POLITICS MEETS BUSINESS AT WORLD’S LARGEST ARMS FAIR
By Ullrich Fichtner
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
AFP
Der Spiegel, Germany
ss/0,1518,508339,00.html
Sept 28 2007
Need some surface-to-surface missiles? In the market for grenade
launchers or plastic explosives? Manufacturers and customers meet
every two years in London for the world’s largest arms fair. In the
age of terror, business is booming in the secretive sector.
The Defence Systems and Equipment International exhibition in London
is the world’s largest arms fair.
Warships are on sale at the Royal Victoria Dock in east London.
Corvettes, frigates and mine-sweepers lie at anchor in the dark gray
waters of the Thames, their holds filled with potential buyers. Men
from faraway places, sweating in their suits and ties, stumble up
and down stairways, through machine rooms and across bridges. They
ask specialist questions about frequency and code agility, lateral
drift and hydroacoustic noise levels.
At the head of the wharf, on the "Nykoping," a new Swedish stealth
ship, Chinese delegates are photographing individual screws and every
weld seam in sight, while heavyset men from Africa and Southeast Asia
bump their shins against pipes and equipment.
"Don’t be fooled by the 620 tons of dead weight," says the officer
on duty, a jovial Swede, speaking as one expert to another. "As far
as performance goes, you are dealing here with a classic 1,200-ton,
steel-hulled corvette."
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article in your publication. On the wharf, the cavernous ExCel
London conference center is chock full of equipment. There are
surface-to-surface missiles, cruise missiles, armored personnel
carriers and artillery guns as tall as buildings, their barrels
pointing to the ceiling.
Smart bombs stand in display cases, looking like so many oversized
perfume bottles, and British soldiers demonstrate lightweight devices
used to fill sandbags. Heavy-set men in sports jackets play around
with armor-piercing shoulder-mounted guns, drink white wine on the
beds of military trucks and kick the tires of Humvees with their
polished loafers.
Potential customers can examine scale models of combat helicopters
and nuclear submarines, organizational charts of weapon guidance
systems and samples of non-magnetic steel. They hold pistols, grenade
launchers and intimidating machine guns in their hands as if they were
party favors. At booth 533, Hesco, a maker of protective wall systems,
has blondes in hot pants serving up cold beer.
It’s Sept. 11, 2007, the sixth anniversary of 9/11, and the global war
on terror is in full swing. Nevertheless, or perhaps precisely because
of that fact, people from around the world have been converging on
the ExCel exhibition center in hordes since the show opened in the
morning. Against the bold backdrop of Canary Wharf, and the even
bolder outline of the London skyline on the western horizon, a unique
trade fair has opened its doors. It’s called the Defence Systems &
Equipment International Exhibition (DSEI), and it is the world’s
largest assemblage of products from the arms and defense industry
— the fifth edition of a biennial of war, complete with country
pavilions, a "Night Vision Pavillion," and an "Innovation Showcase."
By noon the "Boulevard," the central mall of the ExCel center,
is teeming with emissaries from around the world. Exactly 25,699
visitors will come and go over the course of the four-day event.
Eighty-five official government delegations from 52 countries are
registered, and the exhibitors include, for the first time, Bulgarians,
Turks, Lithuanians and Russians. Inside the halls they join the
1,352 other exhibitors on 66,000 square meters (709,677 square feet)
of exhibition space, and during their short breaks they wolf down
pastrami bagels from paper bags and rinse them down with large cups
of takeaway coffee. Projection screens on the walls display video
clips of F-16 fighter jets in flight, interrupted by colorful ads and
confident slogans like: "Proud to Serve" and "Your Partner in Action."
Bottles of Veuve Cliquot champagne sit on ice in the West Quay Bar and
the VIP Cafe. There are plenty of reasons for weapons manufacturers to
be celebrating. The industry is booming, not just because of the war
on terror, but also because the world is feeling insecure because of
the myriad dangers that mark the beginning of the 21st century. The
arms industry is a billion-dollar market, and "the key parameters
are right," writes Jane’s Defence Weekly, the leading industry
publication. The business is doing well, or at least it isn’t doing
badly, despite cost pressures, budget cuts and increased competition
from Asia.
