I would seem that this story can be put to rest. A bit ago over the Islamic Republic News Agency it was announced that India have reached an agreement for India to buy the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier and 16 Mig-29’s.

It also appears that Russia and India are nearing a deal for India to get 160 Su-35 a 4+ generation fighter.

This would seem to have slammed the door on Boeing as far as any military sales to India while at the same time causing some major heart burn in Beijing.

By mid century when Russia has delivered the weapons that have been purchased in the past couple of weeks by Vietnam and India the tensions in South Asia and the South China Sea should be kicked up a couple of notches.

I would appear that China’s predictions of last summer that it seems likely during the next decade that their will be some military actions involving Vietnam and India appear to be on the path of coming true.

We are truly living in interesting times.

ALLONS,
Byron Skinner

Any information that I had I’m sure was already in the hands of anybody who desired it. Since I worked mostly with NPW. MWR and most of the onboard ship work was done on unallocated funds I had limited restrictions other then the usual of not disclosing work done to third parties, no colluding with unsuccessful bidders, returning all project specifications, drawing, when working on board ship I followed all of the security boiler plate in the project manual.

When I worked with the big boys (KBR, J.A. Jones etc.), I kept my mouth shut and followed the rules as I knew them, this cost me work but I didn’t find myself in front of a Federal Grand Jury either as some of my co-contractors did.

One piece of advice I will pass on to you Colonel is be mindful of what you say on certain topics such as “Signal” or “Nuc’s” especially, you may get some visitors to your computer that you don’t want.

My time in the military like yours is no ones business but my own. I seldom if ever question anybodies source for their arguments and expect the same courtesy. For the record, again I served in the US Army, was regular Army, my MOS was 11B and served in Vietnam. That’s about all. you get.

As for my statements and the loyalty of Defense Contractors, news of unauthorized technology over the past 50 years by contractors and or their former or current employees from the smallest firms to the big boys is not hard to find. The American Corporation is not a patriot organization but a return on share holders equity invest.

In the 21st, Century Defense Contractors are have to compete with such investment devices as hedge Funds, Commodity Speculation and derivatives etc. for investors money. These investments often pay returns in the double digits, where manufacturing traditionally has mid single digit returns plus what ever increase in equity value a company can manage. For a company to sell defense technology that the US abandoned or had seemingly exhausted is not out of the realm of possibility.

A recent example is in 2007 and IMB’s sale of it personal computer business to Lenovo of China (an owned and operated company of the PLA). A deal breaker was the inclusion of the IBM R&D Center in Columbia South Carolina in particular the 3ed. Floor secured area that dealt with US Government projects. The deal as I’m sure you know went through.

Anyone who is up on the history of Tom Watson and IBM of course is not at all surprised by this. During WWII IBM leased tabulator machines to the Germans, leased new units to the Nazi’s through a manufacturing deal in Switzerland and manufactured the cards in Sweden and sold them to the Nazis. These devices and cards helped track the Jews and got the trains to the death camps.

IBM was also a defense contractor for the US they made M-1919 MG’s. and office equipment that they sold to the US Government.

After the war IBM placed a successful claim against the US Government for reimbursement for tabulator machined destroyed in bombing raids in Germany, Italy and occupied France. They were paid.

Officially of course there was no loss if critical technology to China, unofficially there is a different tale being told.

ALLONS,
Byron Skinner

No I don’t work for the Federal, or for that matter other level of Government, I’m retired, with the exception of my time in the military. I have done a bit of contracting with the military on non weapons projects and by personal experience and I have yet to see a Government contractor not in it only for the money and that included working on projects with KBR, J.A. Jones, SAI (before it became SAIC, when Bob Byster still ran it) Triton (when Gene Ray ran it) to name a few of companies I have some familiarity with.

Your statement of contractors as being honorable, patriotic people I just can’t support. Any of these contractors would sell American defense technology to any body in the world in a heart beat. The above article clearly states that Boeing has offered the F-18 technology to India, one also must assume to anybody else with the cash too.

As a AF officer I don’t have to remind you that the E/F/A-18G that is replacing the E-6B is considered a national intelligence asset.

The picture with the story which includes an image of either a Soviet Golf or Hotel submarine being watched by a P8 Maritime Partol aircraft, which is a prime part of the United States ASW abilities, but Boeing it appears by implication is offering up this vital technology to a foreign country.

As far as the efficiency of Government employees, where is you evidence. I would say a company like Boeing that had over a decade to develop the FCS and still couldn’t come up with products is not a model of design, developmental or production efficiency.

I’m open to any suggestion that you might have Charles of how the United States can keep this vital defense technology secure and from being peddled to anybody world wide who has the money. Other then the DoD (Government) like they did in from WWII till the 1980’s by controlling all steps of the process?

Boeing is a big company that has a problem, declining US defense spending. They have very limited options. Voluntarily reduce their corporate size and sell off its military divisions to either the Government, or to equity groups that will do what Lenovo did to IBM or peddle US defense secrets to foreign countries. This is how the Capitalists system works, forget national loyalty or patriotism, Boeing is as patriotic as the Rosenbergs and Greenglass were, thats for the poor saps who don’t hold equity.

ALLONS,
Byron Skinner

Charles
LtCol, USAF Retired

One thing to note is that government employees are far less efficient than contractors — and so systems produced by government employees will always be more expensive and less available. I have worked producing hardware both with government employees (both in the AF and in non-military government areas) and have always found government employees to be far less concerned with cost and delivery schedule. They may be training on TQM and Lean Six Sigma and who knows what — but they all realize that they are hard to fire. It is always much easier to just add people to an effort — and allow some of them to slack off.

It sounds like Byron has never worked in a defense contractor, and so does not know that they are run by (with possible exceptions of course) honorable, patriotic people that apply common sense to their daily actions. Defense contractors are encouraged to SELL SELL SELL by their government, but often lose sales due to applying common sense about who might end up with the product.

It would seem Boeings expectations here to be unrealistic. Less the a year ago India was approached by US defense firms and were flat out shown the door. The Indians quite clearly would rather do business with the Russians. One would think that the US’s relationship with PaKistan has a lot to do with India’s coolness.

India always insist from the Russians that they would buy a few prototypes and then be licensed to do further production and to make changes, I don’t think this is what Boeing has in mind. Boeing of course is looking to be a player in the Asian market for multi-engine transport air frames. The cheap Asian labor could open up as of yet undeveloped and emerging markets for Boeing.

With Russia’s recent problems with the Il-76 and Il-78 it might be a good time to enter the market and defense products would be a cheap entry.

Now we come to the elephant in the middle of the room that no one wants to mention. The transfer of military technology, as clearly stated in the story above Boeing is intending on using as a selling point it will provide to India American military technologies.

I think Boeing’s proposed actions here make a strong case for the United States Government to get back into the development and production of weapons for US forces, after all the Gov’t, along with the Trade Unions (UAW) now have controlling ownership of both Chrysler and GM, both companies have long experience in defense manufacturing.

The selling of the US family jewels shouldn’t be a problem if the Gov’t had control of the processes, and not let the US defense advantage be subject to being peddling world wide by only for profit rogue defense contractors, who will sell to anybody. This is the DIRECT result of the process started in the Reagan era of contracting out to the civilian market America’s defense.

ALLONS,
Byron Skinner