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General Dynamics
"Strength
on your side."
CEO: Nicholas D. Chabraja
Defense Contracts 2005: $10.6
billion
Campaign Contributions, 1990-2006:
$3,989,932 (Democrat),
$5,112,560 (Republican)
Headquarters: Falls Church, VA
Website: http://www.generaldynamics.com
Overview
General Dynamics (GD) is headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia,
and employs approximately 46,000 people worldwide. GD and
its’ subsidiaries have facilities throughout the United
States, including Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, Massachusetts,
California, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Ohio, Washington,
North Carolina, and Virginia, and international offices in
Italy, England, and Canada.
GD operates in four main areas:
l Marine Systems - producing
warships and nuclear submarines
l Aerospace - making business jets
l Information Systems and Technology - designing
command and control systems
l Combat Systems - making
tanks, amphibious assault vehicles, weaponry, and ammunition
What
They Make
General Dynamics’ subsidiary, Electric Boat of Groton,
Connecticut builds the Seawolf attack submarines; Bath Iron
Works of Bath, Maine builds the DDG 51 destroyers; Land Systems
of Sterling Heights, Michigan builds the M1 tank; and Gulfstream
Aerospace of Savannah, Georgia makes business jets. GD Marine
Systems is the U.S. Navy’s leading supplier of combat
vessels – including nuclear submarines, surface combatants,
and auxiliary ships.
Additionally, General Dynamics manages information networks
for NATO allies, provides water transportation in Boston Harbor
(Harbor Express), supplies interactive displays for remote
medical care (Telehealth), furnishes computer-based, automated
diagnostic maintenance and instruction tools (TechSight™),
and services various business aircraft.
General
Dynamics DOD Contracts
| Year |
Rank |
Awards (in Billions) |
| 2000 |
4 |
$4.2 |
| 1999 |
4 |
$ 4.6 |
| 1998 |
4 |
$ 3.7 |
| 1997 |
4 |
$ 4.0 |
| 1996 |
5 |
$ 2.7 |
Troubled
Programs
The future of the $50 billion DD-21 Land Attack Destroyer
program is uncertain. President Bush talked at length throughout
the campaign about "skipping a generation" in developing new
weapons technology, and the DD-21 is one of the weapons systems,
among many, that the Pentagon is examining as it conducts
its top to bottom reviews. However, the Bush administration’s
2002 defense request included $643.5 million for the DD-21
program. The DD-21 was described by the former director of
the Pentagon’s testing office, Philip Coyle as "not
only a replacement, but it’s also less observable, more
stealthy in terms of its design, and operates more efficiently."
The ship cost $100 million less than the current destroyer,
and would put into place new "cutting edge" technologies,
but whether or not it is necessary is the question. As Owen
Cote of MIT’s security studies program said, "The problem
it is going to have is there’s a very capable ship that’s
now being made." The DDG-51 "doesn’t do many of the
things that the DD-21 does, but the bottom line is the Navy
is being put under tremendous budgetary pressure and the DD-21
is a little exposed."
As John Donnelly of the Boston Globe points out, "The uncertainty
has overshadowed another unfolding drama: competition between
Bath and Ingalls over the designation of lead shipyard in
the project. The winner would take over the design work and
hire various subcontractors, making the award worth billions
of dollars." Currently there are two teams, the Blue Team
and the Gold Team. The Blue Team is made up of Bath as shipbuilder,
Lockheed Martin as combat system designer, with Maine Senators
Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins as its "political shepherds."
Incidentally, the Blue Team has a website devoted to the DD-21,
www.dd21.com.
The other team is the Gold Team, made up of Ingalls as the
shipbuilder, Raytheon as the systems integrator and Senate
Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi "as the more than
equal political counterweight."
Another item that might be on Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s
chopping board is the $11 billion Crusader howitzer. John
Omnicinski reported in the Detroit News that the Crusader
"will take 18 years to reach battlefield troops, may be too
heavy to airlift and won’t end up anywhere near its
original design. Nonetheless, it has risen like a phoenix
from the ashes of every defense budget of the 1990s. He went
on to point out that the Crusader has friends in high places
"giving it a political geography hard to defeat, despite flaws,
rising costs and a disastrous development schedule." This
year’s defense budget has $447.9 million devoted to
the program.
