Liam Fox embraces arms industry
On 7 September Liam Fox, Conservative Shadow Defence Secretary gave a speech at the UK Defence Conference 2009 in London. The Conference was held just one day before the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEi) arms fair opened its doors.
Liam Fox said he wants to prevent the wars of tomorrow, yet went on to commit to "use defence exports as a foreign policy tool". But arms sales guarantee neither peace nor security. History shows that using arms exports as a policiy tool can go horribly wrong and that it certainly didn't work for past governments: arming the Shah in Iran didn't prevent the tanks falling into the hands of the ayatollahs and selling arms to Argentina didn't stop the invasion of the Falklands.
Once military equipment has been exported we have little control over how it may be used. The current government has recently made high-level political interventions to help arms companies sell to Libya. Does arming Libya increase the UK's security?
Arms sales do not help the economy either. Whilst the global arms companies benefit, even Ministry of Defence economists had to acknowledge that you cannot use economic arguments to justify military exports.
The full speech of Liam Fox is accessible here.
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