With the continuous turbulence of the international situation in recent years, the international arms trade has also begun to expand, according to public data, in fiscal year 2023, the United States has set a new record for foreign arms sales of more than $200 billion. In fact, the United States' foreign arms sales can be said to be very comprehensive, from Abrams tanks to F35 fighter jets, these powerful equipment seems to be available for sale, which makes people wonder, why do they dare to sell these high-tech equipment to the outside world? Aren't they afraid of being studied and cracked?
1
A combination of factors
In fact, this problem needs to be analyzed from multiple angles. The first is the question of whether people are afraid to crack it, and this question needs to be answered by time period and region. We all know that in the last century, the industrial capacity of the United States can be said to be unique in the world, and the industrial production capacity at the highest time was extremely huge, accounting for a very high proportion of the world's industrial production.
Because even if you get it, or even disassemble and study, you can't understand the things inside, and in many cases, even the use of it has to be guided by engineers throughout the whole process, and at that time, the United States attached great importance to the research and development of new equipment, and their domestic scientific research strength was very strong, and at this time a thing was in your hands.
By the time you study and understand, and even start trying to produce, people have already iterated many times. You can't catch up even if you put a lot of effort into it, and that's where the U.S. military was so strong in terms of equipment. Moreover, it is not only the industrial and technological guarantees, but also the forces that purchase military equipment themselves, so it is difficult to crack and experiment with weapons. There are a number of complex factors behind this.
First of all, we all know very well that modern warfare is mainly about production and logistics, even if you buy the latest and most advanced weapons in the world, but in the face of a large-scale war, if there is no supplementary ability, it is nonsense, you have a hundred F35, five hundred Apache, if there is no supplementary ability, it is finished.
2
The flaws of the countries that buy weapons
Moreover, the export of weapons must be self-produced and exported to those who cannot be self-produced. Therefore, if a country that can produce its own weapons and a country that cannot produce its own weapons, without external interference, it can be said that the country that imports weapons has no chance of winning at all. After all, people who purchase arms always require a single equipment configuration to be high enough, at best, they want a piece of equipment to play as much as possible, and at worst, they want a piece of equipment to be as useful as possible, and at worst, they can do without it, so it seems advanced.
In fact, the equipment that realizes these functions in the system is not as expensive as that piece of equipment, and it is more efficient to cooperate with each other, and only part of the function is lost once it is damaged, and it can be quickly replenished. It's just that the establishment of the system itself is something that most countries can't play with the whole country, so it's better to buy equipment. In particular, imports and exports are inherently means of warfare, and my export of weapons to you is essentially destroying your ability to mobilize for war.
You have bought all my weapons, so the result is that the less you have cultivated your own weapons industry, the less your army equipment system can be produced by yourself, the more your armed system depends on me, and in the end, the installation and commissioning of your weapons will come to me to study, and your non-commissioned officers are all taught by my students, do you think you command a mobile army?
Many countries have failed in their attempts to get rid of import dependence militarily, largely because the army imports everything from bullets to airplanes, and the pilots, non-commissioned officers, and officers are all students of foreigners, or students, and it is almost impossible for them to even get rid of the influence, after all, how long and how much will it take you to produce weapons that can arm you?
Not to mention the progress of science and technology, as well as the change of military concepts of war. In many cases, these high-tech weapons and equipment are now matched, a system, and the whole set of software and hardware that supports it in addition to the weapon itself. For example, many high-end aircraft, high-end missiles, and some ships need to be specially equipped with special satellite links and communication networks to be used.
And these "invisible and intangible" things will not be reflected in the list for sale, and are basically only for you, not for you. Many people may not understand the difference between them, for example, some air defense systems you buy need satellites in the sky to help you calculate the data of missiles in advance, and even need radars distributed around the world to help you calibrate.
In other words, if the other party wants to buy weapons, then will you still be afraid of him? If you buy equipment, you will only buy 30, 50, 100, 150 equipment, and you will not buy 10,000 equipment to put in the warehouse. War is a monster that devours everything, and the equipment bought by the other party will be quickly swallowed up by the war, and at this time you can't find a place to buy equipment, I'm afraid you will surrender immediately.
