The proposed European arms sales to China redux

Several US members of Congress have threatened Europe with restrictions on sales of American military technology if it goes ahead with its plans to lift an arms embargo put in place after the crushing of the pro-democracy movement in Tienanmen square.

Europe is divided beween countries that will buy their military hardware without consideration of the supplier's nationality (mostly the smaller NATO nations like Belgium, the Netherlands and so on), and those like France that prefer to maintain independence by favoring domestic suppliers. And then there is the United Kingdom, which mostly behaves like France (they refused until recently to equip their army with a much-needed German-made light machine gun) but apparently considers US suppliers as domestic.

As always, the law of unintended consequences kicks in. A technology embargo from the US may actually be seen as a positive development by European arms manufacturers who have not been able to corner European defense spending by protectionist measures, and actually gives some European nations an additional incentive to lobby for lifting the embargo towards China...