Slashdot Log In
U.S. Refuses to Hand Over Fighter Source Code to UK
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Dec 09, 2006 10:27 PM
from the should-have-read-the-EULA-first dept.
from the should-have-read-the-EULA-first dept.
orbitalia writes "The UK is heavily involved in the JSF (Joint Strike Fighter program) but has recently considered abandoning the project because the US refuses to share the source code. The UK had intended to purchase $120 billion dollars worth of aircraft to operate on two new aircraft carriers, but is now seriously considering Plan 'B'. This is likely to be further investments in the Eurofighter Typhoon project." From the article: "It appeared that Tony Blair and George Bush had solved the impasse in May, when they announced an agreement in principle that the UK would be given access to the classified details on conditions of strict secrecy. The news was widely seen as evidence that the Prime Minister's close alliance with the American President did have benefits for Britain ... 'If the UK does not obtain the assurances it needs from the US then it should not sign the Memorandum of Understanding covering production, sustainment and follow-on development,' the MPs insisted."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Meh the EF is better anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
Your F-22 point is moot. (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Only because of restraint. That really isn't relevant to modern fighter planes. No one is shoo
Re:Let them squabble (Score:5, Informative)
In the first gulf war we did not plan to occupy iraq so we flew something like 300 sorties a day dropping an ungodly amount of bombs on the place. We targeted and destroyed all kinds of crucial civilian infrastructure such as bridges, electrical generation facilites, water treatment plants, roads, factories etc. Our goal was to make the iraqis suffer so much that they would rise up and overthrow saddam so we worked very hard at hurting as many common iraqis as possible. As a result of these efforts and the sanctions that followed we killed close to two million iraqis including hundreds of thousands of children.
That was using the right tool for the right job.
In the second war we wanted to occupy iraq so we didn't want to destroy any infrastructure that we wanted to use ourselves so we didn't target water treatment facilities, bridges etc. We wanted to keep saddams palaces so we could move into them and set up shop. Wrong tool for the wrong job. The US military is awesome at killing, destroying, and making millions of people as miserable as possible. It sucks at police work and occupying an angry populace.
Wrong tool, wrong job.
Re:I don't really think there is (Score:4, Interesting)
Funding should not have been withdrawn. It plunged Palestine into an impossible situation. The large majority of palestinians who had voted were in favour of a two state solution and Israel's right to exist and that was the climate at the time. Regardless of any private feelings of members of the Hamas government, and I say private because they were publically stating their willingness to negotiate peacefully and were sustaining a ceasefire at the time, they were hardly about to engage in some program of wiping out Israel.
The best approach for the EU and the USA was to honour existing payments. Instead they sent the clear message that the palestinians choice was subject to US approval.
It really makes you wonder if they Israeli government wants a palestinian state, doesn't it?
Re:Let them squabble (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is thinking you can use an f16 to shoot a guy with an ak47.
Re:Let them squabble (Score:4, Insightful)
The sad thing is that it has takes three years and almost 3,000 coalition deaths for the military authorities to acknowledge this.
Single battles have gone over 46,000 or 51,000 even... small scuffs can raise several dozen or even a couple hundred. 3,000 is quite a low number for a few months of occupying a country.
Re:Let them squabble (Score:5, Insightful)
But the thing that puts Americans over the edge is the deaths of their troops? I don't quite understand that logic. Can someone be so kind as to explain that?
Re:Let them squabble (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Let them squabble (Score:4, Informative)
You're comparing light weapons to aircraft? Rather have that, you say? How about you shoot at me and miss because your weapon, while reliable, doesn't have the accuracy to hit me from any farther than maybe 300m, 50m if you shoot like an average Iraqi. (It's reliable because of the tolerances built into the bolt mechanism but that makes it far less accurate. Marines have to qualify at 500m.)
Have fun with that while I'm calling in air support and deciding whether I want to just kill you or to drop the entire building you're in.
This [military.com] will give you the idea.
~ some jarhead
Oh, and I'm pretty sure the Seals "submerge" themselves every once in a while. Marines? Well, we never get near water, right?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So you want them to engage you on your terms so that you destroy can them as you mention? No way! These guerril
Re:Let them squabble (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just the point, isn't it. The outcome of 'battles' is a metric for conventional war, and a bad measuring stick for uncoventional/asymetric war.
