Guns by the Ton

Defense Secretary Robert Gates just finished a six day tour of Asia, selling weapons systems to India and Indonesia, primarily, completely ignoring Pres. Eisenhower's warning. (posted at bottom)

In a speech given to Indonesian Council on World Affiars (part 1 and part 2), Sec. Gates emphasized the role of Indonesia in leading the region, while affirming the U.S.' role as arms dealer. Since normalizing military ties in 2005, the Indonesian military has benefited from increasingly generous military subsidies, in an effort to compete with Vladmir Putin's 2007 negotiations. In particular, the Department of Defense has begun using "1206" authority and the Global Train and Equip program to help bolster Indonesian military capabilities against a supposed terrorist threat. Although I don't see what naval installations and F-16s have to do with fighting individual extremists.

In nuclear India, Sec. Gates sought expanded military ties, along with, as you might have guessed, more arms sales. Besides the much sought after F-16, negotiations are also reportedly underway to include India in the missile defense shield that the Pentagon is trying to set up around Asia. This foreign policy of trying to be allies with both India and Pakistan at the same time is going to come to a head at some point. The longer the establish waits to produce productive changes in policy, the more violent the anti-U.S. backlash in Pakistan. Any worries about how a dangerous arms race could emerge between the two largest emerging economies in the world, stem from overlooking the inherently profitable nature of arms races, as each side tries to outdo the other in expenditures of treasure.

In another sign of attempting to graft foreign governments into our informal empire and the machinery that powers it, the Iraqi Army is switching from the AK-47 to the M-16. Besides the obvious cultural and political ramifications of this, between spare parts and replacements, arms manufacturers in the United States stand to make a big pile of money off of this.

Two of these arms manufacturers are reporting profits based on foreign military sales. Boeing (NYSE:BA) and Raytheon (NYSE:RTN) might as well be paying the salary of the SecDef for as much as he contributes to their bottom lines. After all, there would be little money to invent better ways to drop bombs if no one was willing to buy them.

For some additional background information, here is an article about the world's military industrial complex, and the Western world's role in it, which is about 75% of the total by value. And, of course, long overdue, the speech that coined the phrase Military Industrial Complex.