UK | Defence & Security Conference

[Connor]

"I am very happy with the second revision of the arrangement - if we are all in agreement I would be keen to see this progress through our respective legislature as soon as possible."

Jamie Odinson

 

[Odinson]

Private​

"I am happy with this revision as well. I am prepared to sign the agreement, but I cannot bring this to the Senate for confirmation until we have an agreement on intellectual property, as I said before. With that being said, there appear to be serious international issues that require my attention right now, as I'm sure they require the attention of both of you as well. I propose that we sign the treaty now, and that our colleagues that came with us today," he said, referencing his secretaries of State and Defense, "finish the negotiations on the intellectual property of arms and vehicles. Secretary of State Fitzgerald and I are on the same page and I have full faith that he can negotiate a simple agreement between our countries," President Gore said.

If there were no objections to this arrangement, President Gore would invite the British and Swedish Prime Ministers to each sign all three copies of the treaty. President Gore would also sign all three of the treaties and, if there was no objection, he would take the American copy of the treaty with him. If the British and Swedish Prime Ministers had no objection to the heads of government leaving and allowing the remaining senior officials to negotiate the intellectual property of arms, weapons, and vehicles, then President Gore would happily stand for a photo-op with the other two leaders and make a short public statement with them to announce that the three countries would be forming the alliance.

Afterwards, the President and his entourage (not including the Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense) would return to RAF Brize Norton via Marine 1, 2, and 3 (as well as other accompanying vehicles) and return home to the United States (the elaborate details of this process would be expanded on in Operation Soaring Phoenix).

Once the President and the prime ministers were gone, Secretary of State Fitzgerald would reopen negotiations as described above. He would request a thirty minute recess to go over the draft that he has prepared with his colleagues. This would allow the remaining diplomats from all sides to refresh themselves and prepare for the final round of negotiations.

Jamie Connor

 

[Jamie]

Happy with the census provided by his American counterpart, Andrew Evans would contently sign the three copies of the treaty, taking his own copy. Unless anything else had come up or was discussed, Andrew authorised the other Senior members of the cabinet to proceed with discussions for an agreement on intellectual property.
Participating in the photo opportunity and providing the Swedish Leader had nothing else to raise, it would be a chance for Andrew to depart and make his way back to London to deal with the French aftermath.
Defence Secretary Jason Green, accompanied by Emma Ryan the State Secretary both agreed to a recess. It was now a waiting game to see the draft prepared by the Americans.

Odinson Connor

 

[Odinson]

Secretary of State Fitzgerald would distribute a copy of the "Transatlantic Security Arrangement Intellectual Property Agreement of 2001" to his Swedish and British colleagues for review.

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Transatlantic Security Arrangement Intellectual Property Agreement of 2001​

[TR][TD]

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Between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Kingdom of Sweden, and the United States of America​

​

​

TITLE I - DECLARATION​

Article 1. Preamble
1. Treaty: Transatlantic Security Arrangement Intellectual Property Agreement of 2001.
2. Parties: Signatories of the Treaty.

Article 2. Purpose
1. The Treaty is between the governments of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Kingdom of Sweden, and the United States of America.
2. This Treaty aims to solidify the trust and partnership between the United Kingdom, Sweden, and the United States. Contained within this treaty is an agreement to respect the intellectual property owned by sovereign governments and by companies within the countries.

TITLE II - AGREEMENT​

Article 3. Intellectual Property
1. The parties shall not produce vehicles, aircraft, vessels, spacecraft, or weapons that have a national origin in one of the other parties.

a. A party will have a one-time exemption from this clause if they negotiate with the party of national origin and get permission to produce said vehicles, aircraft, vessels, spacecraft, and/or weapons.​

2. The parties shall not charge each other more than a 40% margin of profit for arms transactions.

Article 4. Termination
1. If all of the parties mutually agree, in writing, to terminate this Treaty, then it will be terminated immediately.
2. If a party leaves the Transatlantic Security Agreement, this Treaty will be null and void for that party.

TITLE III - FINAL PROVISIONS​

Article 6. Ratification
1. The parties will ratify this treaty through their government's respective legal process of approving and ratifying treaties.

Article 7. Entry into Force
1. The Treaty shall enter into force May 1 of 2001.

Article 8. Amendments
1. Amendments shall be discussed and agreed upon during meetings between high-level officials of all signatories.
2. All signatories must agree to the amendment for the Treaty to be amended.