Inside
Political Connections
The Bush administration has just named three corporate executives
to lead the Air Force, Army and Navy. Among the three is Gordon
R. England, 63, who recently retired from General Dynamics,
if confirmed he would serve as the Secretary of the Navy.
The Boston Globe noted, "Gordon England had no military experience,
but he had just the right qualification to become President
Bush’s pick for secretary of the Navy: Two decades in
the corporate world."
While Gordon England is on his way to the Pentagon, a number
of former Pentagon officials and members of the armed services
are lending their advice to GD by serving on the company’s
Board of Directors (each receives an annual retainer of $40,000).
These include Former U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition
and Technology Paul Kaminski, who reportedly also receives
$200,000 a year for up to 40 business days of his time; retired
Lieutenant General, U.S. Army Julius W. Becton, Jr.; George
A. Joulwan, Former Supreme Allied Commander, Europe and General,
U.S. Army, Ret.; Carl E. Mundy, Jr., Former Commandant, U.S.
Marine Corps; and Carlisle A. H. Trost Former Chief of Naval
Operations, U.S. Navy.
The
Money Stuff
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, campaign
contributions for the 2000 election totaled $1.2 million,
with about 65% going to Republican candidates. To date, General
Dynamics has donated close to half a million dollars for the
2002 election cycle, while lobbying expenditures average about
$4.1 million a year.
Merger
Mania
GD was hoping purchase Newport News Shipbuilding Inc. (for
$2.1 billion), based in Newport News, VA. The acquisition
would have combined the last remaining U.S. Navy aircraft
carrier and submarine manufacturers. The Navy accounts for
98 percent of total sales of Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS),
which is the only other company besides GD capable of building
nuclear subs. NNS has built 10 of the last 12 active aircraft
carriers and is scheduled to christen the USS Ronald Reagan
in 2003.
The merger took an interesting twist in early May 2001 when
defense giant Northrop Grumman decided to make a hostile,
unsolicited bid to purchase Newport News. The New York Times
reported that Northrop, which acquired amphibious shipbuilder
Litton Industries earlier this year, would have a monopoly
on aircraft carriers, amphibious ships and large-deck amphibious
ships if it purchased NNS. Northrop would also remain a partner
with General Dynamics in the construction of nuclear submarines.
One former DOD official said the Navy would favor the merger
between GD and NNS because the two companies have been partners
in the construction of nuclear submarines since 1997, unlike
Northrop which has no experience building nuclear subs and
little in the shipbuilding business. But in the end, Northrop
Grumman prevailed, completing the acquisition of Newport News
in December 2001. Both companies had strong advocates in their
respective corners.
Northrop owned Litton Industries is the biggest private
employer in Mississippi, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott’s
home state. Newport News is the biggest employer in Virginia,
home state of Senator John Warner, who heads the Armed Services
Committee. The Washington Times reported that Sen. Lott, in
a letter to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Sen. Lott said, "I
believe the proposed Northorp Grumman-Newport News Shipbuilding
merger is in the best interest of the nation, the Department
of Defense and the Navy." Senator Warner also wrote to Mr.
Rumsfeld, requesting a meeting as soon as possible to discuss
the two offers.
The acquisition makes Northrop Grumman the nation’s
third-largest military contractor and its biggest maker of
ships.
US
Weapons Makers Vie for Taiwan Arms Deal
While the sale of Aegis Destroyers to Taiwan has been temporarily
postponed, weapons manufactures aren’t giving up. General
Dynamics, owner of Bath Iron Works where the destroyers would
be built, hired Cassidy and Associates, whose key player is
former Reagan defense official Carl Ford, to lobby for the
sale. Cassidy, which also has a $10 million contract
with a Taiwan think-tank with close ties to the ruling party,
conceived of and drafted a letter sent to President Clinton
by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and two other Republican
Senators. The letter implied that congressional approval of
permanent normal trade relations with China was contingent
upon the White House’s prompt approval of the weapons
sale.
On the public relations front, jobs were made a major issue.