3
A variety of measures are taken to prevent it
But what we said so much does not mean that we can sit back and relax, in fact, a lot of equipment can still be analyzed through reverse engineering, which requires a country with a relatively complete industrial system and independent manufacturing and production capacity, you can conduct some reverse research on these equipment, for example, foreign media have reported that Iran has developed a lot of new weapons through reverse research.
Therefore, in addition to the above technical means, in fact, there are many other measures to avoid the loss of military technology, first of all, the choice of buyers, these buyers are not selected at random, but generally the United States "ally countries" or at least "friendly countries", such countries themselves are not very likely to do such a problem-prone behavior.
And such a force, the control is relatively simple, after all, its domestic economy and politics have been strongly affected and a certain degree of control, once found that there are signs of cracking the reverse, you can immediately strike, so it is more convenient to carry out relevant management, and even many of these countries' weapons can be said to belong to themselves only "in name", and it is difficult to define who is actually the highest control.
For example, we can take an example not long ago, that is, in the recent Red Sea crisis, a very ironic, but very "scary" thing broke out when you think about it. In fact, the cause of the incident is very simple, that is, a German warship suddenly discovered that there was an unidentified drone, and no one claimed it after consulting friendly forces.
Reaper MQ-9 UAV
Immediately regarded this as a drone launched by the other party, the captain immediately issued a relevant order, ready to launch a special missile carried on his ship to destroy, but I didn't expect the development of things to begin to become dramatic and abstract, first of all, this "no one leads" UAV turned out to be a Grim Reaper MQ-9 UAV produced in the United States, and this is not the most abstract, the latter two launched missiles actually "suddenly failed" and failed.
We are not discussing Germany's outrageous manipulation in this incident, nor are we engaging in some so-called "conspiracy theory" controlled by a "secret door". In fact, there is nothing to conspire about this thing, after all, they have been sold to foreign countries, and the amount of deployment is not small, and it is more likely that it is indeed an oolong incident, of course, many netizens think that there may be some "countermeasures" behind this, "secret door" or something, this is a personal speculation.
In addition to the careful selection of "buyers", on the other hand, it is the mastery of key parts suppliers, for example, we can give an example, if we take a high-tech reconnaissance aircraft, one of the key materials of the shell is mastered by a special supplier, and the world is basically only this supplier can supply, then even if you crack the relevant production technology, you can only get the high-tech alloy provided by the supplier, and you can only "make it difficult for a clever woman to cook without rice".
And although we are just a hypothetical example above, but in reality, the management of these special parts suppliers is actually stricter than we imagined, and many so-called "friendly countries" of the United States, even if they can directly purchase a lot of advanced weapons and equipment, but these high-tech parts and materials cannot be touched, not to mention those countries and forces that can't even buy these weapons.
And for many key parts of the data confidentiality is very strict, in fact, many people have a misunderstanding, it seems that the confidentiality work of the United States is very general, in fact, their confidentiality work is very strong, it seems that they do not pay much attention to confidentiality because they distinguish the two very clearly, that is, what is confidential and what is non-confidential, the boundary between this is very clear, for the non-confidential part of the public is very thorough, compared with the content that needs to be kept confidential is also very strict.
Another point is that because the industrial development history and science and technology tree of each country are not exactly the same, although there are a lot of reverse work to promote the development of their own system in the initial stage, they often want to develop their own weapons and equipment system in the back, and develop their own combat system, so they will not deliberately forcibly copy other people's science and technology, after all, there is no systematic support, and one or two pieces of equipment are meaningless, which also causes the countries that really have the ability to do the reverse often have no interest in this area at all, and the countries that do not have the ability to do this level even if they get it。
Resources:
[1] Huanqiu.com - 2024.01.31 "238 Billion U.S. Dollars! U.S. Foreign Arms Sales Set Record, Expert: Makes War Profits Through "Arms Diplomacy"
[2] China Youth Network - 2023.03.10 "US media: US and NATO weapons seized by Russia in Ukraine were sent to Iran for dismantling"
[3] Guangming.com - 2024.02.29 "Suddenly!" German Army Launches Missiles at U.S. Army