One side can claim all the battle victories they want, but if the other side is not fighting battles (nor has any interest in doing so) then the claim of victory is meaningless. How many conventional battles did Geronimo win? Is he revered as a tactical genius because fought on his enemy's terms or because he tied up massive numbers of troops while continuing to raid and elude capture for 30 years?
The greatest mistake the US makes about Iraq (other than being there in the first place) is thinking that it is about battles and direct confrontations, or imagining that once troops are in a town then that town is 'held'.
American troops can raise all the flags they want in all the provincial outposts they want but it will do very little good when the 'enemy' simply melts away, returning sporadically to disrupt supply lines and make actual administration impossible. Raising a flag only means something when the local population recognizes the flag as symbolic of control and submits accordingly. Geronimo did not, Ho Chi Minh did not, and the internecine groups in Iraq do not
As long as the US keeps thinking that this fight in Iraq is about territorial control (particularly when the US military cannot even control Bagdhad), they are destined for failure. The insurgents don't need to control cities. They don't need to win or even fight battles. As long as they disrupt the business of running a military occupation and survive, they achieve their goals. Strike and evade, strike and evade. There's no need to hold any particular ground since they have far more ground on which to hide than the occupier can possibly cover.
And the harder the US tries to hit them, the more collateral damage is done; the more collateral damage, the stronger the insurgent groups are supported. The more support they have, the more sophisticated their attacks become and the easier it becomes to melt away and evade the counterattack (which of course does more collateral damage and begins the cycle anew).
If insurgent groups in Iraq were dumb enough to stand together and fight the occupying US Army head on, of course they would be obliterated. But the situation is far more analogous (though by no means akin) to that of competing gangs -- their real beef is with each other. One or another side may try to use the police (the occupiers or their puppets) as intermediaries to get at their enemy but only as a means to an end, and without trust. The intermediaries are disposable, and subject to attack at any time.
Such is the nature of occupations, and why they rarely work out.
Note: My sympathies go out to all those in uniform in Iraq. I truly believe that the vast majority of you are good people (and those that aren't weren't before they were sent there). You have sacrificed far beyond what you were asked to, and have served well and admirably. I only wish that those who sent you were compelled to learn from your experience, and forced to undergo the same danger and hardships to at least understand and appreciate your stories.
Re:Let them squabble (Score:4, Insightful)
very true. As I recall my history there was another army that was absolutely devestating when fought on its own terms. That was the british army in the days of cavalry and muskets. We even built a sizeable empire around it (and our navy). That army even defeated the supposudly unstoppable napoleon.
Then some people in one of our colonies learned to fight us on their terms. As I recall, they didnt march out with flags to meet us like gentlemen on the field of battle, but would ambush us.
The effect was devestating, and that army won. In fact they kicked us back to our own country and declared independence.
I believe its now called the united states of america.
Its amazing how many empires there have been, the greeks, the romans, the british, the french, we have all controlled vast empires through military might at one stage. And we have all learned the futility of relying purely on force of arms to maintain control of foreign countries.
I guess it's impossible to accept that lesson when you *are* the current military top dog. It took humiliation of our army to learn that lesson. I'd rather the US learned it without having to lose any more of its own servicemen.
Re:Let them squabble (Score:5, Insightful)
In the first place, not enough troops were sent to occupy Iraq. Then the Pentagon disbanded the Iraqi Army and ripped apart the Ba'athist infrastructure leaving a lot of *trained guys running around with grudges against the US military. Privatisation of occupation duties plus lack of control (for the sake of "efficiency") has led to rampant corruption - http://lrb.co.uk/v28/n21/harr04_.html [lrb.co.uk] This has led to an almost complete failure by US corporations to restore Iraqi infrastructure.
Let's face it, the US Main Stream Media has been controlled and castrated for years now - see the NY Times and it's suppression of the wire-tapping. The US military embedded journalists so as to control them. I see you're polling for control of the internet as well. How much does it take for you to say that the US fucked up? You sound almost like these guys: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/
As for the justness of this war, the sheer number of so-called honest people telling us lies in order to get us to go to war have been astounding. Weapons of mass destruction? Non-existent. Uranium? ditto. Saddam and Al Qaeda? Wrong. In the US, the neo-cons have even gone to the extreme of committing crimes (re: Valerie Plame) in order to justify this war. In the UK, the pressures of this power has forced an honest man to commit suicide. If the need to go to war was that just, why all this pressure?
