Defence Industrial Strategy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS) is a United Kingdom government policy which was published as a white paper on 2005-12-15. The main theme of the DIS is the maintenance of sovereign capabilities, i.e. the capabilities of UK companies in key defence areas.
UK defence procurement was radically changed by the government of Margaret Thatcher. Cost plus contracts and "national champions" were abandoned in favour of competitive tendering. This made the UK defence procurement market the most open in the world[1] and in contrast to the European continent and America.[2] However the DIS supports the concept of "national champions" to maintain what the Ministry of Defence sees as vital capabilites "to maintain appropriate sovereignty and thereby protect our national security."[3] The Defence Industries Council warned in 2004 that the continuation of a totally "open market" approach would see the UK "lose almost completely the strong industrial base that has supplied our armed forces. UK sovereignty could be threatened."[4]
The DIS has been widely seen as confirming BAE Systems as the UK's "national champion".[1][2] Of the key industrial capabilities which must be maintained several are dominated by BAE, including naval vessels and submarines, armoured fighting vehicles (over 95% of the UK’s AFVs are BAE products), fixed wing aircraft, general munitions (with the exception of certain "niche capabilities abroad") and Network Enabled Capability (defined as C4ISTAR in the DIS). After the publication of the DIS BAE Systems CEO Mike Turner said "If we didn't have the DIS and our profitability and the terms of trade had stayed as they were... then there had to be a question mark about our future in the U.K."[5]
[edit] References
- ^ a b Barrie, Douglas. "Brave New World; British grapple with imperatives of future defense industrial requirements, including pursuing UCAV and strategic UAV technology", Aviation Week & Space Technology, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2005-12-15, p. 16. Retrieved on 2006-12-17.
- ^ a b "The Turner prize; Defence procurement", The Economist, The Economist Newspapers Ltd., 2006-01-07. Retrieved on 2006-12-17.
- ^ Defence Industrial Strategy: Defence White Paper (PDF). UK Ministry of Defence (December 2005). Retrieved on 2006-12-17.
- ^ Hawkins, William R. (2004-11-10). Saving the U.S. Defense Industrial Base. AmericanEconomicAlert. Retrieved on 2006-12-18.
- ^ Barrie, Douglas. "British Defense Industrial Strategy Secures BAE Systems as U.K. Champion", Aviation Week & Space Technology, The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2005-12-07. Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
