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U.S. Waived Laws To Keep F-35 On Track With China-made Parts
An anonymous reader sends this report from Reuters:
"The Pentagon repeatedly waived laws banning Chinese-built components on U.S. weapons in order to keep the $392 billion Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter program on track in 2012 and 2013, even as U.S. officials were voicing concern about China's espionage and military buildup. According to Pentagon documents reviewed by Reuters, chief U.S. arms buyer Frank Kendall allowed two F-35 suppliers, Northrop Grumman Corp and Honeywell International Inc, to use Chinese magnets for the new warplane's radar system, landing gears and other hardware. Without the waivers, both companies could have faced sanctions for violating federal law and the F-35 program could have faced further delays."
There's a lot of electronic parts in those planes. Seriously, where do you get the electronic components to run a modern warplane if not from China this last decade?
And maybe better for national security.
Assuming that there is any sort of provision to waive the restriction under chosen circumstances (and if there aren't, then the law could use a bit of a fixing), we're talking about magnets here. This isn't as though they're using a whole PCB from China with their firmware or something. Magnets. You can't do much spying with a piece of metal. If the random testing they do on all components anyway passes, I don't see any reason to find this problematic. China already has a near monopoly on rare earth materials so it's not particularly surprising that this is happening.
The good thing to do would be to try to plan ahead and develop internal facilities so that eventually it's roughly breaking even to use US magnets instead. The danger isn't in the magnets but in the dependency on another country.
During the height of the cold war, around the time of the Cuban missile crisis, the US built the SR-71, which was designed to spy on the Soviet Union, out of titanium supplied *by* the Soviet Union, which at the time had a near-monopoly on titanium.
"Components. American components, Russian Components, ALL MADE IN TAIWAN!"
Wasn't it a clever idea to let Magnaquench be sold to China? For those unfamiliar with it Magnaquench was one of, if not the, pioneer in rare earth magnets, and their use in various applications, including military. Here are links to articles about it in two websites that are on opposite sides of the political spectrum. Anything that the Heritage Foundation and DailyKos agree on is definitely worth considering.
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/05/magnequench-cfius-and-chinas-thirst-for-us-defense-technology
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/05/03/508203/-Magnaquench-160-Weapon-technology-with-a-bow-on-it
The F-35 is already in production and has been for several years - its in a phase called Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP) and the aircraft produced under is are indeed final production examples (barring any rework needed) rather than test aircraft.
100 production standard aircraft have been produced to date.
Taiwan wouldn't be quite so bad - at least they're a US ally.
... and China _knows_ about it's advantage in rare earth minerals. What will happen when that precious supply is mysteriously interrupted?
It's a very similar situation to what the CIA and NSA currently find themselves in with regard to optical quality glass for lenses. Nearly ALL of it comes from China. Consider satellites and lenses for spying and you'll perhaps begin to see just how ridiculous the West's dependance on China has become. Makes a person question the role of Nation States in terms of "national security" when they allow businesses in their own countries to ship jobs offshore in short-term attempts to drive down costs.
Someone using the term "Slashdot-tards" complaining about "hate filled rhetoric"? Since you read carefully, I presume you're familiar with irony.
If you think the magnet thing is bad, how do you feel about G.E. to Share Jet Technology With China in New Joint Venture? No dual use there, right? An easy field to develop expertise in, right? Which explains why the three major Western jet engine manufacturers (GE, Pratt-Whitney and Rolls-Royce), have been in control of the field since WWII. This is not something you figure out overnight. It's also no secret that jet engines are the biggest obstacle to developing "all Chinese" fighters.
I like the part where the article's headline specifically calls out the Chinese sourced magnets even though in three of the four violations cited the magnets came from Japan, not China.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
We could have bought it from Canada. Had we not fucked over their military aircraft program for the benefit of US arms manufacturers. That ill will must run deep for us to have to turn to Russia for our supply.
Have gnu, will travel.
Does the law as written actually permit the granting of waivers
Yes. If a manufacturer can demonstrate that some resource or component is not available domestically, they can seek a waiver.
The sad part is having worked for a DoD contractor that, upon identifying technologies with potential national security applications, crate it up and ship it offshore before it gets identified and put under ITAR restrictions. Its more profitable to sell the product worldwide from overseas locations and back into a US defense program with the waiver than to get it stuck on American soil.