And I have to say that the current US intransigence towards their supposedly closest ally smacks of, at the least, ingratitude. Brits are currently dieing in Iraq and Afghanistan, paying in blood for a "speicial relationship" which is being revealed as worthless when push comes shove. In contrast, I bet the US would hand the code over to the Israelis in a similar situation.
Re:Let them squabble (Score:5, Insightful)
Modern weapon systems do not occupy the country, soldiers do. Occupation is required if you want a friendly regime to take power. Anytime you have a foreign army occupying your streets, there's going to be deaths on both sides. Take away the AKs and give them sporks and you will still see people on both sides die.
Re:Let them squabble (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, even the ones that can't walk yet. One problem is the troop numbers are far less than the operation in Kuwait and there have been a lot of situations where the best of a bad situation was to shoot everything that moved, and it's easier to count unknown dead bodies than spotting live insurgents first. Unfortunately this turns others against the army and there is this new situation of a seemingly endless supply of suicide bombers. What to do? The British couldn't work it out in Iraq with comparitively bigger forces and a similar technology advantage in 20 years but that doesn't mean there is no answer. The nationalists still see it as a puppet government - if we can work out why that could solve some of the problems. They've had sixteen years of war that sent Iraq into the third world and a long war with Iran before that that drove the nation so broke they invaded Kuwait to do a bank robbery on a national scale - a few more bombs alone are not going to stop them.
Mod -999 Wrong (Score:5, Informative)
EOR (End-of-rant)
Re:Mod -999 Wrong (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sorry but I have to keep correcting your ignorance. You cannot install passive radar systems in fighter aircraft. Passive radar systems are huge and heavy and most are composed of multiple geographicly spaced platforms. Again your use of the term phased array is naive. A phased array is merely a trivial way of feeding antenna elements - there are millions of types of antennas which are phased arrays. The idea of phased array has nothing whatsoever to do with countering stealth per-se.
Nor has anyone claimed, righly so, that stealth makes aircraft undetectable. They merely reduce the radar cross section to a certain extent - and such reduction is indeed variable upon frequency as you pointed out. However VHF-radars, which have been used to detect stealth aircraft are slow, innaccurate and highpower (indeed because of the long wavelenght) and thus vulnerable to anti-radiation missiles and other countermeasures. They are ancient technology. The incident in the Balkan war was an exception that proves the rule. The enemy was incapable of threathing the air-supremacy of NATO and its operations, for all aircraft with or without stealth, because of the wide use of electronic warfare and planning of air-corridors. Stealth merely allows one to use such air-corridores more effectively.
As for Soyuz, nobody is suggesting that we should abandon the wheel because JSF is going to replace all our technology. We are going to see aircraft such as F16s, F18s, B52s flying well into the next decade and beyong because they are useful and econmical platforms. The JSF offers new capabilities, in addition to all the tech we have now and will only be produced in quantity that is required to meet these new special missions.
Sorry I have not the time to wade through such rubbish. I only do this stuff for a living. I suggest you get some more reliable sources - start with JANE's literature on the subject.Can't they just reformat the planes? (Score:5, Funny)
If that does't work, there should at least be a LGPL version, right?
Re:Can't they just reformat the planes? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Can't they just reformat the planes? (Score:4, Insightful)
It is a bit of a "keep our own defense industries viable", which comes down to a technology and job protection program (and probably much more important in British politics than even in the US).
The sad part of it is that Britain is probably the US' last firm ally in the world right now. With Britain wanting to upgrade its nuclear missile submarine program in a few years, what are they going to do then if we are still being so schizoid, buy their nukes from France? I bet that Britain shared the World's Deadliest Joke with the US. Only it wouldn't have worked on people here who would have worked on it (hence, safe for US to translate it into other languages), because we have no sense of humor, or at least one that includes wordplay, sarcasm and irony and doesn't include swearing or racial slurs.
Re:Can't they just reformat the planes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Still bitter about Iraq 1. We (the UK) lost more troops to "US cowboys" than Iraqis. Bah.
The UK is not unique (Score:4, Informative)
from the should-have-read-the-EULA-first dept? (Score:5, Insightful)
I love the dept. line for this one. The UK is reading the "EULA" first, and that's why we're threatening to cancel a multi-billion dollar order.
After all, would you leave the ability to maintain your air force in the hands of another nation? (And seriously, even if the order goes ahead, would the US seriously expect the UK to honour some contractual agreement not to install working software in its military aircraft?)
