Pity the poor American taxpayer! He’s been ripped off again by the Japanese. And I don’t mean just by grabbing jobs away from Americans in the electronics industry; it’s much worse than that.
The Japanese shipped an enormous hunk of high tech machine tool equipment to the U.S.S.R. It will cost the American taxpayers $1 billion (yes, a billion, not million, dollars) additional in our national defense budget to compensate for this treachery.
The story was originally broken on the front page of the New York Times. Here are the facts.
A Japanese firm called the Toshiba Corporation shipped four machines to the U.S.S.R., each standing two stories high and weighing half a million pounds. They were installed by a team of Japanese engineers who went to Leningrad in 1983 to assemble this $17 million worth of computer-controlled machines designed to make large and sophisticated submarine propellers.
The great modern nuclear missile-firing submarine fleet is one of the three essential elements in the military security of any superpower. Dozens of U.S. and U.S.S.R. submarines are always on the prowl, at the ready with nuclear missiles capable of hitting the other nation. U.S. and Soviet submarines are constantly playing a game of hide and seek in the vast oceans that separate our two countries.
Submarines are large and noisy power plants so, obviously, the name of the game is to glide as quietly as possible through the water in order to avoid detection.
Submarine propellers make two distinctive sounds that can be detected by underwater listening devices from thousands of miles away.
The U.S. Navy has spent tens of millions of dollars to quiet our propellers and to diffuse their water pressure patterns in order to avoid detection by the Soviets.
This is accomplished by original and sophisticated designs for the propellers, using odd numbers of overlapping blades and convoluted shapes. Naturally, these designs are highly classified, and naturally it is illegal to sell the Soviets any of the giant propeller machines under the regulations adopted by COCOM (the committee of Western allies and Japan that sets export rules).
In 1980, the Soviets contacted the Moscow office of a Japanese trading firm, and a contract was signed in 1981. It was well known at that time in defense and trade circles that the Soviets were seeking “quieting” technology for their submarines.
Our “friends” the Japanese sold those propeller machines to the Soviet Union. Toshiba’s executives filed export license applications using false model numbers and falsely asserting that the machines were for a civilian purpose.
Japanese government security was either so lax or so lacking in technical expertise that Toshiba’s applications were never challenged, and the first machine was delivered in 1982. Other parts and the software were shipped by a Norwegian firm, and the two nations serviced the machines under a five-year service and spare parts agreement.
After being presented with the evidence of illegality and betrayal of American security, the Japanese dragged their feet for a year. Finally, the Japanese government slapped Toshiba on the wrist by barring the firm from trading with 14 Communist countries for a year.
Some executives in the Japanese and Norwegian companies have been arrested and a few more arrests are expected. A few other executives were fired or allowed to resign.
However, all those actions are matters between the foreign governments and their own nationals. They do nothing to repair the damage to America.
What is the United States going to do to require repayment for our losses? A great deal more money and more illegality are involved here than is involved in the alleged diversion of money to the Contras about which we have heard so much in recent months.
There is some talk that we will bar the Japanese and Norwegian firms from being awarded some cushy contracts they have now pending with our Pentagon. Toshiba, for example, is hoping to sell $100 million worth of portable computers to the U.S. Air Force. But cancelling that deal may hurt us as much as them.
The best solution is to send an invoice directly to the Japanese government and demand that it pay for the damage the Japanese have caused. It is estimated that it will cost us $1 billion to develop advanced sensors to compensate for the new quietness of Soviet propellers made with American technology.
The Japanese spend next to nothing for their own defense. They rather arrogantly expect the United States to defend them from any potential enemies such as the Soviets or the Chinese. It’s time we insist that the Japanese at least pay for the damage they have caused to the security of our American submarine fleet.
