US Arms Exports Soar

[KevinB]

US arms export approvals soared in 2022

One factor in the surge is the easing of the global pandemic that in 2021 depressed sales from a spike to $83.5 billion in 2020.

www.defensenews.com

 

[Halifax Tar]

Man, the military industrial complex must be simply orgasmic over this.

Yup I'm quoting myself.

 

[Navy_Pete]

That's good news for a lot of workers. Hopefully gets them to rationalize what ITAR is applied to; years ago we put some restrictions on some non-combatant projects to ensure it had no controlled goods specifically to avoid how ITAR was being interpreted.

Makes sense for actual weapon systems and sensors, but you can slap a lot of extra equipment on that is COTs, and having ITAR fasteners is just dumb (especially when they are at home depot), so the 'dual use' label was being fairly widely applied.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Let me introduce you to:

Smedley Butler - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And his book:

War Is a Racket - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Colin Parkinson]

That's good news for a lot of workers. Hopefully gets them to rationalize what ITAR is applied to; years ago we put some restrictions on some non-combatant projects to ensure it had no controlled goods specifically to avoid how ITAR was being interpreted.

Makes sense for actual weapon systems and sensors, but you can slap a lot of extra equipment on that is COTs, and having ITAR fasteners is just dumb (especially when they are at home depot), so the 'dual use' label was being fairly widely applied.

God forbid that the Taliban got grip screws for their Sig pistols.........(True story)

 

[ueo]

Yup I'm quoting myself.

Seems as tho the industrial world requires a big war every 20 years or so to rejeuvenate itself and remind simple minds just who pays the bills!

 

[Navy_Pete]

God forbid that the Taliban got grip screws for their Sig pistols.........(True story)

Also true story, there were 1/2" steel bolts with associated bolts and washers catalogued with an NSN and treated as ITAR because they were used on some kind of cabinet to secure it to shock mounts.

You can buy them by the pound at any home improvement/fastener type store, but as soon as they got an NSN they suddenly became controlled goods and handled by someone with secret clearance.

Nothing fancy, just normal grade 8 bolts. Took something like 3 years to have the request to the TA back through the channels to remove the code from it, and I think we re-catalogued the exact same part under our own number instead just so someone could buy them locally. So dumb.

 

[KevinB]

Also true story, there were 1/2" steel bolts with associated bolts and washers catalogued with an NSN and treated as ITAR because they were used on some kind of cabinet to secure it to shock mounts.

You can buy them by the pound at any home improvement/fastener type store, but as soon as they got an NSN they suddenly became controlled goods and handled by someone with secret clearance.

Nothing fancy, just normal grade 8 bolts. Took something like 3 years to have the request to the TA back through the channels to remove the code from it, and I think we re-catalogued the exact same part under our own number instead just so someone could buy them locally. So dumb.

Not all Dual use items don’t need to be ITAR regulated.
Someone dropped the ball in the documentation for a screw. Some dual usage items get ITAR regulated because their direct usage (optics, lasers etc), but screws and bolts don’t need to be and should easily be documented as a non ITAR item.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Not all Dual use items don’t need to be ITAR regulated.
Someone dropped the ball in the documentation for a screw. Some dual usage items get ITAR regulated because their direct usage (optics, lasers etc), but screws and bolts don’t need to be and should easily be documented as a non ITAR item.

For sure, and it got sorted eventually, but took 3 years, and had to jump through a bunch of hoops before the TA on the US side ever saw it.

I think it was basically all NSNs for a system were ITAR by default, so included everything down to the fasteners etc on the part list. The actual main system was definitely ITAR, but unfortunately caught a lot of component pieces that weren't. Other common examples are things like cabling etc that isn't military use on it's own, and just happens to be used on a piece of kit.

Similarly had to argue that a diesel engine that was primarily used for fishing boats and similar wasn't suddenly a controlled good because someone put it in a tank. I'm not sure if sending an ebay listing helped, but was a policy weenie in the CG office being overzealous.