American defense contractor Raytheon has just secured a massive $769.4 million deal to upgrade Patriot Air and Missile Defense System batteries in South Korea.
In this two-minute video, Engineering.com's manufacturing expert James Anderton explores the new contract and why it should be on your radar.
James: Here at Engineering.com, I cover a multitude of issues along with our team of writers and editors across the country. One of them is manufacturing. I like manufacturing; It's an area I started in the industry and it`s very close to my heart.
A story came by my desk the other day from Raytheon Corporation about a very, very big deal. That contract is three quarters of a billion dollars – $769.4 million to be exact – in a Patriot Missile deal for the Republic of Korea.
Now, that`s a lot of money. Any deal of that size would be noteworthy. But what makes this one particularly special isn't what I can tell you about the Raytheon deal, but what I can't tell you. What I can't report is how much employment that $769 million creates in the U.S. and how much of that money is used as offsets with South Korea.
One of the reasons I can't tell you that is because Raytheon can't tell us. And more interestingly, the people who told Raytheon to do so are also secret. We have a level of secrecy now in military procurement which is laudable when it protects legitimate military and industrial secrets. Where I have a problem with it is when it extends to the economic realm, where no advantage can be conferred to a potential adversary by releasing the information. I think this is one of those cases.
I think in Andover, Mass., which is the home of the Patriot Missile system, there will be some employment created by this deal. How much? We don't know. Certainly, it will at least have the effect of preserving jobs at the missile complex – and that`s a good thing. How many more jobs will it create? Who knows. In the future, we`ll keep our ear to the ground and try to follow the money and let you know what`s going on out there.
In the meantime, this is still a good-news story; $769 million is a lot of money. It should buy South Korea a lot of protection, and god knows they certainly need it.
Thumbnail photo credit: Seoul on Flickr, via Creative Commons