fallout saw GE end its dealings with Yamada, and Moriya receive a two and a half year prison sentence and $125,300 fine. During his trial Moriya testified that other politicians, including an ex-Defence Agency chief, were also wined and dined by Miyazaki.

These revelations come not long after a regional Defence Facilities Administration Bureau chief revealed that he kept a list of 14 politicians, including 4 Defence Agency Director-Generals, whom he had witnessed helping particular firms win contracts. The problem in Japan is only likely to worsen as the ongoing economic decline means that potential amakudari style rewards are not as lucrative as they used to be. Hirano Hirofumi, chairman of Nikko Principal Investments, says "now we have an entire generation of bureaucrats who are disenchanted with their career prospects."

Studies into conflicts of interest by George Lowenstein at Carnegie Mellon have shown that disclosure of an existing conflict does nothing to raise the scepticism or caution of the public. It does however, lead to greater liberties being taken by the compromised person. The object lesson being that the public’s goal must not simply be to uncover and reveal such situations but to ensure that they are not allowed to occur in the first place.

The Pawning of National Security.

A separate concern is the possibility that arms manufacturers may be taken over by international corporations, lacking any sense of loyalty to the state and guided purely by profit. The Carlyle Group has established a reputation for acquiring smaller firms and selling them on at a profit. Initially the majority of these firms were defense contractors, though the group has diversified considerably since then. One of Carlyle’s most controversial purchases was Qinetiq, the research arm of the UK’s Ministry of Defense. Another was the $2 billion acquisition of Booz Allen, a contractor to all major US intelligence branches whose former Vice President, Michael McConnell, is now current US Director of National Intelligence.

In Japan efforts led by Isayama Takeshi, a 33-year senior official at the Ministry for International Trade and Industry, have allowed Carlyle to make tentative inroads. In October 2004 they took a controlling share in KDDI’s Willcom, by providing 60% of the $2.1 billion purchasing price, stating that Japanese firms were showing increased tolerance to sell subsidiaries to private funds. While the Japanese government has been leery of buyouts, its 40% capital gains tax is likely to be dropped in efforts to entice further investment by such firms, with Trade Ministry sources specifically naming Carlyle as a target.

Pork-Barrel Threats.

Eisenhower warned in his farewell address of the growing influence of the military-industrial complex while his contemporary, Senator Allen J. Ellender stated "For almost twenty years now, many of us in Congress have more or less blindly followed our military spokesmen. Some have become captives of the military." Among the myriad dangers of such captivity is the diversion of funds from social services to military boondoggles that do nothing to protect the nation. Examples appeared in Obama’s latest budget, which called for an end to several over-budgeted or technically dubious projects such as the F-22 fighter and the C-17 transport plane. Each of the projects has, nonetheless, continued its production run following campaigning by the political representatives of the states in which they are manufactured.

Seymour Melman wrote about economic growth as either ‘productive’ or ‘parasitic’. Productive growth being that which either improved people’s standard of living, and parasitic, that which simply acted as a depletion of resources. Beyond the set limit of reasonable necessity, military spending is the classic example of parasitic growth. Even Norman Angell admitted that it would be hopelessly naïve for states to avoid preparing an adequate defense against threats. The caveat being that these must be real rather than imagined.

Following the invasion of Iraq it was found that a large proportion of the deceit which obfuscated the initial case for war with Iraq, originated in a 2002 meeting between Stephen J. Hadley, Deputy National Security Advisor, and Bruce Jackson, Director of Strategic Planning for Lockheed Martin. Hadley informed Jackson that the US would be going to war but that they “were still struggling with a rationale to justify it.” Jackson responded by organizing the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq the results of whose efforts were documented by USAF Colonel Sam Gardiner. They included more than 50 outright lies that were widely accepted as truth, including; the search for WMDs, the rescue of Jessica Lynch and executions of Coalition troops by insurgents. During the invasion of Iraq, despite the fact that at least a quarter of the population was opposed to the war, anti-war voices represented just 3% of sources used by the major television networks while US military personnel represented 47%. Of 840 appearances by U.S. officials, only four were identified as holding anti-war opinions.

That the Japanese media are no more independent than their US counterparts can be seen in the criticism of them following their failure to fully investigate the recent scandal surrounding Ozawa Ichiro. Kyoto University’s Nakanishi Teramasu, feels "the mass media are failing to tell the people what is at stake”, while Journalism Professor Tajima Yasuhiko stated that rather than playing the role of government watchdogs, the media “act more like authority's guard dogs." In Eisenhower’s warning he urged that “only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together." In Japan, the presence of this alert and knowledgeable citizenry is open to question. A recent survey of 12 Asian countries found that while Japanese people did not trust government institutions the majority placed “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of trust in both newspapers and the military. Meanwhile, only 19% agreed with the statement “I think I have the ability to participate in politics”, the lowest of all nations.

The Arms Industry has shown its ability to acquire extensive power over governments from both the right (the Bush Administration in the US) and the left (the Blair government in the UK). The question is not whether they will wield undue influence over future Japanese governments, but instead ‘how much?’ The answer, as Eisenhower forewarned, depends entirely upon the presence, or lack thereof, of an “alert and knowledgeable citizenry”. There thus remains both time and hope that Japan can avoid falling into the militaristic patterns that have economically and morally compromised other nations.

Gavan Gray lives and works as a teacher in Osaka, Japan, where he is also a postgraduate student at Macquarie University’s Center for Policing, Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism. He can be contacted at gavangray@yahoo.com

Global Research Articles by Gavan Gray