Increased “weapons spending could create political and economic problems in Central Europe. "It’s extraordinarily unwise for these countries to shoulder these costs when they must pay the costs of meeting their social needs….These countries are free to buy American arms,...The question is how they pay for it. If the American taxpayer finances them, this would be a direct subsidy to the arms industry."
June 29, 1997, “Arms Makers See Bonanza In Selling NATO Expansion,” NY Times, Jeff Gerth, Tim Weine
“At night, Bruce L. Jackson is president of the U.S. Committee to Expand NATO, giving intimate dinners for Senators and foreign officials.
By day, he is director of strategic planning for Lockheed Martin Corporation, the world’s biggest weapons maker.
Mr. Jackson says he keeps his two identities separate, but his company and his lobbying group are fighting the same battle. Defense contractors are acting like globe-hopping diplomats to encourage the expansion of NATO, which will create a huge market for their wares.
Billions of dollars are at stake in the next global arms bazaar: weapons sales to Central European nations invited to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Admission to the Western fraternity will bring political prestige, but at a price: playing by NATO rules, which
require Western weapons and equipment.
”The stakes are high” for arms makers, said Joel L. Johnson, vice president for international affairs at the Aerospace Industries Association, a trade group. ”Whoever gets in first will have a lock for the next quarter-century.”
The potential market for fighter jets alone is $10 billion, he said.
Those jets will require
flight simulators,
spare parts,
electronics and
engine improvements.
‘‘Then there’s transport aircraft, utility helicopters, attack helicopters,’‘ Mr. Johnson said — not to mention military communications systems, computers, radar, radios
and the other tools of a modern fighting force.
”Add them together, and we’re talking real money,” he said.”
The first signs of a military spending spree in Central Europe have led the
managing director of the International Monetary Fund to raise the issue with the Secretary of the Treasury.
While the State Department says it is urging restraint on the potential NATO nations,
the Pentagon is enticing them to buy American warplanes.
NATO leaders are to meet in Madrid July 8-9 to vote on expanding the alliance.
The Clinton Administration says
Hungary,
Poland and the
Czech Republic
should be admitted now.
Some NATO members say
Romania and Slovenia
should join now, too.
But the Clinton Administration says Romania’s democracy and Slovenia’s military do not yet meet the alliance’s standards.
After Madrid, the issue moves to the
United States Senate, which must approve
new member states by a two-thirds vote.
‘‘To make sure the Senate knew
this was an important aspect of U.S. security,”
his U.S. Committee to Expand NATO
recently gave a dinner for a dozen Senators
at the private Metropolitan Club, two blocks from the White House.
Over lamb chops and red wine,
the Senators heard
Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright explain NATO expansion.
The guest list included Bernard L. Schwartz,
chairman of Loral Space and Communications,
a company partly owned by Lockheed Martin.
Mr. Schwartz personally donated $601,000 to Democratic politicians for the 1996 election.
part of a five-fold increase in defense companies’
donations to Democrats from 1992 to 1996.
Lockheed Martin wants its F-16 fighters to replace the old Soviet-made MIG-21’s in the hangars of Central Europe.
Norman R. Augustine, Lockheed Martin’s chief executive,
toured Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovenia
in April, drumming up business and
supporting the largest possible expansion of NATO.
In Bucharest, following through on an $82 million radar contract, he supported Romania’s entry.
”Norm [Lockheed CEO] has an
emotional commitment
to NATO expansion,” Mr. Jackson said.
In May, Bell Helicopter Textron’s chairman, Webb Joiner, also promoted Romania’s bid as he sealed
a $1 billion deal to sell the Romanians marine attack helicopters.
In Washington, the company’s lobbyist, Dick Smith,
said that Bell Helicopter Textron
was fighting for Romania’s inclusion by ”doing everything we can
to tell their story to our friends here.”
Mircea Geoana, Romanian Ambassador to the United States, said, ”The most interested corporations are the defense corporations, because they have a direct interest in the issue.”
NATO was founded in 1949 [during Truman administration], at the dawn of the cold war, to enlarge the [US taxpayer funded] United States’ power in Western Europe
and contain the Soviet Union
and its satellites in Central Europe.
