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Multi-national defense programs have gone from isolated instances to a major defense industry trend over the last two decades, and technology transfers are a critical and often-overlooked aspect of that trend. They also play a major role in fostering interoperability among allied militaries, especially those who wish to keep up with the USA and its seemingly endless stream of high-tech kit.
Britain is the USA's single most important global defense relationship, and they were promised a waiver for the USA's International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) under the Clinton administration in 2000. That waiver would enable the UK to acquire and make use of certain US military technologies without going through a tortuous license approval process. Now, with British troops fighting side-by-side with US forces in Iraq and major projects like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (and its associated CVF carriers) moving into a critical phase, British officials are becoming increasingly angry that the US had been unable to deliver.
Absent a satisfactory resolution, the risk that British defense procurement will shift explicitly toward European links and partners as a more dependable alternative is growing. If it is unfair to describe the present British state of mind as analogous to The Boston Tea Party, Thomas Jefferson's 1774 "A Summary View of the Rights of British America" might not be very far off the mark.
REAL allies deserve better. That goes for both Britain AND Australia.
Worse, this is surely a development that could carry long-term foreign policy and defense implications for both the USA and UK, with ripples that extend beyond to new US alliances like India, where unease concerning US reliability as a supplier/ partner is palpable.
DID explains the current situation, the source and root of opposition in the American political system to ITAR waivers for Britain and Australia, and the prognosis for progress.
There was an article about your worst case scenario over on Albion's Seedling a month or so ago that I found shocking, but it didn't get much attention.
"An important and timely paper has been published by the Centre for Policy Studies. It looks behind the empty phrases pronounced by politicians into the reality of British defence procurement."
"Its author, Richard North, one of the co-editors of the EUReferendum blog, where much of his research was published over the last few weeks, has gone beyond the political phrases. He has uncovered a rather grim story, depressing in the way it has been ignored by the British media, though, interestingly, picked up by some of the specialist American publications."
"The truth is that Britain has steadily turned away from its biggest ally, the United States, and towards Europe, becoming potentially more and more integrated through the procurement into the European defence structure that will undermine NATO."
Hopefully, this will lead to more debate about this worrying and terrible turn of events.
Follow the link up above that says "shift explicitly toward European links and partners" [ or click here ] for a DID article that did cover Dr. North's writings. There's a follow-up, too.
Short version: he's not always wrong - but not always right, either. This could begin to make him right much more aften.
Bear in mind that Richard North is a rabid Euroscepitic who hates not just the EU but (as far as I can tell) European civilisation itself. This doesn't make him wrong, but it does make him biased. As Joe says, he's not always wrong - but not always right, either.