Article 9. Withdrawal
1. Withdrawing from the Treaty requires a formal letter, to be submitted by a cabinet-level official, to all signatories via secure channels.
2. The withdrawing party must uphold the provisions of this treaty for a period of six (6) months.

a. If all Parties agree then no six (6) month notice is required and the Treaty can be suspended on the 1st day of the following month.
b. Upon conclusion of this period, the withdrawing party will no longer be subject to the provisions of this treaty.​

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Jamie Connor​

[/TD][/TR]

 

[Jamie]

"Thank you for sending the draft across, please see my comments on some of the sections below:

Article 3. Section 1. The parties shall not produce vehicles, aircraft, vessels, spacecraft, or weapons that have a national origin in one of the other parties.'
This would indicate that the United Kingdom would not be able to produce equipment that it has the rights too, simply because of it's national origin. As such, the F-35's national origin is naturally the US but the UK holds sole rights.
This should also include variants as the UK, as another example, owns the AgustaWestland Apache.

a. A party will have a one-time exemption from this clause if they negotiate with the party of national origin and get permission to produce said vehicles, aircraft, vessels, spacecraft, and/or weapons.
I'm confused as to why this would be a one-time exemption if they negotiate. I imagine that it could happen as many times as required providing the parties in question agree?

2. The parties shall not charge each other more than a 40% margin of profit for arms transactions.
I do think the 40% margin is considerably high. At the moment, the UK charges 20% on top of production cost which is for none-allies. I think we should have a set profit margin to keep it fair across the board.
Given the state of relations, the benefit of us all been allies, defence agreements, I'd actually recommend a 10% profit margin for allied productions. It should also be noted that everyone here has a self-sufficient defence industry with very few foreign-bought assets."

Odinson Connor

 

[Odinson]

"My apologies," Secretary Fitzgerald said to his British colleague after review a short memo that one of his staff members had passed on to him.
"It appears that there's been a statement made by Prime Minister Löfven , or someone claiming to be Prime Minister Löfven?"

Jackson showed the piece of paper to his British and Swedish colleagues. "The United States does not act on the basis of tweets..." he said, not sure what to think of it.

"Do you have any idea if this is authentic?" he asked to his Swedish colleague.

Jamie Connor

 

[Connor]

Almost caught off-guard the Swedish Prime Minister darts his eyes around the room and briefly to his counterparts from Defence and Home Affairs; confident in the security that both of these officials are apart of the National Security Council which sits within the Executive Office of the Prime Minister and were already privy to the tweet the Americans were referring to. As he catches the gaze of the others he has the reassurance that any disclosure he made had their approval, especially when this matter was of extremely high level national security consideration. as if by clockwork the Secretary of Defence would open his brown leather briefcase and the audible click of each latch at either end of the lid would briefly echo through the room. From within the case the Secretary would shuffle through various papers, some of which stapled to one another and others bound by treasury tags or small ring binders. Three single-sided documents would be produced, each requiring the signatures of every delegate from every represented nation.

Almost as if it were pre-reversed the Prime Minister would speak to the room:
"The situation Secretary Fitzgerald mentions is extremely complicated. The documents being passed around the room by Secretary Hultqvist are Non-Disclosure Agreements which I require you all to sign. They restrict all and any conversation regarding this subject. This is only required in lieu of ratification of the TASA agreement."

The documents are handed out and the Swedish delegation go silent as they await wet signatures.

Jamie Odinson

 

[Jamie]

Given the departure of the British Prime Minister, the responsibility of representing the United Kingdoms interest fell onto the Secretary of Defence, Jason Green. There were a few moments of silence as he read through the Non-disclosure agreement. A standard format, nothing out of the ordinary. After a few moments of consideration and the UK's close ties with the Swedish, there wasn't much more to consider. Raising his pen, the agreement was signed and the paper pushed back towards the Swedish Prime Minister. His eyes turn onto his American counterparts as they waited for a signature as they now awaited the final signature.

Connor Odinson

 

[Odinson]

"I cannot legally keep information from the President, so I cannot sign a non-disclosure agreement. I can assure you, though, Prime Minister that if you are about to enter into an alliance with us, you can trust the United States government. I am sure that we are all eager to know what this is about, as there have been rumors swirling around internationally," Fitzgerald said genuinely. He would sure remember this, as a diplomat had never tried to get him to sign a non-disclosure agreement before.

Jamie Connor

 

[Connor]

"At the moment there is no official alliance between us, Secretary. You've refused to sign TASA without further negotiation on the US defence market and you won't sign a non-disclosure agreement; you're of course free to share information with the President and I suspect the British would be doing the same with the Prime Minister... however I'm not about to share matters of national security without some legal protection of our own. There are a lot of rumours, many of which have been catastrophically damaging to Swedens reputation and only hyped up the need for further protections being in place.

I am more than happy to explain our position, but I simply cannot do that without some assurances from the people sat around this table. If information were to leak, it would be at our detriment. Not the USA, not the United Kingdom, not China, Russia, France or Norway. Sweden."

Odinson Jamie

 

[Odinson]

"President Gore did sign the treaty, along with everyone else here. It is now tentatively in place and only requires ratification from our Senate. We merely wanted our three countries to come to an agreement to not sneakily produce each other's equipment behind our backs, while calling each other allies," he said.

