This is not good… according to the BBC there may have been 69 Patriot missiles caught in a cargo ship in Finland.
This is bad. Really, really bad.
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Patriot missile smuggling?December 25th, 2011 |
 29 comments to Patriot missile smuggling? |
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Yes, it could be pretty serious.
Quite some time ago, I stopped implicitly believing any BBC report about anything, because they seem to have been engaged in so much propaganda. However, if this report is corroborated independently by other reputable news agencies, then it may be evidence of a very serious state of affairs.
I wonder.
Could the Iranian’s capture of a UAV now make a lot of sense?
Could it be that maybe the Iranians actually had that UAV delivered to them? That would explain why it seems to have appeared as though it was intact/undamaged. But they wouldn’t want to let on that they had bought or been given the thing, because that might endanger their sources. So they could have shot one down, so the (US would know they had lost a UAV), destroying it in the process, and then displayed this intact model as the one they purportedly brought to earth in such an immaculate state.
There may be a lot more to this. I have read other articles which I cannot get confirmation on yet, but if they are solid, there is going to be hell to pay: http://chasvoice.blogspot.com/2011/12/israel-caught-selling-69-us-patriot.html
This sort of stuff has been going on for some years, with the tacit approval of high-ranking US officials.
Selling that many Patriot Missiles to China? I don’t think so. This is so out there, so very wrong on so many levels that any officer of the US military who did so should be taken out and summarily shot.
In a libertarian world, would it not be possible for me to simply order such missiles, if I had enough money that is?
Perhaps in a fully anarchocapitalist world… but here we hit the area where I fear one is stuck with at least a little bit of government. If you are going to defend yourself and perhaps those friendly to your way of life, you really do not want to hand your stuff over to your potential enemies.
The only option would be to have the minimal state, as part of its defense role (defense, courts, police), have weapons systems built not only on its tab, but solely for it. The downside is that none of that stuff could then be sold or given to other friendly nations, ie it would not be possible to sell any to Israel or to Japan or whomever else we have allowed them (South Korea?)
However much Murray might have protested, there are strategic interests, interests on the very survival of your way of life depend. The trick is to understand what those national interests really are, rather than declaring pretty much everything an interest.
Sounds like a sting.
As I’ve dug more I am seeing claims that they were a legal transfer from Germany to South Korea. Sounds fine, but I really have trouble with the idea of a ship with 69 Patriot missiles in the hold stopping in the port of Shanghai where the Chinese government could ‘detain’ them…
There is still something here that just does not smell right.
I have seen nothing further that substantiates any Israel or other Middle East angle.
To get my point, imagine you are having a conversation with the US State Department (and believe me, the re-export of a Patriot is going to require oodles of ITAR paper work).
Exporter: “We’re going to sell new Patriot missiles to South Korea”
DOS: “okay…”
Exporter: “We’ll be shipping them from Germany in a cargo ship that will makes stops in Finland and China…”
DOS: “uhhh… you are going to do WHAT????”
@Dale Amon
I mean that technology transfer has been going on illicitly for some time between the US and China. The Chinese space programme seems to have been helped quite a bit by some industrial espionage at NASA, which was covered up by US authorities. Of course, it’s difficult to prove actual connivance, but it seems not unreasonable given US economic dependency on China.
Is it common for legal weapons’ shipments to be marked as ‘fireworks’?
I’m not sure how hi-tech the Patriot missile is. I remember when they first put in an appearance in the Gulf War, they were little more than a giant flying shotgun. I’m sure they’ve advanced a bit since then, but aren’t the clever bits in the ground radar, not the missile itself? I don’t think this is as bad as the Aegis system being sold under the table.
Can anyone comment on that?
Just a cautionary note on this story. Where did the BBC get the ‘Patriot Missile’ description from?