The end of the Soviet empire [meant NATO’s purpose had ended]
[allegedly] created the chance
to expand the alliance. [It's the exact opposite. End of Soviet empire meant end of NATO's reason to exist. Continuing NATO was just an excuse to bleed struggling, powerless US taxpayers].
”But because it is not without cost and risk, it is appropriate to have an open, full, national discussion before proceeding.”
The Administration says the cost of a few nations’ joining NATO may reach $35 billion over 10 years, with the United States paying about $2 billion.
But the Congressional Budget Office says the cost may reach $125 billion over 15 years,
with the United States [taxpayers]
Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott said in an interview
that Central European nations
would actually spend less on arms once admitted to NATO than if left out, thanks to the collective security offered by the alliance.
they will feel less incentive to build up their armaments to deal with real or perceived insecurities,” he said.
But Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland all project rising military budgets in coming years, though that spending is still a small portion of their economies,
according to a Senate Foreign Relations Committee report by
Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr.,
a Delaware Democrat who supports NATO expansion.
Hungary expects that joining the alliance will increase its military spending by about 35 percent. Poland projects a 20 percent rise, though a United States Information Agency survey in Poland
found that three-quarters of the people
favored spending more money on health and education, not weapons.
Critics of NATO expansion say weapons spending
could create political and economic problems in Central Europe.
"It’s extraordinarily unwise for these countries to shoulder these costs when they must pay the costs of meeting their social needs,”
said Jack Matlock, a former United States Ambassador to Moscow.
”These countries are free to buy American arms,” he said. ‘
‘The question is how they pay for it.
If the American taxpayer finances them, this would be
a direct subsidy to the arms industry.
If they pay for them themselves, it could lead to real distortions in these countries’ own budgets.”
The prospect of soaring arms spending by potential NATO nations, particularly Romania,
also worries the International Monetary Fund,
whose billions of dollars of loans in the region
are conditioned on fiscal restraint, according to the fund’s officials.
This month, the fund’s managing director, Michel Camdessus,
raised the issue of military spending in Central Europe
with Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin,
according to a senior Treasury official.
At the same time, the fund’s staff, in its annual review of the United States economy, reminded the Clinton Administration of its past promises to help
prevent ”excessive military spending” in emerging economies,
including Central European nations.
The fund’s staff urged the United States to handle arms sales
"in a way that
avoids encouraging unproductive expenditures
and heightening security tensions.”
A senior Treasury official said the United States shared those concerns and had "urged NATO candidate countries to be cautious about buying big-ticket items.”
Still, to entice those same nations to buy American weapons,
the Pentagon has laid out a smorgasbord of
grants, discount loans and free leases.
have offered Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland five-year
leases of F-16 and F-18 fighter jets,
free of charge [meaning paid for by voiceless, enslaved US taxpayers].
That offer came after the three nations asked the Pentagon about the individual prices and availability of more than $8 billion in jets, according to documents obtained by Arms Trade News.
Eight billion dollars exceeds the three nations’ combined annual defense budgets.
Last month [May 1997], Romania became the first country to tap into
a $15 billion defense export loan guarantee fund,
at the urging of executives like [Lockheed CEO] Mr. Augustine.
The Romanians want the money to buy $23 million in unmanned reconnaissance planes.
And this year [1997], Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland
received $30 million from a $60 million Pentagon grant program.
Beyond Congress, the White House and the Pentagon,
NATO expansion is a hot issue in the growing subculture of nonprofit organizations, where interest groups form associations with civic-sounding names to advance their causes.
Mr. Jackson set up his U.S. Committee to Expand NATO committee last November [1996]. The committee’s board of directors includes
educators, business executives and lawyers.
Its members donate their time; it accepts no corporate donations.
One of its founders, Greg Craig, recently became the State Department’s director of policy planning.
Now the Romanians, hoping to win NATO membership in the next round of candidates, are helping to set up
two nonprofit foundations in Washington to advance their cause,
said Ambassador Geoana. Financial support for at least one of the foundations will come from Bell Helicopter, Lockheed Martin and other arms makers, the Ambassador and company officials said.”
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