Can you buy weapons here? "It depends," says Robert Galvin, a slim,
unassuming, bespectacled man in his mid-thirties who works for
BAE Systems, formerly known as British Aerospace. Galvin runs the
company’s land-based systems unit, an important position. In 2006 BAE,
the world’s third-largest weapons manufacturer, earned ~@18 billion in
revenues, selling all manner of equipment that flies, floats, rolls,
shoots, explodes and kills.
An M777 howitzer, a huge, four-and-a-half-ton machine, its barrel as
long as a semi truck, is set up in front of the BAE booth. The gun,
loaded with 155-millimeter grenades, has a range of 24 kilometers
(15 miles).
"A very useful weapon," says Galvin, "quite effective in subduing
enemy movements." And the price? "It’s negotiable," says Galvin, "but
just to give you an idea: The United States has placed an order for
605 of them, which we will deliver in three batches, and it’s a $900
million deal." So one of the howitzers costs about $1.5 million? "If
you put it that way," says Galvin, beads of perspiration gathering
around his nose. And what if someone, an ordinary private citizen,
for example, had the necessary cash to buy one of these howitzers?
"You mean for the front garden?" Galvin asks. "Well, let’s put it
this way: We don’t deliver to front gardens and also not to back
yards. No way."
Part 2: A World Ordinary Citizens Never See
Rumors and hard news make the rounds in the aisles between the booths
during the trade fair. They depict a world that ordinary citizens never
see. The British are seeking partners for their ~@20 billion Future
Rapid Effect System (FRES), which will translate into Her Majesty’s
Army ordering 3,000 new armor-plated vehicles in the near future.
Saudi Arabia wants 72 Eurofighters at a cost of [email protected] billion. India
is talking to Saab about a new fighter jet, and there is talk
of an option for 126 of the jets, for starters. Rumor has it that
Artec, a consortium of the companies Stork, Krauss-Maffei Wegman and
Rheinmetall, is overwhelmed by orders for its Boxer armored personnel
carrier. The French Thales Group has reached an agreement with Raytheon
for the delivery of 5,000 target detection systems for missiles. The
US Army has ordered another 33 Stryker armored personnel carriers
from General Dynamics. Big things are happening, and moving, at the
DSEI. Every conversation here is practically an affair of state,
every deal is a slice of global politics and every contract signed
a new chapter in international "defense cooperation."
Can you buy weapons here? An attempt to do so at the stand of
missile manufacturer MBDA, where two slender multilingual hostesses
wearing identical outfits sit at the booth’s reception desk gazing
at computer monitors, fails miserably. The company played a leading
role in developing a new smart missile, the Fire Shadow, which, after
flying 150 kilometers (93 miles) in confusing circles and loops, is
capable of striking its target with deadly precision. The drab gray
missile looks harmless enough, almost like a failed model airplane.
According to the brochure, it causes "minimal collateral damage."
"Hello, I’m interested in the Fire Shadow."
One of the hostesses, who is wearing glasses, flashes a bright smile
and says, in English with a French accent: "Sure, let me take a
look… Do you have a business card?"
"Yes, here it is."
"Oh, you’re a journalist?" She is no longer smiling. "Well, I could
give you a press kit."
"I’d rather talk to someone."
"I understand," she says, suddenly busy with her mouse. "I’m very
sorry, sir," she says, "but the gentlemen are all in meetings for
the entire day."
The same thing happens at Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest
weapons manufacturer. The company’s annual sales of ~@27 billion are
almost equal to Germany’s entire defense budget. The group’s booth,
the size of an entire country pavilion, is divided into "issues" and
"solutions" for "critical tasks."
Lockheed Martin can procure anything, from binoculars to fighter
jets. A dozen attractive women sit at the reception desk, ready, at
all times, to "find you exactly the right contact person." But anyone
who introduces himself as a journalist suddenly discovers that all
the right contact people happen to be busy at the moment. "Perhaps
you could try again in two hours?" one of the receptionists suggests.
The DSEI is an extremely discrete affair, not as noisy and colorful
as computer trade fairs or as glitzy as auto shows. The defense
industry and its customers comprise the world’s biggest private club,
and its events are playgrounds for experts. On the Thursday of the
trade fair week, the true VIPs attend a gala dinner at the Dorchester
Hotel opposite Hyde Park. It would be easier to get an audience with
the pope than a seat at the DSEI bash.
