By Craig Cormick
This is going to be a bargain basement year for the discerning arms buyer. There hasn't been a year this good for picking up cheap weapons since 1946.
Just a few years ago, with prices climbing faster than an MX missile, it was all a developing country could do to squander its budget just on keeping its army in uniform and supplied with half a dozen tanks and an outdated French jet or two. But today, even bankrupt nations are laughing. It's a buyer's market!
For, with a whole new standard of what is now de rigueur in arms having been set by recent arms exhibitions, such as the Gulf War, smart missiles are now the smartest fashion, and many countries are selling off last year's range with price clearances comparable to a trash and treasure sale.
The media coverage of the Gulf War not only enabled defence ministries to do their shopping while watching the television news but also set a new fashion in army wear. This season, everyone, and I mean everyone, insists on the latest well-cut desert camouflage. Even South-East Asian jungle units are wearing them. This has inflated prices on these garments, but you can now buy full khaki dress from last year's range at a ridiculous price, often without bullet holes.
As more developing countries see the importance of having the latest fashions in tanks and submarines, even African nations that once would have settled for World War II vintage materiel are demanding state of the art electronic equipment.
The very best, such as the Tomahawk cruise missile, isn't cheap ($1.5 million). But with the World Bank currently offering low interest loans for infrastructural investment, who could refuse? Even poor countries like Sudan are spending up to 20% of their budgets on armaments.
There are plenty of bargains around. It is now possible to buy a cruise missile for under $1 million — and most African and Asian countries can achieve this by closing down only about 20 hospitals and schools.
Some consumer protection organisations say that spending 20% or more of your budget on armaments will leave your cities, roads and civil services in disrepair — but not as much disrepair as would occur if you don't spend that money but your neighbour does.
There has been concern as to the effects of dumping of Soviet arms on the global market, but as some buyers may be surprised to know, a lot of it actually works. And with their limited-time Eastern European closing down sale, now is a good opportunity to buy anything from cap badges to armoured personnel carriers.
Arms merchants are crying poor, with little prospect for market oslavia. After global sales reaching about $49 billion in 1989, and dropping to $37 billion last year, their loss could be your gain.
Australian government controls, hampering local manufacturing industries, had previously restricted our arms sales to portable latrines and kangaroo stencils. Many of these regulations have now been removed, and Australian manufacturers have much more access to world markets.
The government's Buy Australian campaign, linked to an aggressive export strategy, is starting to make an impression. In 1989-90 Australia exported over $110 million worth of armaments.
The sale of 50 Mirage jets to Pakistan, while also selling defence equipment to India, was a good example of applying US sales tactics. Other successes include selling helicopters to Papua New Guinea, various patrol boats and aircraft to the Philippines and aircraft parts to Burma. Although we currently sell only about 4% of our defence exports to the Asia-Pacific region, Australia is building its own rich market in this area.
The Middle East is still the big market to crack, with enormous growth potential. Since the Gulf War ended, both Saudi Arabia and Israel have placed multimillion-dollar arms orders, primarily from the USA, and Syria is negotiating to buy about $2 billion worth of equipment from the USSR.
Regrettably, Australia missed out on the "big one" with a last minute ban on the planned Hawker de Havilland sale of $850,000 worth of aircraft parts to Iraq, but local manufacturers plan to catch up on this by expanding more in the region.
Bangladesh alone purchased over $2 million worth of armaments from Australia in 1989-90. And if it can scrape that much money together, imagine what the richer Asian countries can afford.
Some of Australia's better export potentials, many of which are manufactured by the Defence Department's Office of Defence Production, include:
- small arms
- high explosives
- mortar ammunition
- and, of course, portable latrines.
Canberra is hosting Aidex 91 this month, on an alternating weekend from the Sydney markets. Discount stalls will be set up, and it will prove a good opportunity — as the promoter's jingle goes — to "come on down to the Aidex and save".
If you're travelling in from interstate or further, you can buy a matching set of guided missiles in the morning and take a guided tour of Parliament House and the National Gallery in the afternoon.
But Australia had better not dawdle in sewing up new arms sales, or new world orders, as they are known. The US and Europe are aggressively trying to increase sales, particularly in the Third World, and they are prepared to drop prices to do it.
The US and most European countries have a large percentage of their industries tied up in armaments production, and if they aren't selling them, it will mean increased unemployment. Every $1 billion spent on arms provides employment for 24,000 people in the USA, and you can't expect those people to suddenly start building roads or low-income houses. That's absurd. You can't export roads or houses to developing countries. They build their own.
There are only two ways to prevent arms sales dropping too low: you can pressure other countries to buy more arms, or you can start a few more regional wars.
And rumour has it, if you're in the market for a decommissioned medium-range thermonuclear warhead, and you happen to be in the right place at the right time, with the right amount of money in a Swiss bank account, you can drive away with your own bomb — mobile launcher included! What a deal! One previous owner and never used.
This is a strictly limited offer, although the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks could put more decommissioned nuclear warheads on
the market. The USSR and USA have literally squillions of dollars tied up in nuclear hardware, and their only way to realise a return on their investments would be to sell them or fire them.
In short, if you're planning on making some major investments in armaments this year, you'll find some incredible bargains out there. If you're prepared to shop around, you could really make a killing!