The Latest Trend In Job Outsourcing: Military Contracting
In his failed attempt to become a Congressman, Paul Hackett raised an interesting question about the latest form of job outsourcing that received little press attention. The most important American battle tank, the Abrams M1A1 is being outsourced to Egypt for construction of many copies, with a full 555 produced in Egypt so far. It was not long ago that some major clothing retailers closed American textile supply factories and began producing shirts and clothing with a "Tailored In Egypt" label. Now the most important American battle tank is being increasingly produced in this nation with very low wages. At millions per copy, this saves the military contractor a huge American labor savings.
Outfitted with night vision operating systems, the ability to withstand biological, chemical or even limited nuclear radiation of a nuclear attack, the Abrams is a high tech tank of the highest technological design. Yet America has no problem in outsourcing the construction of such a high tech weapon. And this may be the beginning of a new trend, Congress voting for hundreds of billions in military expenditures, with billions going into contracts for high tech military gear that won't be manufactured in America, but in some labor cheap nation. For some reason national security or other issues have not been raised by the public that Hackett was concerned about. Hopefully this will not become a new trend; sensitive military technology produced abroad in job outsourcing mega-deals.
posted by Paul Hooson @ 6:32 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Another problem with this outsourcing is that it is poor national security policy for several reasons.
Here's one. Building an arms industry in Egypt at US taxpayer expense can backfire. Mubarak is an autocrat and his government could fall. In such case we may be facing a hostile government, with an arms industry we built.
Blowback from terrorists our government previously trained is already hurting us in Iraq and from al Qaeda.
I agree with you, alpha liberal. Only Israel is a democracy in the MidEast. All other nations are unreliable nations to depend on. Mubarak may serve some U.S. goals, but allowing Egypt to actually take over construction of critical high tech military goods with possible sensitive technology is not good for America.
Internal facts about weaknesses of products such as the Abrams vulnerabilities could contribute to the development of new weapons to undermine this important main battle tank of the U.S. by adversary nations.
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