Conferenza
Transatlantic Defence Partnerships
Managing Divergence
Chatham House, Londra
27-28 febbraio 2006
The effect of R & D Policies on Interoperability: problems and solutions.
Lt.Gen. (AF) Vincenzo Camporini
When in 1998 I joined the strategic thinkers community, I first learnt the expression “Chatham House rules” and I thought it was just a way of saying. Chatham house was to me a kind of mythological place, lost in the foggy past of nowhere. Therefore this is a very emotive moment for me to be here in front of such an audience in this very place.
From what has already been said I derive the conclusion that if all us want the Western World way of life to continue and flourish, we simply cannot afford substantial divergence in our capabilities development trends. Of course this does not mean we always have to agree on courses of action, it does not mean we have to sacrifice our own national and European interests for the sake of the Transatlantic community, it does not mean we have to ignore or – worse – give up our own peculiarities and accept an improbable and undesirable homologisation.
On the contrary, we have to step up our efforts so that the convergence of our different capabilities can have a multiplier effect on jointly and honestly agreed courses of action, for the benefit of the future generations in our countries.
But let me offer you my thoughts on the specific subject of this session: Research and Development policies and interoperability. I propose to start from the basic facts and data in order subsequently to draw some conclusions and provide considerations and proposals.
Three years ago I had the opportunity to attend a seminar offered by the Allied Command for Transformation and to talk to the then Deputy General Manager of DARPA, so I learnt that the annual budget of that agency was, if I recall well, not far from 3 billion US dollars, roughly what my country was spending for its entire defence procurement: it is trivial and evident that we have a gigantic disproportion. Yet, since I have some insights in the capabilities and competences of our scientists and laboratories, be they public or privately owned, I keep believing that Italy, as well as many other European countries, can give their honest, but vital contribution to the advancement of science and knowledge, also with regard to defence capabilities, if only there were some mechanisms for coordination and reciprocal transparency. Let’s make a detailed analysis: on this side of the ocean research in defence related fields is often no more than a Cinderella. The spending ratio in R & D with the US is 1 to 5, but even worse than that, only 5 % of this limited amount of money is spent in co-operative European programmes. The immediate consequence is the frequent occurrence of useless duplications of the efforts performed in the various countries and the absence of a defence research policy in the Union as such and in Europe in general.
Here comes the role of the newly established European Defence Agency, as alluded yesterday by Mr Buckley and today by Professor Anderson – not its sole role, but one of the most promising – If we succeed in defining and implementing a transparent flow of information from the Nations to the Agency, so that it can develop and keep updated a comprehensive and reliable database on R & D activities carried out in the member countries, EDA can well become, as indicated in the relevant terms of reference, a brokering agent capable of facilitating bi-multinational research efforts, all this within the present political and institutional environment. The following step – authoritative directions on the matter – will only become possible when a closer and deeper political integration will become a reality.
The mere concrete accomplishment of the measures I briefly described will put Europe in a much stronger position vis a vis the US authorities when discussing about possible co-operation in defence procurement.
Is all this relevant for the scope of interoperability? The answer is of course ‘yes, no doubt’. Interoperability is a very delicate subject: at the recent seminar on military doctrine held in Vienna by the OSCE on 14th and 15th February, General Smith, Supreme Commander ACT, stated quite clearly, and I quote, “that interoperability is not synonymous with ‘identical’”, end of quote. In other words, having the same identical equipment is not the sole alley to obtain full interoperability; it may well be the cheapest and fastest one from the purely financial point of view, but it would be far too costly from the economical, the industrial and the political ones.
The other solution and possibility requires a lot of good will and good faith and consists, as a minimum, in the transparent sharing of information and basic data, so that each one knows where to start from and where to arrive to, and, at best, in the open association of our best intellectual and industrial resources, in common research and development programmes.
We need therefore a solid and formal partnership in R & D between the two sides of the Atlantic - and the EDA can well be the European agent – so that in the end each country can procure systems, hardware and software, that respond to the same basic principles, which use the same protocols, which require compatible logistics, for sure in terms of consumables, possibly in terms of maintenance. By doing so we will grant our troops and units the enduring capability to operate and fight together, side by side, in a seamless effort.
