Kieran Lawrence looks at autonomous weapons and the effect they could have on modern warfare
Continuing a series on world leaders, Miles Deverson takes a look at Angela Merkel
Ben Bland examines the fallout from the Iowa caucuses and looks forward to the New Hampshire primaries.
In the first of a series on world leaders, Miles Deverson takes a look at Nicholas Sarkozy
Soft liberals have once again spun students a morally misplaced argument about the University accepting funding from the British arms trade.
Since the damning article in campus newspaper, Nouse, I have been bombarded at least ten times by various interest groups asking me to sign this or that petition. They want me to express my anger (yes indeed my anger!) at the Vice Chancellor because they define the University's method of funding as unethical. When I politely refuse to sign, I am attacked by half a dozen do-gooders who declare me immoral, right-wing, and an accessory to crimes akin to mass murder. Once again the P.C. elite have clouded the issue of practical funding concerns with their quasi-moral shields. Faced with dwindling treasury funds for higher education, an increase in student numbers, and the desire to remain competitive, the University of York has little choice but to source income from private enterprise. So, business, wanting to play their part in creating in the next generation of skilled workers have stepped in to pick up the bill. We should not only be welcoming funding from the private weapons industry, but encouraging even greater participation from this sector from a financial and moral perspective.
The left characterises private business as a board room full of greedy conservatives, rubbing their hands together at the thought of another destructive war they can profit from. This, of course is a ludicrous stereotype. Firstly, the liberal left need to understand why we even need a private weapons industry. It boils down to defending our friends, families, and communities. It boils down to safe guarding the democracy which we all take for granted. It boils down to protecting our freedoms (despite the PC elite attack on these principals). A free-market weapons industry allows businesses to compete, catalysing the production of top of the range, high tech weaponry that we can hold up to the world as an effective deterrent against attacks from rogue states such as Iran. Weapons also create a powerful defence against attacks on our sovereignty at home and overseas, as was the case in the Falklands war, and the First and Second World Wars. Sure, diplomacy should always be the first port of call, but history's lessons teach us that a strong armed forces is always necessary. Not every state plays ball! Look at Nazi Germany, Argentina, Iraq in the first and second Gulf Wars (I can hear a can of worms opening already). Countries have time and time again acted against British and International interests. The military solution needs to be there, ready to act as the ultimate protection. A private weapons industry is the bread and butter of this long tried and tested foreign policy.
It is not true that "we" export weapons to Libya and the Middle East. "We" of course implies the British government. The weapons industry is made up of private, competing companies. Private business does not think in terms of morals but profit. This is a double-edged sword. Exports allow these companies to remain innovative, but of course they are also encouraging terror. But can't the same be said about any private company? Coca Cola, providing the drink we know, and love, have committed human rights abuses in the name of profit. Nestle have exploited the Third World to get that extra buck. Cadbury until recently were using cocoa beans farmed by children. I'm not opposed to regulating all private business, but how far does one go? The grim reality is that free-market enterprise creates jobs in the Third World, no matter how badly they compare with working standards in the West. If we were to regulate private companies they would attempt to regain profit elsewhere rather than change their working practices. Would Cadbury really spend billions improving workers rights in Africa when they could accumulate profit elsewhere. Ultimately, if we regulated the workers in the farms, factories and offices of developing and less economically developed economies would suffer. We could of course, nationalise the weapon's market. But we all know without exports, global competition, and the profit-motive, our weapons technology would stagnate, defeating the very point of having strong military in the first place. With businesses competing for custom from not only Britain, but allies all across the world, there is an incentive to innovate by building the best, most affective weapons so Britain can respond to world conflicts.
I am in danger of being accused of scare-mongering. Many may ask if a free-market weapons industry is really more important than the lives of those under Gaddafi, and other tyrants to which our companies sold weapons? The liberal knee-jerk reaction would be to damn the QinetiQ's board of director's down to eternal hell, pull the British government over the coals, and shut down the arms trade in this country. This of course would be economically and morally devastating. Think about your loved-ones, your family, your friends. Their safety depends on the strength of the military to dismantle troublesome regimes, stop terrorism, and defend our borders. An army without good weapons is as useful as a teacher without books, or doctors without medicine. It's true - people may be killed in Libya by bullets produced in Wales, but I wonder how much blood would have been spilt if the military hadn't combatted terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq in our own cities and communities.
Innovations in weapons technology always make their way back to our homes, schools and hospitals. Research during the Second World War gave us nuclear energy. You may have issues with nuclear energy, but the reason your computer is on now, your phone has just vibrated, and you were able to call your mum today is because of nuclear power filling the energy gap. Other innovations include the Internet, a product of Cold War research, GPS and Digital Photography. Right now QinetiQ, a trans-atlantic firm, are on the brink of a renewable revolution - just wikipedia it! Technology we all rely on started life in the labs of weapons research facilities. The power of the private sector has been, and should always be harnessed for the public good.
