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IBM
CEO: Samuel J. Palmisano
Defense Contracts, 1998-2003: $1.2
billion
Campaign Contributions, 1998-2003:
$327,100 (Democrat),
$280,621 (Republican)
Headquarters: Armonk, NY
Website: http://www.ibm.com/
Overview
IBM manufactures and sells powerful tools for designing
nuclear weapons and missiles—Supercomputers. These high
tech devices are designed to process billions of operations
per second. According to Gary Milhollin of the Wisconsin Project
on Nuclear Arms Control, supercomputers are invaluable for
designing nuclear weapons because they "can model the thrust
of a rocket, calculate the heat and pressure on a warhead
entering the Earth’s atmosphere and simulate virtually
every other force affecting a missile from launch to impact."
IBM has sold these computers to China, India and Russia, all
viewed as "bomb prone" or "problem proliferants" or in the
official lingo of Federal Export Regulations, "Tier Three"
nations. In making this technology available, IBM directly
contributed to the proliferation of nuclear weapons while
continuing to push for new markets for their high tech wares.
Russia:
Peaceful Supercomputers?
In August 1998, IBM admitted to illegally exporting 16 RS/6000
SP supercomputers to Arzamas-16, a leading Russian nuclear
weapons lab, in 1996. Moscow bought the computers for $2.1
million, claiming they were for "peaceful purposes." At first
IBM denied knowing the computers were destined for Russia’s
Los Alamos—the site of where their first atomic and
hydrogen bombs were built—but later revealed that it
sent a technician to install the workstations in November
1996. The company acknowledged it had "reason to believe"
the computers would be used for nuclear functions.
In August 1998, IBM’s Russia based East Europe/Asia
Ltd. was fined $8.5 million and the Commerce Department’s
Bureau of Export Administration put the company’s export
privileges on probation for two years. But the fines and penalties
imposed do not change the fact that "the Russians can now
design weapons of mass destruction…with supercomputers
imported illegally from the United States."
China: Kmart for Weapons
of Mass Destruction
When Chinese President Jiang Zemin visited the United
States in November 1997, he spent almost an hour in IBM CEO
Louis Gerstner Jr.’s Madison Avenue office before touring
an IBM facility in New Jersey. After his meeting, Zemin told
leaders in the technology industry that, "China’s market
is open to you."
China has been accused of passing on nuclear technology
to Iran, Pakistan and Algeria, causing Democratic Representative
Edward Markey to describe the nation as the "Kmart for weapons
of mass destruction." Computer companies like IBM are able
to overlook that uncomfortable truth because China represents
a $13.5 billion market for information technology and between
50-75% of the world’s nuclear equipment market. After
the meeting, IBM CEO Gerstner said, "Your visit to the U.S.
has been not only very important but successful."
Recognizing the value of China’s computer market,
IBM and other industry leaders have come together under the
umbrella of the Computer Coalition for Responsible Export
to push for Permanent Trade Relations with China. According
to IBM’s literature, the company’s business in
China has grown 50% a year in recent years. In a Los Angeles
Times article on the Chinese president’s visit, IBM
CEO Gerstner "assured Jiang that the U.S. business community
is determined to do everything possible to foster the warmest
possible U.S.-China relationship, going far beyond the ‘narrow
issues’ that have dominated the two countries’
recent ties." Those "narrow issues" include China’s
repression of human rights, freedom of assembly and religion.
Recently, IBM proposed selling China a RS/6000 SP supercomputer
able to process 30 billion operations per second, ostensibly
for their Meteorological Administration. Critics of the deal
point out that the information gleaned from this computer
could be used to "more accurately pinpoint [Chinese] nuclear
warhead re-entry vehicles." The programs needed for weather
forecasting are "quite similar to the programs you need for
simulating bombs" says Wisconsin Project director Gary Milhollin.
India:
IBM Helped Build the Bomb
IBM sold a supercomputer to one of India’s nuclear missile
sites, the Indian Institute of Science, which develops India’s
most advanced rocket propellants, guidance systems and nose
cones. While an IBM spokesman claimed the company had "no
indication that the machine has been used for anything other
than university research," the Institute is on Britain’s
official list of organizations that procure goods and technology
for India’s missile programs. The supercomputer, capable
of 1.4 billion operations per second when installed in 1994,
was upgraded in June 1997 to perform 5.8 billion operations,
making it "one of the most powerful computers in India."