Re:from the should-have-read-the-EULA-first dept? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's fascinating that you, and Mr. Blair, make a big deal of this - without mentioning that the UK's strategic deterrent is already in the hands of another country. The U.K. is utterly dependent on the U.S. for software and spares for the Trident-II submarines.
Re:from the should-have-read-the-EULA-first dept? (Score:5, Informative)
Agreed. This is, in fact, the whole premise of NATO. By unifying military command structures and forces, the security of every NATO member is linked to one another, and especially linked to the United States. It's already been that way for 50 years (except for France which withdrew under de Gaulle in the 60's).
One should note that a lot of /.ers are simply making this out to be a U.S. vs. UK thing, but it's more complicated than that. President Bush is fully in favor of giving the UK what it needs in order to certify and fully control the aircraft it purchases. It's principally Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) who has been blocking the source code transfer because of his concerns about "technology transfer." Essentially, this is not a Bush administration problem, but a Congressional problem. Since Hyde is retiring, a will be replaced on January 3rd, at least one roadblock may be cleared up.
Re:The UK is not unique (Score:4, Interesting)
I really don't think this is a matter of mistrust between the US and UK, but rather living by the maxim of James Greer: "The likelihood of a secret's being blown is proportional to the square of the number of people who're in on it."
While it makes sense to try and plan for any and all future possibilities, it may simply be trying to limit the number of people/groups who have the capability--however small--to leak the secret.
Embarassment (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Embarassment (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Embarassment (Score:5, Informative)
All out rejection (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly without this agreement the UK really should simply say no to any involvement, however I would suggest that the UK will still splash out anyway. The entire US/UK Special relationship is pretty much a myth anyway and more to the point it has been regarding foreign policy matters for a long time, placing even more dependence on the US in areas of defence is a bad idea.
There seems to be (in the UK at least) a memory lapse within political circles, that the US has in the past simply not stood with the UK.
The Lack of US support during the Falklands war, and outright opposition to the Suez crisis, should show that the UK cannot rely on US military power to support the UK's own operations and aims, and nor should it. The US will always look after itself, it will only take action when it feels its own perceived interests are involved or if there is sufficient domestic political pressure to do so, and the UK really should follow suit. Frankly that is a sensible position for any nation state to take. The UK governments current position of "follow the US's lead wherever it is demanded" is downright treasonous.
The UK needs to continue to maintain forces, equipment and any other capabilities independently or with allies as long as the UK is capable of maintaining the same, in the absence of their allies. It would be foolhardy to rely on the US (or France/Germany/Italy etc..) for equipment, parts, support, or armaments in the case of war, especially if any of those allies were opposed to the conflict.
The one thing I do feel that is surprising with this scenario is that the US will happily sell the aircraft to the UK. I would have assumed that any sensitive information about the aircraft would be available from the aircraft itself, which of course presents the question as to whether there are either surprises in the software that would give the US any advantage in the unlikely event that these aircraft were used against them. Although ignoring that (slight conspiracy theory) surely it should also raise questions about the quality of the software.
Anyway, I see no reason why the UK cannot simply continue to work on its own or with allies who full trust the UK, rather than be treated as an interloper or a poor cousin by the US.
Re:Falklands (Score:4, Insightful)
Its interesting, I have read that the US actively tried to dissuade the UK from its plans for an invasion as there was a belief that it would cause problems for the (US supported) military dictatorship that was running Argentina at the time, the US hoped that there could be an alternative solution, one that could be acceptable to both the UK and Argentina, - with both giving ground. Remember that they US officially remains neutral as to the sovereignty of the Falkland islands.
That is hardly giving "loads of support", but it was appreciated. My point is that the US felt it could not outright support the UK, as it had interests in the region, and those interests were at least of equal importance as the UK.
The situation with the Suez crisis is probably better as an indicator of UK and US interests clashing, but the fact remains, the UK cannot trust the US, if the UK's actions are not in the US's interests.
As such, the UK should not be reliant upon the US for any defensive or offensive military capability especially if the US does not trust the UK sufficiently to give the UK access to the software that has any bearing on that capability that
Re:All out rejection (Score:4, Insightful)
Not just source code (Score:5, Informative)
This is not just about source code. In a system like that software, hardware and system integration are inseparable. You either give no information or have to give it all. These are the crown jewels of the platform. Revealing them also reveals any number of critical points for interested adversaries: thrust and manoeuvrability limits, reaction times, counter-measure schemes and logic, EMC-characteristics etc. all of which can be used to find weaknesses and design weapon systems to be more effective against it.