So why not let these business finance the bright young minds of the future? Our graduates could be working on the next break through in energy, or the next technological fad. And they most definately will be producing the best weapons for our soldiers out their on the front line so we can tuck ourselves away at night, safe in the thought that we will wake up the next morning. Arms companies have a big role to play in education so Britain can remain competitive in business as well as competitive on the battlefield.
These views belong only to the author, and are not representative of the Yorker as an organisation.
Before I say anything, I'd like to say that I'm neutral on the issue of arms funding. I really couldn't care less if BAE are funding the uni, or QinetiQ are funding my housemate (incidentally he was apparently the sole beneficiary of their funding). One thing which astounds me is how little societies like People and Planet seem to care about having a university funded in part by the Nestlé corporation. Consider PL001 for example, the Henri Nestlé Lecture Theatre. Or the vending machines on every corner. Anyway, not my point.
My point is that this reads, pretty much, like a textbook right-wing piece more befitting of the Mail than The Yorker. Let's list off the tropes you've said:
"Soft liberals" - It's clearly because we use Lenor!
"P.C. elite" - Oh no, teh PC brigade iz takin mai freedumz!
"the left characterises" - Yes, everyone on the left thinks exactly the same way. We have conferences in which every left-of-centre person decides the ways in which we are going to stereotype our enemies.
"The liberal left" - Well done, equating the liberals and left. Clearly we are one and the same, and anyone voting Lib Dem is a dirty commie.
"PC elite" - Interesting, forgoing full stops this time.
"Nazi Germany" - Hello Godwin's Law
"Liberal knee-jerk" - Conservatives and those on the right NEVER have knee-jerk reactions. In fact, liberals see EVERY crisis as an opportunity to gay-marry everything and abort unborn children. Because we hate Amer- sorry, Britain.
Like I said, no hard feelings. I broadly agree with you, but there's no need for irrational characterisations like this. In an ideal world we wouldn't have an arms trade, but we don't live in an ideal world. Please keep wild accusations and strawmen out of what is otherwise a relatively sound argument...
This is not, at the very core, a debate about the evils of private business. I have no doubt every large multinational company has its secrets, big and small. Exploitation and abuses of human rights in the name of profit are commonplace. The thing is, coke and cocoa beans can be made and harvested without human rights violations, even if it’s nowhere near as cheap and isn’t necessarily happening. People don’t, at least in theory, have to suffer for these products and it’s terrible that they do. The arm industry actively needs people to suffer. It needs war and the inevitable bloodshed to function. Large-scale killing is one of the most immoral demands in the world and its suppliers are at best a necessary evil. But this is not a debate about the necessity of the private arms industry. This is at its very core a debate about whether it is right for this university to accept funding from the arms trade and whether the students who fund it (though, yes, I’m sure the arms dealers help) have a voice to say that this is immoral. I don’t see why we can’t have a say in the university and how it is funded. Arms dealing may be, arguably, a grim necessity but that doesn’t mean we can’t disagree and even oppose the university being funded, however indirectly, by the arms trade.
Your examples also open you up to several tangential debates which are rather hard to justify, most notably the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan defending us from terrorism. These were, to be frank, rather unpopular wars and it wasn’t until after we’d started waging these wars we suffered our first successful major terrorist attack from Islamic fundamentalists. Neither nation posed a real threat to Britain even if their governments were friendly with terrorist cells (which are by their nature independent from governments and will continue without them, now with more deaths to justify their actions to a fresh generation). You also argue a competitive market allows us to have better weapons to defend ourselves, but do not address the fact that this means that for those willing there is considerable profit in selling to the very people we need defending against. I’m not saying that government arms dealing is any better (the Iran-Contra scandal alone shows that) or that private arms dealing must be stopped at all costs, but it’s a very difficult to claim that the business is justifiable.
You also present the many violations of human rights by large corporations then go on to say that we should trust the private market both in general and to look after us while we sleep. This is also not relevant to the core issue of arms funding this university and our right to disagree and seems a tad logically questionable. And finally, as Cieran pointed out, your dismissal of those who disagree as both left-wing and liberal (I’m sure there are many right-wingers who disagree as well) and penchant for buzzwords somewhat undermine your argument. If you chose to respond to this, I beg you to address the arguments presented without dismissing me as a PC liberal apologist.
I have to agree with cieran in that I broadly agree with your point but there are so many sweeping generalizations I thoroughly disagree with.
"Private business does not think in terms of morals but profit"
Which is why consumers have the onus of moral consideration. For example, Leeds Uni have banned Nestlé products in campus outlets.But no, you're right, let's stop being silly liberals and let the nice people at BAE do what they do, and benefit from their efforts!
What a diatribe of Dialy Mail-esque liberal-bashing.
Another one to the "agree but you argued it terribly" brigade.
A liberal in the truest sense is not a leftie; just sayin'.
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