When a U.S. company wants to sell computers that perform
more than 2 billion operations per second to a "Tier Three"
nation, they must obtain an export license. In the case of
this sale, IBM claimed an exception because the site was not
connected to nuclear weapons, or military work. But IBM failed
to ensure that the exception applied and U.S. Customs Office
opened an investigation in June 1998, which remains pending.
Milhollin notes that "virtually every element of India’s
nuclear and missile program has been imported directly or
copied from imported designs," making U.S. sanctions after
India’s nuclear tests almost a pathetic and punitive
afterthought. While President Clinton condemned the tests
and imposed sanctions, he also oversaw the systematic dismantlement
of export controls that would have kept nuclear tools out
of India’s hands.
IBM:
Supercomputers R’Us
In Spring 1996, after IBM’s supercomputers were found
in China and Russian military facilities, the House of Representatives
moved to tighten computer export controls. But Republican
leaders in the Senate received urgent calls from IBM CEO Louis
Gerstner arguing against stronger controls. The attempt to
limit computer exports was defeated. This one anecdote demonstrates
the power wielded by Big Blue, the leader in a $633 billion
a year computer industry, which employs more than 1.3 million
people in the United States.
The computer industry, working under the Information Technology
Industry Council and the Computer Coalition for Responsible
Exports, lobbies against export controls on advanced technologies.
One of the major complaints is that the industry is advancing
too fast for control. "These thresholds conflict in a major
way with the revolutionary pace of technology that characterizes
our industry."
This appeal to faith in technology’s ability to regulate
itself is reinforced by the industry’s political contributions.
The computer equipment and services industry, which dolled
out a total of $67 million in contributions in the last decade,
is the fourth largest contributing sector to the Democratic
National Committee and ninth largest contributor to the Republicans.
IBM alone spent $5.5 million on lobbyists in 1998. And IBM
employees contributed more than $500,000 to political candidates
during the 2000 election cycle.
President Clinton and Congress responded favorably to this
stroking. Clinton relaxed export controls on advanced computer
technology six times in the past eight years and abandoned
the distinction between military and civilian customers of
high tech computers. The most recent decontrol raised the
computing speed of exports to 28 billion operations per second.
But as Gary Milhollin warns, "reducing export controls will
not stimulate the U.S. economy; it will only stimulate the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction." A joint report
from the Commerce and Defense Departments found that nuclear
blasts could be simulated with computers capable of 10-21
billion operations per second. The average desktop computer,
by comparison, can complete 1 billion operations per second.
Connecting
to consumer products
IBM produces a large array of consumer products, including
portable and desktop computers, and handheld electronic organizers.
Connections With Other Defense Contractors
1. Bell Helicopter Textron named IBM as its desktop
PC provider in a six-year, $70 million agreement.
2. IBM and Dassault Systems, in conjunction with
Boeing Corporation, have deployed an "e-business product
development solution" that gives the company "a first-strike
advantage" in efforts to win the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)
contract. July 25, 2000.
3. Newport News Shipbuilding use IBM and Dassault
Systemes e-business solutions "to optimize and support design,
development and construction of all future ships." March 23,
2000
4. Boeing Company has selected IBM and Dassault Systemes
software products "as the core of the first set of engineering
computing standards that spans all Boeing business units and
all sites. Jan. 7, 2000
For more information please see the Wisconsin
Project on Arms Control, the Information
Technology Industry Council, and the Center
for Responsible Politics.
This fact sheet was
prepared by Frida Berrigan for the Arms
Trade Resource Center
of the World
Policy Institute.
Aerospace
Contributions
Programs and Products:
IBM’s software, program languages, and computers are
used by the government and major defense contractors to operate
satellites and other aerospace technology.
In August 2002, IBM supplied
the Department of Defense with computer servers to be used
in the Ground-based Missile Defense
program. In 2004, Boeing and
IBM announced a strategic
alliance to develop digital communications and information
technologies for ground- and space-based missile defense systems.
Raytheon and IBM have created
a joint
office to pursue aerospace defense contracts, advertising
Raytheon’s defense electronics and IBM’s chip
design and network implementation to attract customers.
In addition, some of IBM’s commercial products have
military space applications. For example, APL2,
a programming language with a variety of functions that are
intended to be used for data processing, system design, engineering,
and scientific computing, has been used by Northrop
Grumman teams working on missile defense contracts.
Northrop Grumman used
APL2 in its Kinetic Energy Interceptor
program for predicting the path of a target missile so an
interceptor missile could hit it.
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
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Bechtel Corporation
Boeing
British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL)
General Dynamics
Lockheed Martin
Mitsubishi
Northrop Grumman
Raytheon
Siemens
University of California
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