The Aegis Industrial Alliance says that the destroyer contract
represents work for 1,938 companies in 49 states that have
stakes - including major weapons manufacturers Lockheed Martin,
Boeing and Raytheon. Also on Taiwan’s wish list are
P-3C Orion submarine-hunting aircraft from Lockheed Martin,
and advanced-medium-range air-to-air missiles, diesel submarines,
and M1 tanks made by General Dynamics Corp.
This fact sheet was prepared
by Michelle Ciarrocca of the Arms
Trade Resource Center of the World
Policy Institute.
Aerospace Contributions
This information is also
available as a printable, PDF
fact sheet.
Programs and
Products:
Already
established as one of the leading combat systems suppliers in
the US, General Dynamics entered the space weapons industry
when it acquired
Spectrum Astro in March 2004. Spectrum Astro was heavily
involved in both missile defense and space weapons-related work,
primarily through satellite manufacturing. With the acquisition,
General Dynamics inherited several aerospace contracts, including
the $34.4 million Missile Defense Agency contract for Astro’s
work on the Near Field Infrared Experiment (NFIRE).
NFIRE is intended
to gather data about missiles and missile launches, in order
to instruct missile warning satellites on how to discriminate
between a ballistic missile’s exhuast plume and the body
of the rocket. This information is supposed to ensure that the
interceptors will actually hit the missile. The technology developed
by NFIRE will also aid the development of Kinetic
Energy Interceptors. Originally, the NFIRE spacecraft
built by General Dynamics was designed to feature an on-board
infrared sensor and an additional sensor that would have flown
near a missile target during testing to take a closer look.
The additional sensor was to be mounted on a kill vehicle (a
missile interceptor that can destroy the missile on impact),
making the NFIRE spacecraft a weapon itself.
However, opponents
of space-based missile interceptors raised objections
to the kill vehicle, arguing it was a precursor to space-based
anti-satellite weapons. The kill vehicle concept was removed
from the design, though less because of its anti-satellite applications
and more because building it and integrating it with the NFIRE
spacecraft would take an additional two years. The Missile Defense
Agency decided instead to position the NFIRE satellite closer
to its targets than previously anticipated, and replaced the
kill vehicle with a laser communications system.
While the
elimination of the kill vehicle was welcomed
by many, it turns out that the laser system that replaced it
could benefit the Pentagon’s missile tracking project,
the Space Tracking and Surveillance
System: it makes the relay of information between satellites
faster, which means more information can be distributed, which
improves the probability of success in taking out the incoming
missile.
Not surprisingly,
General Dynamics is also a major
contractor for the Space Tracking and Surveillance System.
It is responsible for building the system’s satellites
along with Northrop Grumman. This
system will
be able to detect and track ballistic missiles as well as
potential ground-based anti-satellite weapons.
In December
2006, General Dynamics was given a $23.3 million contract
by the US Air Force to research and develop the Alternative
Infrared Satellite System program, which is being designed
as an alternative to the Space Based Infrared program.
Like the Space Tracking and Surveillance System, the Alternative
Infrared Satellite System is intended to provide missile warning
and missile defense for the US beginning in 2015.
Spectrum Astro
is not the only small company General Dynamics has benefited
from. The US Navy granted Granted Dynamics a 12-month
contract
worth $41.8 million to provide engineering and technical support
to the Aegis Ballistic Missile
Defense Program. This contract was originally
awarded to Anteon International Corporation, an IT firm
that General Dynamics bought in December 2005. As CorpWatch
points
out, in the past several years defense contractors “have
been swallowing up small technology firms in order to uprade
to the type of high-tech warfare that the [former] Defense Sectretary
Donald Rumsfeld is pushing in the Pentagon. General Dynamics
got on the ball early, setting up an Information Technology
sector in the late 1990s, which has now become one of General
Dynamics’ fastest growing divisions with revenues of $4
billion.”
This research and report was
compiled by Ray Acheson of Reaching
Critical Will in February
2007 in coordination with the Secure
World Foundation.
For More Profiles:
See General Dynamic's
PDF
Dirty Dozen profile.
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BAE Systems
Bechtel Corporation
Boeing
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IBM
Lockheed Martin
Mitsubishi
Northrop Grumman
Raytheon
Siemens
University of California
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