Have gnu, will travel.
When the shit hits the fan and a US pilot is in a dogfight with a Chinese pilot, and the Chinese pilot throws the switch which tuns off the magnets in the US plane...
The F-35 is a huge threat to US security. It is bankrupting the nation, incapable of doing the job, and every squadron that adopts it becomes immediately non-operational due to all of its problems. If a foreign government did this to the US the cruise missiles would have been launched long ago. Kill the program!.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Who is overgeneralizing? The US has been actively engaged in pressuring, subverting, or overthrowing governments around the world to promote our own agendas since shortly after we joined The Great War a century ago. The Middle East just hosts some of the most egregious examples. Or do you suppose Australia signed on to the extremist US copyright treaties because they thought it was such a good idea for their nation? Military force is hardly the only way for a superpower to inflict its will on other nations.
If China were only fighting with those they've been fighting with forever I doubt anyone would care. How involved do we get with the constant warfare in Africa?
And yes, obviously the small nations surrounding China are allied with the US out of fear of China, especially those affected by China's openly declared intent to reclaim regions that were once part of the empire. The question you need to ask though is why is the US allied with them? What's in it for us? We want to keep China boxed in, and are willing to make some rather dubious alliances to do so.
We can hardly blame China for wanting to get us off their doorstep - how long do you suppose a Cold War alliance between Canada and the Soviet Union would have gone unchallenged by the US? We did everything we could think of to disrupt Cuba's ties, and they're just one little island off one small section of our coast - it could never have be more than a tactical strike base, whereas our allies allow us the option to completely blockade China.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
It's not an American thing, that's why there is a law. It had to be waived because unimportant parts from the supply chain were not domestic-only, and replacing the parts on principal is a stupid waste of time and money.
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you. This is the best I can do. I'm pulling for ya, kid- just hang in there.
You'd better let Molycorp know. They've put a lot of time and money into it and are finally getting US production back on line.
The heritage piece was an opportunist hatchet job to discredit all democratic presidential candidates
That must explain their crediting Hillary Clinton with having raised a legitimate concern, and their incredibly partisan conclusion that "it is not clear from the record that either Republicans or the Democrats, Bushes or Clintons, have the intestinal fortitude to take the steps necessary to monitor problematic foreign investment in America's high-technology manufacturing sectors".
Kos is so vague that I would argue it is wrong, and clearly given the date a pro-Obama job.
Yes, they're guilty of making incredibly vague statements like "in 1995 The Clinton Administration approved the sale of an Indiana company that made guidence systems for smart bombs to a Chinese led consortium". How could you even attempt to verify that?
I see editorial opportunism in both
Yes, citing facts to bolster an opinion is clearly opportunism.
So what is the point? Are they both right?
That wouldn't be surprising\, given that they both mention the same facts and concerns.
On December 19, 2013, Molycorp started up their rare earths separation plant. It's in Mountain Pass, California. So now there's a US source.
It's not that the US lacks rare earth metal resources. It's that, until recently, China was a cheaper supplier. Then the goverment of China tried to keep the price up and insisted that Chinese companies sell motors and other completed products, not raw materials. Some rare earth metal prices shot up by a factor of 20. So the Mountain Pass mine, closed in 2002, was cranked up again, this time with new equjpiment better pollution controls.
Pollution controls for a rare earth mine are a big deal. "Rare earths" are present in low concentrations, which means that a mine generates a small amount of product and huge amounts of toxic sludge. The big rare earths mine in China has the world's largest sludge pond, and it leaks. This created an environmental disaster area for tens of kilometers around. Villages have had to be evacuated because of sludge pond leaks. The Mountain Pass, California mine is less than a mile from I-15 between Barstow and Las Vegas. The US EPA, California regulatory authorities, and the Sierra Club all had to be satisfied that this project wouldn't create a big mess. That was done.
Now Molycorp complains that smuggling of rare earths out of China is pushing the price down, but they're digging them up, processing, and shipping them. Problem solved.
So no harm no foul. The F-35 JSF program is so absurdly over budget, late and has so many profoundly crucial problems with basic technology it will never see active service. The next President will kill it off.