"Nevertheless, if you think this is necessary, fine," he said. Fitzgerald would sign the non-disclosure agreement, provided that it did not prevent him from delineating information to the President or the Federal government, and provided that it did not somehow have other sneaky provisions to cause any unforeseen consequences, and provided that it was just temporary until TASA was ratified.

Fitzgerald moved the signed piece of paper back to the Swedish Prime Minister and sat back in his chair.

Connor

 

[Odinson]

Private​

An aide to the Secretary of State would enter the room and hand a piece of paper to him. Fitzgerald read it, and then folded it up and put it in his pocket. "It appears that there's a serious situation developing at home, and I need to return to the United States. Ambassador Cook," he said, referring to the U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom that was present as well, "can represent the United States for the remainder of the summit, though I think we're about done here... I can also confirm that the Senate will be ratifying the treaty shortly, with the contingent that its ratification will be reversed if it isn't ratified by both the United Kingdom and Sweden," he said.

If there were no questions, Fitzgerald would say his goodbyes and depart. He would take a government-chartered flight back home to Washington and land at Andrews, and report immediately to the White House.

The Ambassador would remain to represent the United States as they awaited an answer from the Swedish Prime Minister.

Connor Jamie

 

[Odinson]

Private
​

The American Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Noah Cook, would inform the British and Swedish representatives at the meeting that the United States would be willing to accept the "Revision 2" version of the treaty proposed by the United Kingdom. If the other representatives had no objection to this, the United States would work towards ratifying this version of the treaty, so long as the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Sweden also ratified the treaty. If there was no objection to this, it would ultimately go to the Untied States Senate for consideration.

Jamie Connor

 

[Connor]

"I assure you that the Swedish government is determined to deliver a trustworthy and reliable relationship to this organisation. Part of that includes our utmost transparency: a number of months ago you will be aware that our Kingdom was subject to two isolated terror incidents directly targeting foreign diplomats. The first was what we believe to have been an explosive device placed on an Australian Air Force jet positioned on a ramp at Stockholm International Airport, this device detonated and amongst the dead was the Attorney General of Australia. The second was an active shooter scenario and the intentional ignition of a fire aboard a chartered aircraft at an airport in Cape Town, South Africa; this incident saw to the murder of the Minister of Foreign Affairs visiting from Congo. Both of these incidents were clear attacks within our sovereign territory intentionally targeting foreign dignitaries.

Although, unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the first, law enforcement officers in Cape Town after a brief siege managed to detain and arrest the gunmen. They remain in custody to this date and have been interrogated where they gave a full and frank admission: their instruction was issued from senior officials within the government in Congo to follow through with an undeniable act of terrorism on Swedish soil. This is not simply a clear disregard for the law and human life, this is an act of war which thus far we have refrained from escalating any further. Over the next few days these detainees will be moved to a secure location for further interrogation.

We have enacted a planned series of actions which were designed to test the combat readiness of Congo, which as I understand has caused some concern internationally. We have conducted cover surveillance of the Congo Armed Forces and prepared necessary safeguarding measures for our national borders both at home and overseas. Our actions, however, are nothing in comparison to the barbarianism displayed by Congo.

I hope my transparency here today not only shows our commitment to being forthcoming to our allies, but also opens the door for your input on how we progress in establishing whether there is a consistent threat to not only Sweden, but the majorly economically developed nations globally."

Jamie Odinson

 

[Jamie]

"The situation in Congo is concerning but I do want to be mindful about the scale of any involvement, from any party, as to what would be an escalation. However, at the same time, the Republic of Congo have their right to self-determination and we support their defence.

Perhaps, and of course I'm asking for opinions that we offer 'donations' of sort to the Republic of Congo to assist in their defence. Perhaps this is enough for parties to keep ... uninvolved, while providing military hardware to the Republic of Congo. This could be done as surplus equipment but could be worth a call with the Republic of Congo as to whether this would be something they would welcome?

Just an option, and there's nothing stopping any of us doing so individually but I do respect your opinions. The UK would be able to offer Landrovers, perhaps some aircraft, etc."

Connor Odinson

 

[Odinson]

Secret​

"The United States appreciates your frankness and honesty," the U.S. Ambassador said to his Swedish colleagues. "The Office of Naval Intelligence would appreciate any intelligence that your government or armed forces have on Congolese Forces on land or at sea since we are making a deployment to the area," he said.

"I will need to ask Washington if they would be willing to lend arms and equipment to the Republic of The Congo. At this time, our current plan is to enforce a 72-hour ceasefire over a portion of the sea, airspace, and territory of the Republic of The Congo so that we can evacuate our citizens. It is my hope that we can convince the governments of the Republican Congo and Imperial Congo to come to the negotiating table during that time. So before the United States starts lending equipment or arms, we are going to try to take that approach first," he said.

"I can confirm to all of you that a United States task force has set sail for the southern hemisphere, and that they will likely be rendezvousing with the Russian Navy who is on a similar mission to repatriate their citizens," he said.

Jamie Connor