Is there any alternative? I do not think so, because if we fail to co-ordinate closely our efforts, if either side refuses to give access to the basic data for granting flawless interface we may well end in divergent developments, in the exploitation of technologies which are incompatible, in protocols which need cumbersome interfaces of doubtful reliability. It would be the end of any real possibility to act in coalitions; it would be the death of the Alliance.
That’s why I am surprised and deeply concerned when I hear some influential politician in Washington to revive the concept of semi permeability in technology transfers: the acknowledgement that never in the past the US could win a war without the technologies developed in the allied countries is astonishingly accompanied by the statement that the transfer system should be designed so to let external technologies to enter the Unites States, but not to allow US technology out. A concept well exemplified yesterday by Mr McCullogh who referred to a TAA between US and UK to allow secret data to flow into the United States, but limiting the reverse flow to the level of ‘restricted’.
It is a concept frankly unacceptable on moral and political grounds as well as on organizational and practical ones and I applaud all the efforts by a large portion of the Administration to work out the matter, defining and implementing procedures, which have to be both efficient and equitable.
I can already hear the objections from the US side: ‘Why should the Europeans be allowed to exploit discoveries and advances obtained in the US at the expenses of the American taxpayer? European countries are not investing enough in defence and since the beginning of the cold war they have enjoyed the umbrella provided by the United States, refusing any serious debate about how to share the burden of the common security; they are lazily enjoying a generous welfare state system which leaves no resources for defence in general, let alone for the related research and development programmes.’
This is for sure not the place for arguing about ‘burden sharing’ during the cold war, although I would be more than ready to do so in depth and also, as a technical expert I am the first to denounce the reluctance by some European countries to spend for defence what is needed. But let me only recall, in terms of ‘burden sharing’, the gigantic imbalance throughout the cold war and beyond in import/export of defence related materiel. The ‘two ways street’ has never been really implemented, with the consequence of a significant net financial flow from the European taxpayers towards the American industrial establishment. We always had to face the ‘buy American’ dogma, although the most far-sighted circles in the US have consistently supported the concept that blind protectionism never results in fostering the very interests of the United States itself.
In the history of defence procurement in the West, cases where localisms have prevailed over quality can be easily found, in clear contradiction with the basic principles on which our societies are based: free enterprise, free initiative, free market.
We should always keep these principles in front of us, even when we have to adapt rules and behaviours to the specifics of defence research and development and procurement. We have to find the right balance between confidentiality requirements, protection of intellectual property rights, fostering of competition, enhancement of cooperation, compliance with interoperability requirements. We have to keep in mind that the final objective is not the protection of jobs, is not the success of specific company, but the technology dominance by our warfighters over any possible adversary, and when I say our warfighters, I mean those coming from all the counties which belong to the same culture, which are based on the same consistent principles and values, those which share the benefits of economies so closely connected and tied.
It is not a circle to be squared: we already have the instruments and means to obtain the desired result. In a word the solution is the market. GIVE MARKET A CHANCE.
Whenever problems were found in developing a system, competition open to everybody gave the right answer. Just to give you an example, one of the challenges for the joint Strike Fighter is weight and it is no secret that when the project team found itself in a dead end, the solution was found offering the challenge to other teams from participating countries: how could then the engineers form Alenia offer the right solution if they had a precluded access to basic design data?
The conclusion is that only confidence in respective security reliability and acceptance of partners’ capabilities can lead to success.
No doubt that the US and European Union have to agree a new common set of rules. With reference to the issue of releasibility versus the rest of the world, since we owe this to our security and more than that to the security of the men and women in the field. These rules have also to take into due account the investments made and the protection of IPR’s, but once again no one wants anything for free: let the market define the price, let the market define the competitiveness of technologies, let the market select the most promising research lines.
In practical terms and in conclusion I propose the European Defence Agency to be entrusted the authority to start an open and frank negotiation with the US Administration with the aim of defining a set of rules agreed and valid throughout the western community. It may well be something limited to a few specific countries of the Union, along the pattern of the so called structural cooperation; it may also be an agreement valid throughout the Union: we can be open to any solution, provided that it is defined in a spirit of mutual support and satisfaction. But no matter the approach to be chosen, if we want the Alliance to continue and flourish, we have to work out the matter, and in my view the EDA is the best and possibly the only vehicle today capable to yield the results which we need.
Thank-you for your attention.
