What Money Can Buy

• Share

"Weapons are being treated like commercial articles, just like machine tools or automobiles," says Arthur Alexander of the Rand Corp. "They talk about quality, performance, price. Look at the catalogues." He was referring to the arms directories published for prospective buyers by half a dozen national governments. (The U.S., where sales catalogues from Sears to the Whole Earth are practically national icons, has none.) The most elaborate are put out by Britain and France. Both distribute slick omnibus arms compendia, Britain every year since 1969, France biannually since 1967, that the world's wish-listing generals and defense ministers can flip through with the delight of boys at Christmas time. There are no order forms or suggested retail prices. But whether they prefer the grand, gilded and clothbound British Defence Equipment Catalogue in three volumes (5,000 printed, $150 per set) or France's more workaday, four-volume paperback catalogue (6,000 printed, free), arsenal shoppers can find everything they need to build the best army that money can buy.

The British catalogue is a self-described "quick and easy reference." Choosing is made quicker and easier by rating symbols: a land mine, for instance, can bear the mark of the Queen's Award for outstanding technological achievement.

The perspective is international: "To our many Mends we apologise that this Catalogue is printed only in English... Assistance can always be obtained from British Embassies."

The small BAC 167 Strikemaster jet fighter, for example, "is now in service with twelve air forces throughout the world" and "offers a uniquely cost-effective solution for counter-insurgency." Is the client's country a bit underdeveloped? No problem: Strikemaster "has proved its ability to operate ... under actual combat conditions from primitive airstrips." The insurgents themselves might be interested in some of the wares. For example, the Blowpipe is a 44-lb. antiaircraft missile system that can be fired by a lone attacker. On one page is a "cratering kit," designed to blow 25-ft.-wide holes in runways; on another, aluminum runway repair matting (installable by "completely unskilled labor") is for sale.

Britannia once ruled the waves; today its customers can make the attempt. A whole navy is available off the peg:

there are 200-ft.-long "fast patrol boats," destroyers, fiber-glass-and-plastic-hulled minesweepers, troop-carrying Hovercraft and even a 670-ft., 14,000-ton Vickers aircraft carrier. Nor is the infantry slighted: there are mortars (51 mm or 81 mm), silencer-equipped submachine guns, four-round sniper rifles (99% accuracy at 400 meters) and a battery-powered grenade launcher. Missiles? Try an air-to-air Sky Flash or a ship-to-air Seawolf, a Rapier ("low cost" and "low weight") or a Swingfire ("long-range" and "antitank"). Once the weapons are ordered, there are British firms that will train troops and commanders, plan communications systems and even help manage bases.