It’s a very long time since I worked for a defence industry company but apart from in the glossy brochures for the arms fairs I never saw any paperwork concerning the items of banging equipment we manufactured that referred to the product by its ‘name’. Wouldn’t have made any sense. Each product comes in so many variations. For a start there’s the real thing. The type that does something, then goes bang. Then there’s the practise version that does everything but go bang, the practise version that just looks like the real thing but’s full of concrete & the dummy that weighs the same as the real thing with the same attachment points so that crews can practise handling without risking damaging an expensive bit of kit.
Even the real, go bang versions come in umpteen different types depending on use/user/version.
The paperwork usually refers to a – MS620/5 Series 7 Mod 2.5 DVL2Ca or any other conglomeration of alphanumerics takes your fancy. It’s certainly unlikely there was a cargo manifest listing Missiles, Patriot – 69off.
The other way round, would anyone recognise a Patriot if they tripped over one? Missile, small/medium, painted olive drab. Shouldn’t think they’re shipped with the warhead attached either. Our banging stuff wasn’t.
So what are we talking about here? A batch of vintage 2011, state of the art rocketry? Some time expired 20 year old junk about as secret as Hugh Grant’s taste in women or expensive garden ornaments with fins on?
Germany is claiming they are legal shipments; the Finns say the paper work was not in order; there does not seem to be any more discussion of the ship stopping in Shainghai, something for which there had better be a very good explanation…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45774847/ns/world_news-asia_pacific/t/who-owns-patriot-missiles-seized-finland/#.TviCjjjXomA
Eh – it’s just Holder doubling down on Fast and Furious.
Lets remember the old principal “Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity.” At least not without proof.
I tend to believe the Germans, after all what nation is better at bureaucracy than they are ? I also believe that they were idiots to ship it using a vessel that stopped in Shanghai.
The Finns may actually have received the paperwork from the Germans and lost it. The ship’s captain may have screwed up the papers, the dog ate my homework etc etc.
Germany has been selling parts of it’s PAC 2 system to South Korea for years, its no secret.
Israel has never bought the PAC 3 system, it has upgraded its PAC 2s to the PAC 2 GEM configuration.
Ellen, with a name like that, you just knew there was going to be a sequel.
And you’ve just gotta know that the next one will be in 3D.
I wonder who has sold the secrets of the Orion Project (canceled by Jack Kenndy) to the Chinese. Secrets like how to make mini nukes. Someone is bound to have sold all the files (and so on) by now.
Freeman Dyson (and other genius types from the Golden Age of technological development) worked out all sorts of things – but then decided it would be bad (they got into all this no-nukes-in-space stuff and so on) so they actually supported closing down their own project – so that various international treaties could be passed.
As if the PRC regime (and so on) could care less about treaties it signed.
There are plenty of highly intelligent scientists in China – but why not just buy the secrets (and develop out any problems there might have been).
I can even think of the words someone who sold them the files (and so on) would say to themsleves.
“If I do not sell this stuff – someone else will”.
And.
“The Republic is dying anyway – I might as well have some money to have some fun, before everything falls apart”.
Much the same as the Patriot missiles – and everything else.
Taylor. I just don’t buy it. Transfer of Patriot missiles is going to be under ITAR and will require a great deal of paper work with that department within State. I’m pretty sure they would have to specify the transport and security of the things in transport. Sticking the stuff on a tramp steamer and saying bye-bye, have a nice trip, is just not going to cut it.
In this case is suspect that the funny bunnies at State who control ITAR said to themselves “Its the Germans, everything is Germanically perfect.”
The Germans who don’t have the US allergies towards sending weapons to China, got their paperwork in order and sent the missiles on their way without bothering to check on the shipper.
The other possibility is that the South Koreans wanted it shipped the cheapest possible way and this was it.
Given what they put New Space folk through just to be able to talk to the Russians, I don’t think so. You dot your eyes and you cross your tee’s with those folk. Now, if the German’s did Germanically thoroughly do so and then do something else entirely, there will be deep repercussions. If someone at State did not indeed check such things, there will be deep repercussions.
