A number of UK acquisition projects that are currently underway involve collaboration with other nations to jointly procure equipment for use by the military forces of all of the participants. The potential economic benefits of acquiring equipment in this way are significant:
• fixed development costs can be defrayed amongst a number of partners, generating economies of scale and associated reductions in unit costs that would not be otherwise be realised. This has led the UK to participate in some smaller scale collaborative projects, including NLAW (light anti-armour missile), GMLRS (guided multiple launch rocket system); and
• projects that are very large and which could not realistically be undertaken independently by the UK; in such circumstances, collaboration affords access to technologies and capabilities that would otherwise be out of reach. This means the set of collaborative projects in which the MoD is involved are high-profile such as Typhoon, A400(M) and PAAMS on the Type 45 destroyer.
The potential benefits of collaboration are most evident on large, expensive projects with significant technical challenges to be overcome. Equally, these projects tend have a high profile; any delay or overrun on these projects is likely to be very visible and embarrassing to the MoD.
The inherent difficulties in ensuring that all participants in any collaboration have their interests aligned is widely held to be at the root cause of many problems and, more generally, the view across the MoD and the wider defence industry is that such problems are a characteristic of all collaborative projects to a greater or lesser extent.
It is certainly the case that the divergence between the objectives of the various partners has led to problems on some projects. However, the question of whether the poor reputation of collaborative projects is warranted across the board remains open. This study has not examined the relative performance of collaborative projects in detail; the small sample and the specific issues raised in relation to each project render any such analysis relatively meaningless on a statistical basis.
However, the term 'collaboration' describes a concept that actually spans a range of practices. At one extreme, the workshare agreements integral to the development and production of the Typhoon fast jets require very close collaboration between international teams in order to overcome problems of integration - and also entail resolving governance issues between nations. At the other extreme lie projects such as the UK's participation in the C-17 programme in which the UK purchases a military off-the-shelf ("MOTS")
product manufactured primarily for the US DoD and the UK's support needs are subsumed into the US's agreement with Boeing. Arrangements in which there are senior and junior partners who determine to a greater or lesser extent the direction of any project may be considered to be somewhere in between these two extremes (e.g., NLAW with Sweden).
A criticism frequently directed at the 'true' collaboration of the type entered into on the Typhoon programme is that the approach is focussed on sharing employment and expertise and appears, at least first sight, to be far removed from one which aspires to minimise cost and maximise efficiency and military capability. However, other types of arrangement with the UK as a 'junior partner' have also been condemned because they do not provide the UK with enough leverage to influence the direction of a project.
Some of the benefits of collaboration can be achieved without the associated risks by purchasing MOTS equipment. In many instances, this may be an appropriate approach to adopt; indeed a recent review of acquisition practices in Australia33 has determined that it would be beneficial to maximise its MOTS purchases, at the expense of developing its own, bespoke equipment. MOTS purchases are now the "default option" for the Australian armed forces and the benefits of customised developments over MOTS equipment must be demonstrated through a clear business case before any alternative paths - whether independent or collaborative - can be considered (see Chapter 10 for further detail on other nations' efforts to seek better value from their military acquisitions).
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33 Defence Procurement and Sustainment Review, D. Mortimer (Sep 2008)