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BAE set to brave controversy by attending Saudi Arabia event
Financial Times-17 Oct. 2018

16 Oct: BBC: Simon Jack: BAE Systems will go to the Saudi ball
BAE Systems is one UK firm that will definitely not pull out of next week’s business conclave in Saudi Arabia.
The Kingdom bought a sixth of everything the UK defence contractor sold last year and BAE employs 6,000 people on the ground there...

To be fair to BAE, selling military hardware is not a normal business. It is conducted with the express approval of the UK government...

The UK wants to have a national aerospace contractor like BAE - both for national security reasons and for the nearly 40,000 high-skilled, high-paying UK jobs it creates...
The infamous 1980s al-Yamamah series of arms sales to the Kingdom was described at the time by the Financial Times as the “biggest sale of anything by the UK to anyone”...
It was also well known that the French defence industry was sniffing around a new mega-contract at that time...

The infamous 1980s al-Yamamah series of arms sales to the Kingdom was described at the time by the Financial Times as the “biggest sale of anything by the UK to anyone”...
It was also well known that the French defence industry was sniffing around a new mega-contract at that time...

Therein lies the basis of much of the developed world’s arms industry approach to the vexed question of selling weapons to other countries.
If we don’t sell them, someone else will.
Donald Trump underlined that point this week...
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45882301