October 15th was a big day for the Obama administration and fans of violent conflict all over the world. That's because October 14th marked an ephocal shift in US military exports policy- "a shift that former U.S. officials and human rights advocates say could increase the flow of American-made military parts to the world’s conflicts and make it harder to enforce arms sanctions". Cora Currier offers details on the worrisome and somewhat under-reported story of the Export Control Reform (ECR) Initiative.
While Clinton and Bush flirted with relaxing arms control to satisfy the defense industry, it is President Obama who finally cut the deal. Originally, the defense industry and its trade groups focused on "restructuring and speeding up the State Department system, where the wait for a license had sometimes stretched to months". But Currier explains that the "current focus on moving items to Commerce began under the Obama administration".
In 2009, then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates found himself persuaded by industry representatives that the health of the country's defense industrial base was at stake. National Security Advisor Gen. Jim Jones presented the case to President Obama, who agreed. Prior to serving in the Obama administration, Gen. Jones Upon worked as president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for 21st Century Energy and, in 2008, served as the State Department's Special Envoy for Middle East Regional Security. In 2010, after leaving the White House, Gen. Jones decided to open up his own Jones Group International, which focuses on advising for energy security and national security. According to the company website:
During his NATO assignment from 2003-2006, Gen. Jones advocated energy security and the defense of critical infrastructures as a core part of NATO's future missions. With the Chamber, Jones worked to unite energy consumers and producers for a common goal - to increase the variety of the U.S. energy supply and associated infrastructures, to advance international cooperation on energy issues, to protect national energy security, and to promote better understanding of changes to the global climate and its effects on the environment.
Gen. Jones certainly played a part in preventing the Obama administration from beginning a war with Iran. His personal and political interests in Iran might be related to economic interest as well (though I have not found anything to substantiate such a link).
Of course, the questions about a relationship between economic prosperity and national security have not been resolved, and some scholars argue that prosperity which relies on economic conquest of other countries increases risk of terrorist attacks and instability. The money will also continue to fill the coffers of the US defense industry that is responsible for the making of foreign policy in Washington, D.C.
Who stands to benefit from the relaxed arms export rules
Gun makers and members of the defense industry stand to benefit financially from these rules. In the first quarter of 2013, Sig Sauer Inc. paid lobbyists $45,000 to lobby for "export trade reform" as related to foreign military sales of firearms and ammunitions.
Remington Arms Company Inc. also forked out $45,000 in the same quarter to lobby for "lobbying on the issues of defense, environment/superfund, and firearms/guns/ammunition". What caught my eye was Remington's particular interest in “small arms sales to the Department of Defense and foreign military sales under contracts with the Department of Defense Direct sales of small arms to foreign countries requiring approval of the Department of Defense and State and Congress.”
The Commerce Department gains a critical foothold for increasing relevance in the policy world, since entire categories of war-related equipment will move from State Department control to the looser flexibility of the Commerce Department control. This helps explain the heavy-handed lobbying conducted by the US Chambers of Commerce in favor of the Export Reform Initiative.
The Coalition for Security and Competitiveness, for example, "was formed to achieve a more efficient, predictable, and transparent export control system that is an enabling component of America’s broader national security strategy". Its members include various trade associations as brought together by the US Chamber of Commerce for the purpose of lobbying Obama to pass the ERC.
Cora Currier observes that Lockheed, which manufactures C-130 transport planes, Textron, which makes Kiowa Warrior helicopters, and Honeywell, which outfits military choppers, also lobbied for the arms control reform.
The Chinese arms industry is also making a killing off the very policy intended to increase American economic power. Former undersecretary of state John Bolton bemoaned the Chinese support for Obama's arms liberalization earlier this year- to no effect, obviously.
Who stands to lose
In my opinion, everyone who hopes to see a decrease in international conflict and national violence stands to lose from this decision. American national security stands to lose. But take my opinion with a grain of salt- I was one of those "crazies" who predicted the war in Iraq would lead to insurgency rather than neoconservative pipe dreams.
The fact is that international organizations and multilateral efforts between the US and other nations stand to lose substantially from this policy. For example, mandatory UN arms embargoes, a key multilateral policy effort used by the international community in diplomatic negotiations, loses its sting. In addition, the State Department (specifically, the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls) loses a critical diplomatic tool to the newly-empowered Commerce Department.
US relations with Saudi Arabia and Egypt stand to lose. Does it seem strange that Saudi's huff is being reported as a consequence of Western hands-off policy towards Syria?
Critics and a few untidy questions
Off the top of my head....In a report for the Center for International Policy, William D. Hartung questions the Obama administration's assumptions of economic benefits flowing from the arms trade liberalization. Brittany Berkowitz expresses her concerns about the liberalization on the Arms Control Association website. Legislative critics of the reform include Senator Richard Lugar and Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio). What role, if any, did Steven Pelak play in this policy shift?
Just before Congressional Republicans decided to take a vacation with the government shutdown, fifty senators refused to ratify a UN Arms Control Treaty signed by the US. The Arms Treaty was approved in U.N. General Assembly by a vote of 154 to 3, with 23 abstentions. North Korea, Iran and Syria voted against the treaty. The treaty, itself, regulates trade in conventional arms. It does not ban or prohibit the export of any type of weapon and doesn't infringe on member states' right to self-defense.
On the question of how this will affect criminal prosecution of arms dealers and smugglers, I'm inclined to browse through recent indictments by US government agencies in export-related violations. Significantly, a number of indictments in the past three years involved persons attempting to procure fighter jet parts for Iran. Take Omid Khalili, for example, who pled guilty in 2010. The Department of Justice press release described the context of Khalili's case:
These parts are replacement parts for a military aircraft that were sold to Iran by the United States before the 1979 Iranian revolution. As of 2009, this military aircraft is in service with only the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force. The parts requested by the defendants are designated as defense articles on the U.S. Munitions List and may not be exported from the United States without a license from the U.S. State Department. In addition, these items may not be exported to Iran without a license from the U.S. Treasury Department due to the U.S. trade embargo on Iran. The defendants had not obtained the required U.S. government export licenses for such exports.
It is unclear whether former Iran-Contra arms dealer Joseph O'Toole and Israeli national Chanoch Miller would have benefitted from this policy shift in time to avoid their recent prison sentences. Given O'Toole's comraderie with other Iran-Contra vets, it would be interesting to see how (and if) O'Toole would have been prosecuted for any crimes under the new arms control laws.
As noted by War Is Business, better to smuggle weapons than drugs when it comes to prison sentences in these United States of America. I'm smiling, barely.
MORE IN THIS VEIN:
Joseph O'Toole's escape from punishment in 1991 (Los Angeles Times)
"BAE Systems is a British success story- so why the secrecy?" by Owen Hatherly (The Guardian)
Gen. Jim Jones won't apologize to Israel over Iranian nukes (The Washington Times)
CSC letter to the President (CSC)
Gen. Jim Jones calls on US to help Iranian refugees (CNN)
How O'Toole and Miller got caught (Terror Free Somalia blog)
"US leads global arms exports surge" by Steve Hargreaves (CNN Money)
"Embassy row: Prison camp Liberty" by James Morrison (The Washington Times)