These industry insiders are more than happy to isolate themselves,
work behind the scenes and gather at a major event that remains
largely unnoticed by the general public. Aside from the occasional
two-column story in the financial sections of newspapers, arms deals
remain largely a private affair. And as long as the deals themselves
are not too controversial, like selling submarines to rogue states,
tanks to dictators, or assault rifles to despots, no one is really
interested in scrutinizing this world too closely. For example, how
much airtime did the German army’s order for 272 Boxers get on the
evening news? How much media attention is given to the United Arab
Emirates’ efforts to boost their military capability and the fact
that they are particularly fond of German products?
At the Pakistan stand, rows of glass cases contain brightly polished
ammunition, shells of every caliber, rockets, grenades, 250-kilogram
aircraft bombs, plastic explosives and sticks of dynamite — in short,
everything the defence company Pakistan Ordnance Factories has to
offer. The press isn’t welcome here, either. Photographers are quickly
shooed away and conversations are terse. "Our best products?"
the salesman says. "They are all best products. Here, the
surface-to-air missiles, tested many times, and here, the
120-millimeter grenades, they have a ‘kill radius’ of close to 200
meters (656 feet), all best products. And now thank you and goodbye."
It is difficult to decide what stance one should adopt vis-a-vis the
DSEI. Who would want to stage protests when the police forces of
democratic countries come here to inquire about new service-issue
guns? Who would seriously call the attendees "murderers" when the
US Coast Guard is here to scout around for new radar systems? Even
when it comes to the weapons of war, one has to wonder whether,
in the world in which we live today, it is a scandal if the United
States sells missiles to Italy, or Germany manufactures tanks in a
joint venture with the Netherlands.
Those are the easy questions. Others are more difficult. What is
Turkey doing with the Leopard tanks it bought from Germany last year?
Is Pakistan, which ranks 160th out of 163 countries on the
non-governmental organization Transparency International’s list of
countries ranked by level of corruption, truly a credible "partner?"
Are new weapons systems in good hands when they end up in Russia —
or in Chechnya? Should Libya really be invited to an arms fair,
like at this year’s DSEI? Does Algeria handle its weapons responsibly?
There are many contradictions and many different "perspectives."
Countries that are on the European Union’s list of rogue state could
be allies of the United States, or vice-versa. In 2004, Slovakia sold
fighter jets to Armenia, which is under an EU arms embargo.
Azerbaijan, another country on the EU’s blacklist, buys tanks and
other heavy equipment from Ukraine.
And no one knows the true extent of the illegal weapons trade,
although experts all agree it is very large. The weapons trade is
a cat-and-mouse game for international monitoring agencies, and
the smaller the weapons, the more difficult it is to control their
proliferation.
It’s a subject that Glock probably knows a lot about, even if it
prefers to ignore it. At booth 1873 in the Austrian pavilion, Richard
Flur nods his head and says thoughtful things. Flur is the youthful
marketing director at Glock, a pistol maker so legendary that the
name even appears in the script of the action flick "Die Hard 2."
Around 5 million Glock handguns are in circulation worldwide, all
distributed according to the strictest criteria, according to Flur.
"Our company’s reputation is only as good as the reputation of our
worst customers," he says.
But is it even possible to prevent proliferation? Flur nods his
head again. Glock is now developing memory chips, he says, that will
make every weapon traceable. Major customers who come to Austria are
videotaped during negotiations and their voices are recorded. "You
know, our criteria are very strict," says Flur. "In fact, Austria is
a leader in this regard."
Despite the man’s thoughtful demeanor, the Glock booth is easily the
convention’s most vulgar. Glossy posters juxtapose the ergonomic
shapes of semi-automatic weapons with the erotic curves of nude
female bodies. Anyone approaching the booth from a distance could
be forgiven for thinking that Glock is in the condom business. But
the customers like the image, says one of Flur’s English coworkers:
"They love it, you know — girls and guns."
The DSEI is a nightmare for pacifists. They tried, unsuccessfully, to
put an end to the London fair. On the first day, 150 peace activists
manage to position themselves along the outermost fence, far from
the western gate to the exhibition grounds. On subsequent days the
only remaining protestors are small groups holding up banners in the
cold wind, surrounded by very large groups of police. They call out
"murderer, murderer" whenever taxis drive by, and in Hyde Park in
downtown London, they dye the water in a few fountains blood red in
protest. But out on the Royal Victoria Dock, the hordes of visitors
go about their business, completely unfazed.
