Raytheon looks to make a killing
But not everyone puts the biggest career boost of their lives down to landing a previously untested jet aircraft that has just been damaged in a mid-air collision. Vice Admiral (Rt.) Norman Ray does.
A former Assistant Secretary General of NATO, Admiral Norman Ray is now president of Raytheon, one the world's top aerospace and defence companies.
Amongst other things, Ray is in Poland to talk about possibly the biggest sales issue at stake for Raytheon at the moment, viz. how to catch up with its competition on one of the most valuable deals in the new NATO - for an air-to-ground surveillance system, with Raytheon's proposed version going by the name of CTAS.
The alternative version, the Transatlantic Industrial Proposed Solution (TIPS), entered the competition some time ago, while Raytheon has been on the case for just months.
"Our solution is much cheaper and has better abilities," argues Ray. The CTAS model is positioned on an arguably more efficient Global Express small jet instead of a much larger A321. Much more of the work is relayed to the ground, so that the aircraft acts more like a receiver-sender vehicle rather than a mobile information processing center.
The biggest problem for Raytheon though is that many decision makers to determine the final NATO decision have already been lobbied hard by proponents of the TIPS system. By doing some of his own lobbying work in the newer NATO lands, though, Ray hopes to outflank the opposition.
But aside from pitching his big new product, Ray is in Poland to push Raytheon's core business.
When Poland next goes to war, and if the government chooses to use the Polish Air Force, the chances are that his company's bombs will be used.
Indeed, 9,000 Raytheon-built Paveway bombs were dropped in the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. These are the laser-guided bombs that U.S. officials proudly showed to press conferences taking out military targets in Iraq. They are also the bombs that they didn't show accidentally killing civilians.
Raytheon also produces the world-famous Patriot missile, which defended Israel, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait against successive Scud missile attacks in the first Gulf War.
The raising of Poland's military profile has occurred at a time when Raytheon's products are becoming international household names. Poland's 48 Lockheed Martin F-16s will all be fitted out with Raytheon weapons bought from taxes paid by Polish households.
With Polish special forces used in the invasion of Iraq, and the Polish army contributing to the subjugation of that nation, this country seems to have reached a high watermark in terms of its contribution to military initiates. And Ray thinks that this will become the norm.
"Poland has a great military tradition. Perhaps Poland never wanted to have one, but it had to, more because of geopolitics than anything else. That is not going to change," he says.
When Ray was still a NATO official involved with the Partnership for Peace, he spent a day in a Polish military museum, and it made a lasting impression on him, one which is now informing his business decisions.
"I saw that Poland has a richer military history than it would have wished for, but that determines how it will act in the future," says Ray. "Poland has the biggest defense budget in the region; the biggest armed forces. It has a defense tradition that suggests it will continue to be a serious defense partner."
"I expect the Polish people, as they have an ever more mature democracy, to draw on their history to make decisions about what they will and will not support," he adds.
Raytheon is trying to increase its presence here and it is already negotiating a central Warsaw office location to spearhead its ambition to take advantage of an expected rise in demand for military hardware from this country.
"We're on the verge of some real business here," says Ray. "So the intention is to raise our profile beyond information sharing and discussions."
Ray recalls President Lech Wałęsa's speech given at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, when he made the point that Poland is at the heart of the Western tradition and did not intend to do anything but offer net contributions to the U.S.-led alliance.
Slowly but surely, Poland is doing this, and Raytheon's chances of doing business here are getting better and better.
"If you look at the size of the Polish economy and the year-on-year growth, the size of foreign direct investment coming in, you can see that Poland will have a defense budget in keeping with its wealth and resources."
But military analysts have observed a difficulty in new NATO members' ability to make the transition from a conscript army to a professional, deployable, well-equipped force. The controversial reorganization of the GROM unit, in particular, has been criticized for being caused by a backward-looking old guard.
"More broadly, former Warsaw Pact nations have to deal with that issue all the time. It is a political issue which we must take into account, but it is not for us to comment on it," says Ray. "The diluting of elite forces has actually happened in Canada and is happening in the UK."
Ray believes this is the natural grind of democracy, where civilians are making investment decisions that have previously been the purview of the military, and that Poland's defense market is maturing well in this respect.