Also, since the UK is only conributing 10% of the development costs, its no wonder the US isnt keen sharing. Usually with mil-tech you only give a bad, incomplete user manual to the client so he can barely operate the thing and then wait for him to pay more for extra features that are already implemented by disabled in software or simply undocumented. You never ever allow the client to have exact specs, schematics or software which would allow him to reverse-engineer and develop his own extentions and applications to it.
Here in Finland we bought old C-model F18 Hornets. When the first upgrade cycle came, the US told us of these new fancy secure ground-to-air datalinks and avionics for combat close formation flying they wanted to sell us. We just told them we had developed our own by then, thankyouverymuch. But that was because the platform was getting old and most of the stuff in there was already open knowledge with multiple nations having purchased them years ago. Also with old-gen mil-aircraft there are a lot of avionics standards which were developed and adhered to during the cold-war to easy manufacturing, lower cost and allow inter-service operations. These JSFs will probably have special new-gen custom avionics to do with flight and weapon control, targeting, radar, stealth, communications and electronic warfare that the US definately wants to keep wrappers on.
Someone's been watching Battlestar Galactica (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't blame the brits at all. I certainly wouldn't trust the US military not to make
Re:Someone's been watching Battlestar Galactica (Score:4, Funny)
Mon dieu! Jacques -- turn this canoe around! The Americans, she is on to us!
Code (Score:5, Informative)
Please hold for the Prime Minister (Score:5, Funny)
"One moment, please hold for the Prime Minister"
(pause)
"Hello, Mr. Stallman? I understand you have some experience applying political pressure to closed-source vendors, I wonder if..."
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Why invest in these airplanes at all? (Score:4, Informative)
The UK doesn't have any F-117's and never will. Anyway, the JSF family of planes are intended to replace a number of others:
F-35A: F-16, A-10
F-25B (STOVL): Harrier, F-18
F-35C: F-18
By using a set of three planes that are mostly the same instead of half a dozen completely different ones it should in theory lower costs in terms of a better economy of scale on the planes and their parts and a lower cost of training for pilots, mechanics, etc.
What? (Score:5, Informative)
1) The F-117 has no air-to-air capability. It also has a rather small payload (basically 2 bombs), high maintenance costs due to early technology and is (generally believed, though I think it is still classified) to be a subsnoic jet, in other words, slower. Stealth isn't everything. Also, as it only fills the one role, it is less economical than an all-in-one type aircraft.
2) Uh... since when did anything other than a super-precision ground strike become unpopular politically? The U.S. has certainly used "dumb" bombs in many campaigns, including Afghanistan and Iraq, to good effect under certain conditions and on certain targets. JDAMs - much more economical than laser guided munitions - are also quote popular and while they aren't as accurate, "close" is often good enough, assuming they're fired under certain conditions, of course. Furthermore, this particular aircraft is capable of using laser-guided weapons.
3) You know, there are areas without civilian populations present where Close Air Support could still be a concern... like, say, the mountains of Afghanistan perhaps? Or in the middle of nowhere in the Iraqi desert? Or hundreds of other battlefields? Not every battle in the future will occur in third world cities, you know.
4) A helicopter with a "chain gun" has a limited operational range and exposes itself to a great deal of enemy fire. Helicopters' armament tends to be lighter than what an aircraft can provide, focusing more on armor-piercing weapons (Hellfire missiles), and smaller weapons more useful against vehicles and lighter targets (rockets, canon, etc.). A strike fighter, on the other hand, can deliver 2000 lb. bombs on a target when necessary, enablig it to knock out, say, a heavily reinforced building or bunker than a helicopter would stand no chance against.
I mean, if you don't like this plane, that's cool and all, but there is still a mission out there for it.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
The F-22, F-35, and Eurofighter are all more capable than the F-117. The F-22 and F-35 are also more stealthy.
Close air support today means not just small aircrat laying down munitions (r
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The F-117 is being retired [hillnews.com] as of 2008 (instead of 2011).
The F-22 replaces some of the F-15's (air superiority role). The F-22 can also perform some ground attack roles with the inception of the 250lb S [defense-update.com]
Re:Why go to war at all? (Score:5, Insightful)
--John Quincy Adams
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:no surprise here (Score:4, Informative)
Why do you think the French built the "force de frappe"?
Re:Does it run Linux? (Score:5, Funny)