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Defense contractors are forced to ramp up production but want long-term government guarantees of sales.

Business fears that they may expand production, but there will be no demand in three to five years.

Also, the lack of semiconductors and other problems with logistics have led to the fact that the order is three times longer than before the start of the conflict.

I thought we were told that it was all about protecting democracy and a free world, turns out it’s all about money.

  • afellowkidEnglish
    10·
    1 year ago

    Even as orders start to pile in, the fear in the industry is that it could expand production only to find that when new facilities open in three or five years’ time, there is no demand. Governments have backtracked on plans before and many European capitals have repeatedly failed to meet NATO targets on stockpiling or the pledge to spend at least 2% of gross domestic product on defense. NATO allies on Friday agreed a firmer commitment to hit the 2% target.

    Ugh, last year Mark Esper(*) was in Korea salivating about the 2% defense spending target as well (@18:22), regarding the USA’s Pacific allies and listing off what kind of products he wants them to buy, at a think tank hosted by the Unification Church.

    (*) For those unaware of this guy, he’s a former Raytheon “vice president of government relations”/lobbyist turned US Defense Secretary and now once again works for some “defense” manufacturing company (he might be the CEO iirc) while being on multiple think tanks like the Atlantic Council and Council on Foreign Relations and says Asia should have it’s own NATO (the “Quad”), selling it by fearmongering/BSing about China and DPRK

    Side note, the forums where these mfs sales pitch this stuff to each other look like something out of a film:

    photo from think tank 2022

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OPEnglish
      7·
      1 year ago

      Yeah, the war industry in the west is absolutely wild. It’s like a scene from a Bond movie there. I think the part they’re not taking into account is the unravelling of the economic situation in the west. Forcing countries to ramp up military production will necessarily mean having to do more austerity while people are already starting to get rowdy about their standard of living collapsing. I really expect that the whole NATO and EU money making schemes could end up collapsing in a few years as a result of that. These kinds of grand alliances only work when the going is good. As soon as the economy starts deteriorating you start seeing ladder pulling happening.

      Nationalist sentiment is starting to take hold both in Europe and in US. Countries are going to start focusing on protecting their piece of the pie, and they’re not going to want to share what they have left with others. We’ll start seeing old animosities resurface, as is already happening between Poland and Germany, and recriminations over who’s not doing enough. It’s going to be an incredibly toxic environment where no real unity is going to be possible.