Let us just say that if this is the way ITAR is handled when it really matters, then the hassles they cause our own industry are simply intolerable and the entire organization needs to be gotten rid of.
I think we have a winner:-) Seriously, if it wasn’t Germans’, why would they claim it?
Dale you’ve hit on the core of the problem with ITAR. The State Department is full of diplomats, whose core function is to be diplomatic with foreigners. Particularly with nations that we have ‘good’ diplomatic relations with.
Being nice to US businesses , particularly small ones is way down on their list of priorities.
In any case are you sure that transfers of US made weapons from one foreign nation to another is covered by ITAR. It may be covered by some Pentagon agency ?
The ship’s itinerary has not yet been made public has it? So we do not know whether the stop in Shanghai is due before or after the stop at some as yet unknown port in Korea.
And even if the Shanghai stop does come first, we don’t know whether the missiles have been shipped with radar and fire units included (I wouldn’t think so).
Another question: let’s say the ship does stop in Shanghai first, and the Chinese do get hold of the missiles (and their ancilliary components)… would they actually be able to reverse engineer them? We seem to be taking it as read that they’d have no trouble doing this.
Sure the radars are important. But so are the engines and control systems. Those are very sophisticated rockets. Even 20 years ago it was awesome to watch them turn at practically right angles to go after the target. That kind of technology would be invaluable. As many friends of mine have discovered by re-solving some of these control problems, this is nontrivial… and none of those friends are doing high speed high G load turns in their rockets. This is not to mention that with hands on intact Patriots, they can figure out how to get around them.
Remember how much outcry there was during the Clinton administration when some American engineers told some Chinese engineers a few things just to make sure their satellite got launched safely? The ‘scandal’ that caused congress to ‘do something’ (ie shoot American Aerospace industry in the head) just to show they were ‘on top of it’?
And as to the capabilities of the Chinese to reverse engineer? Come on. Be real. These are some of the smartest people in the world. Of course they can.
What is a ship that is bound from Germany to China doing in Finland? Anchor chains? That’s the sort of low-tech heavy-metal product that China probably does at a tenth of the cost of Finland.
Also, how does a ship get from Germany to Finland in winter? Isn’t the Baltic frozen over at this time of year?
And why is the ship carrying explosives? China can make all the HE they want. In fact 160 tonnes is trivial compared to China’s annual consumption for munitions.
Ah well. Wiki sez nitroguanidine is made by a proprietary process, and is especially good for smokeless powder in large-bore guns, i.e. artlllery.
Rich, this may be a red herring, but: Back in the day, Finland was well known around the industry to be a corridor to the Soviet Union. Stuff sent there would mysteriously disappear from a truck or train inside the country, and reappear later in Russia. Makes me wonder if Russia was also trying to get their hands on a few Patriots. (Although you would think they’ve already had opportunities to look at the PAC-2 by now. Also, I wonder if they still have the ability to reverse-engineer something like that.)
Are there any more developements in this story? It’s even more peculiar that the story has been brushed under the rug by the media here in the US. There were just a few blurbs for two days apparently trying to diffuse concerns, but the facts remain – US defense technology probalby valued somewhere from $10 to $100 billion was being shipped through a damn Chinese port in packages marked ‘fireworks’.
This was no mistake. No one makes such a mistake on a shipment of this value – as some of you pointed out. This is bigger than the Iran-Contra affair of the 1980’s, yet the media seems to be dodging it. I’m sure the CIA now knows exactly who was sending these missiles as it’s fairly easy to track the design specs. We pretty much its one or more of the following nations: the US itself, Germany or Isreal involved. I have yet to see any real evidence of the latter yet – So its really not fair to include Israel as a suspect, but rather more of a ‘nation of interest’ since so many PAC-2’s have been sent (and even used) there.
One thing is clear…someone needs to provide a better answer than the BS we have been fed. They were not going to South Korea (on a ship bound for Finland and then China packaged haphazardly as ‘fireworks’.) There was no error involved “woops, what did we do with those $10 billion rockets?”.