He suggests that Poland is the center of new growth for his company. Let's just hope we never have to deploy his company's products.
A former Assistant Secretary General of NATO, Admiral Norman Ray is now president of Raytheon, one the world's top aerospace and defence companies.
Amongst other things, Ray is in Poland to talk about possibly the biggest sales issue at stake for Raytheon at the moment, viz. how to catch up with its competition on one of the most valuable deals in the new NATO - for an air-to-ground surveillance system, with Raytheon's proposed version going by the name of CTAS.
The alternative version, the Transatlantic Industrial Proposed Solution (TIPS), entered the competition some time ago, while Raytheon has been on the case for just months.
"Our solution is much cheaper and has better abilities," argues Ray. The CTAS model is positioned on an arguably more efficient Global Express small jet instead of a much larger A321. Much more of the work is relayed to the ground, so that the aircraft acts more like a receiver-sender vehicle rather than a mobile information processing center.
The biggest problem for Raytheon though is that many decision makers to determine the final NATO decision have already been lobbied hard by proponents of the TIPS system. By doing some of his own lobbying work in the newer NATO lands, though, Ray hopes to outflank the opposition.
But aside from pitching his big new product, Ray is in Poland to push Raytheon's core business.
When Poland next goes to war, and if the government chooses to use the Polish Air Force, the chances are that his company's bombs will be used.
Indeed, 9,000 Raytheon-built Paveway bombs were dropped in the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. These are the laser-guided bombs that U.S. officials proudly showed to press conferences taking out military targets in Iraq. They are also the bombs that they didn't show accidentally killing civilians.
Raytheon also produces the world-famous Patriot missile, which defended Israel, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait against successive Scud missile attacks in the first Gulf War.
The raising of Poland's military profile has occurred at a time when Raytheon's products are becoming international household names. Poland's 48 Lockheed Martin F-16s will all be fitted out with Raytheon weapons bought from taxes paid by Polish households.
With Polish special forces used in the invasion of Iraq, and the Polish army contributing to the subjugation of that nation, this country seems to have reached a high watermark in terms of its contribution to military initiates. And Ray thinks that this will become the norm.
"Poland has a great military tradition. Perhaps Poland never wanted to have one, but it had to, more because of geopolitics than anything else. That is not going to change," he says.
When Ray was still a NATO official involved with the Partnership for Peace, he spent a day in a Polish military museum, and it made a lasting impression on him, one which is now informing his business decisions.
"I saw that Poland has a richer military history than it would have wished for, but that determines how it will act in the future," says Ray. "Poland has the biggest defense budget in the region; the biggest armed forces. It has a defense tradition that suggests it will continue to be a serious defense partner."
"I expect the Polish people, as they have an ever more mature democracy, to draw on their history to make decisions about what they will and will not support," he adds.
Raytheon is trying to increase its presence here and it is already negotiating a central Warsaw office location to spearhead its ambition to take advantage of an expected rise in demand for military hardware from this country.
"We're on the verge of some real business here," says Ray. "So the intention is to raise our profile beyond information sharing and discussions."
Ray recalls President Lech Wałęsa's speech given at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, when he made the point that Poland is at the heart of the Western tradition and did not intend to do anything but offer net contributions to the U.S.-led alliance.
Slowly but surely, Poland is doing this, and Raytheon's chances of doing business here are getting better and better.
"If you look at the size of the Polish economy and the year-on-year growth, the size of foreign direct investment coming in, you can see that Poland will have a defense budget in keeping with its wealth and resources."
But military analysts have observed a difficulty in new NATO members' ability to make the transition from a conscript army to a professional, deployable, well-equipped force. The controversial reorganization of the GROM unit, in particular, has been criticized for being caused by a backward-looking old guard.
"More broadly, former Warsaw Pact nations have to deal with that issue all the time. It is a political issue which we must take into account, but it is not for us to comment on it," says Ray. "The diluting of elite forces has actually happened in Canada and is happening in the UK."
Ray believes this is the natural grind of democracy, where civilians are making investment decisions that have previously been the purview of the military, and that Poland's defense market is maturing well in this respect.
He suggests that Poland is the center of new growth for his company. Let's just hope we never have to deploy his company's products.
