From the perspective of the British state, you could easily assume that the Good Friday Agreement was designed to achieve, and indeed it did achieve, many things.
The cumulative economic cost of the ongoing conflict and the financial losses for the British exchequer are practically unfathomable when considering the broader effect across the Six Counties in terms of lack of foreign direct investment, job creation, taxation and infrastructure development.
Indeed, bringing an end to the conflict would allow the opening up and development of new markets for British businesses. It would also allow those businesses to benefit from a highly educated workforce at significantly lower costs compared to Britain, with significantly reduced overheads.
The role of the Six County state when it comes to the production of tools and weapons of war is often overlooked, though a significant portion of the economy is inextricably linked to the occupying military industrial complex.
Thales Group, a multinational company that designs, develops and manufactures equipment for the aerospace, defence and security sectors, was recently awarded a colossal £223 million contract by Britain’s ‘Ministry of Defence’. That contract will see the development and manufacture of high-explosive anti-tank missiles in Belfast, Ireland, to be packed up and carted off for sale and use in global conflicts. The Thales-’MoD’ contract will see several thousand missiles delivered to the British Army from 2023-2026.
Another contract, worth seven times that of the Thales deal, will see Harland and Wolff ‘revive the shipbuilding industry’ in Belfast. The shipyard famous for building the Titanic will now assemble three new naval vessels for Britain’s ‘Ministry of Defence’. When complete, these ships will supply munitions, stores and provisions to Britain’s aircraft carriers, destroyers and frigates deployed at sea.
Survitec, a producer of inflatables and other materials, will produce equipment for Britain’s armed forces as part of a £25 million contract working from a site in Belfast. Spirit Aerosystems, formerly Bombardier, and one of the world’s largest manufacturers of aerostructures, including defence platforms, was initially awarded a £30 million contract to produce unmanned drones in Belfast, to be armed with missiles, surveillance and electronic warfare technology.
Deloitte, a well known consulting and financial advisory firm, now has a British ‘Defence Team’ and an extended global network helping to exploit new technologies, utilising data to improve outcomes and develop ‘smarter procurements’ for the British military. That company has two significant bases in the Six Counties, both in Belfast, and more recently helped Britain’s front line force in occupied Ireland, the PSNI, with recruiting more foot soldiers into the heavily armed force.
Belfast-based Kinsetsu is now utilising its technology on board British warships, including their aircraft carriers, for the purpose of beefing up security. Kyocera AVX, working out of Coleraine in the Six Counties, is a leading supplier of advanced components, developing ‘high reliability defence applications’ for use in munitions, radars, surveillance, fighter jets, unmanned attack drones, targeting systems and more.
The list is endless, with a plethora of small, medium and large enterprises contributing to Britain’s military machine and global imperialism through supply, design and manufacture; including, but not limited to, ADS (Belfast), Angoka (Belfast), ARLS (Bangor), Axis Composites (Newtownabbey), Boyce Precision Engineering (Portadown), Brolis (Larne), Causeway Aero (), CCP Gransden (Ballygowan), Collins Aerospace (Kilkeel), DHL (Belfast), ECIT (Queen’s University Belfast), Electronic Automation Engineers (Belfast), Microchip (Belfast), Magellan Aerospace (Greyabbey), NI Precision (Lisburn), Rainey Mapal (Lisburn), RW Powder Coatings (Newtownards), Skytek (Belfast), Speedlink International Logistics (Belfast Aldergrove Airport), Spirit Aerosystems (Belfast), Thyssenkrupp (Newtownards), Trimite Global Coatings (Belfast) and Whiskin Precision Engineering (Belfast).
These businesses are but a small insight into a much broader network of supply, manufacture and distribution.
‘Invest NI’, a ‘regional’ business development agency whose role is to grow the Six Counties economy, states that ‘the Defence and Security sector is a growing industry’ with air defence and short range missile capability ‘at the heart of the industry’, with engineering companies involved in the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning fighter jet, and the Airbus A400M Atlas military transport aircraft.
It is without doubt that a significant proportion of economic output in the Six Counties is inextricably linked to weapons production and the delivery of said weaponry on various military platforms to be used in conflicts across the globe. Mainstream political parties in the Six Counties praise job creation in the aerospace and defence industry and celebrate the ‘successes’ of high-end manufacturing without a second thought for the countless lives lost through imperialist wars worldwide.
Intelligence systems, weapons, electronics, composites, explosives and other components are daily designed, developed and manufactured in the Six Counties and delivered directly into warzones to be used by military organisations with a long history of human rights violations.
It cannot be overstated, there is one clear victor when it comes to examining the outcomes created by the Good Friday Agreement; Imperialism and the Military Industrial Complex.
