alt Hacker NewsWe really need to up our defence game by not requiring collaboration with other countries or companies.
Sure we have BAE systems, Babcock and Rolls Royce, but none of these companies can produce a whole weapon/plane/tank by themselves, without needing another 100 companies to supply components around the world.
The same goes with our European friends across the water; to make the Eurofighter Typhoon required hundreds of companies to collaborate across the UK/EU.
We need a bit more independence, more garden shed industry and localised companies.
The UK has a lot of pioneering knowledge and continues to make breakthroughs but it would be better if we could be a bit more selfish and make our own stuff with our own supply chain.
To those that argue, "we live in a global world", "everything is more complex now", "UK defence can't make everything" - are you so sure of that?
Just an example - the Spitfire was wholly made in the UK in the 1940s with 200 companies subcontracted from big cities to small towns across the country.
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> but none of these companies can produce a whole weapon/plane/tank by themselves, without needing another 100 companies to supply components around the world.
This is true of anything that is sufficiently complicated. Apple designs products, but doesn’t manufacture most of the parts directly. They contract with specialized suppliers.
The Spitfire was created not long after the peak of British power. There has been A LOT of austerity since. The country can’t afford to increase military expenditure enough to onshore all weapons development, especially because (1) they aren’t at war and (2) the Spitfire was only as complicated as a car in the 1970s. A 5th generation fighter (like the F-35) or a 4.5th generation fighter (feature parity with several US and Euro fighters) would be 10x-50x more complexity. There is nothing gained by spending the extra money.
Indeed - the UK needs to rely more on home grown solutions. No harm in using foreign components/expertise to make progress, but we have to constantly strive to achieve self-reliance. This may never happen, but the trajectory needs be in that direction.
I think the word "selfish" here is doing a disservice to your argument. Nothing selfish about trying to achieve self-reliance. It annoys that even a lot of seemingly simple software used in the NHS relies on American SaaS companies.
France has its own independent military production including jet fighters (Rafale), tanks, ballistic missile, nuclear submarines and nuclear heads.
> we could be a bit more selfish
Brexit wasn't enough for you?
> Just an example - the Spitfire was wholly made in the UK in the 1940s with 200 companies subcontracted from big cities to small towns across the country.
Not the best example given the UK was a manufacturing powerhouse back then. We can't even build railways anymore. Even a lot of key infrastructure is contracted out to companies in other countries these days.
> We really need to up our defence game by not requiring collaboration with other countries or companies.
That would require reindustrialising, which while possible would require a complete reorganisation of UK society and accepting a much lower financial standard (financially, at least) of living as the workforce moves to manual labour from services.
> The UK has a lot of pioneering knowledge and continues to make breakthroughs but it would be better if we could be a bit more selfish and make our own stuff with our own supply chain.
This is just exceptionalist nonsense. The UK has neither the industrial expertise nor experience to rearm domestically.
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Possibly, but this is very expensive.
I also remember when the Scottish government tried to support Scottish shipbuilding by contracting the construction of some ferries to the single local bidder, Ferguson Marine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_ferry_fiasco
Garden shed industry gets you garden shed solutions. See the previous discussion about Ukranian cheap drones with limited effectiveness. It takes globalization to build an iPhone, and the larger your defence consortium the more advanced a solution you can build.