What are the main issues of the convention? Wolfgang Baumbach, an
old hand in the German defense industry, should know. He was there
at the first German group booth in Turkey in 1991, when the "idea"
for the DSEI was born. Much has changed since then. Freedom is now
being defended in Afghanistan, and Germans can feel comfortable flying
their flag once again.
A framed portrait of German President Horst Kohler hangs above the
bar in the guest lounge at the German pavilion, where Weiss beer,
bratwurst and goulash are on the hospitality menu. Baumbach says:
"GPS is an issue, undoubtedly." Innovations in small devices are
also hot this year, apparently. "The big companies have moved away
from in-house production, for reasons of shareholder value," says
Baumbach. "Now they’re outsourcing everything, which results in a
real surge of innovations."
He takes me to a few booths to illustrate his point. Spelco is
displaying a new type of gliding device that allows paratroopers to
fly several kilometers before opening their parachutes. The German
army is showcasing the Mikado, a propeller-driven surveillance drone
manufactured by AirRobot. The soldiers manning the booth, Colonel Udo
Kalbfleisch and First Lieutenant Ramon Grunbein, say the device will
undoubtedly be a big seller. "And do you know what’s also an issue?"
Baumbach asks. "We have a shortage of engineers. EADS needs 3,000
people. That’s an issue."
As the world’s current leading exporter, Germany naturally plays an
important role in the arms trade. Last year, the country sold 156
Leopard I and Leopard II tanks to Greece and 48 to Turkey.
Ninety-nine M113 armored troop transporters were sold to Lithuania
and two mine-sweeping ships to the United Arab Emirates. South Africa
has taken delivery of the first of three German submarines, while
Finland purchased two mobile anti-aircraft systems. And that’s just
the big-ticket items — the trade in smaller products has been even
more lucrative.
German companies shipped close to 42,000 small arms to countries
around the world last year, including 10,411 grenade launchers to
Great Britain and 1,400 assault rifles to Latvia, with a further
2,025 assault rifles going to Mexico. Saudi Arabia purchased 1,030
semi-automatic rifles; Malaysia bought 505.
Despite these impressive figures, the mood at the Heckler & Koch
booth is not good. Hilmar Rein is clearly uninterested in talking to
the press, and the question as to whether one could buy weapons from
him falls on deaf ears. "Perhaps you should go to China if you’d like
to buy 10,000 pistols," he advises. "Or to Afghanistan, where they
make the things themselves. We here sell tools for police officers
and soldiers, and everything is done in an orderly fashion."
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"Armor-clad vehicles are big this year," says a very British gentleman
at the booth operated by US vehicle manufacturer Oshkosh, "and,
of course, unmanned vehicles." Oshkosh has conducted tests in which
it sent 30 unmanned trucks on a 132-mile journey through the desert
near Las Vegas. The trucks took eight hours to complete the course,
and there were no incidents. A new test run is planned for October
"in an urban environment" — if it is similarly successful, ghost
convoys could soon be rolling through enemy territory in future wars,
machines under fire from other machines. It’s an otherworldly concept,
but one that the people at the DSEI are busy transforming into reality.
Old cranes from the mechanical age stand on the wharf near the ships,
on the southern edge of the exhibition center, reminders of a bygone
era in a new world of technological wonders. London, with Canary
Wharf on the other side and the City off to the west, doesn’t look
like the capital of a country that conducts wars in the Middle East.
And after four days at the DSEI, a visitor might ask himself whether
wars were even what the whole trade fair was really about.
Men walk around in suits and ties — exhibitors, middlemen, delegates
— smoking and making telephone calls in all of the world’s languages,
sending emails with their Blackberrys and discussing "solutions,"
"responses" and "systems." They’re really talking about guns, radar
equipment and stealth bombers.
This is what goes on for a full four days at this weapons fair. On
Friday, the last day of the show, when the aisles empty early, the
dealers at the booths fill large glasses with white wine and drink to
a hard week. They’ve had to talk about many issues but, oddly enough,
war and peace were not among them. It was all just about solutions,
responses and systems.
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