Airbus CEO René Obermann called on European countries to acquire tactical nuclear weapons in response to the threat posed by Russian Iskander missiles, which are deployed in Kaliningrad and capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
“It appears that our Achilles’ heel is what Russia is openly threatening us with: more than 500 tactical nuclear warheads on 26 Iskander missiles deployed right on our doorstep in Kaliningrad, in addition to those recently deployed in Belarus. Germany, France, the UK, and other European countries willing to cooperate should agree on a joint, phased nuclear deterrence program, including at the tactical level. I believe this would be a powerful deterrent.”
This statement appears to be yet another attempt to blame Russia for the escalation, despite the deployment of Iskander missiles in the Kaliningrad region back in 2018. It also appears that Obermann is acting as a talking head to shape public opinion among European citizens to justify yet another tax hike for the sake of general “security.”
Who cares what the CEO of a major Defense contractor thinks about the defense of the continent that company is located in? I’d say a lot of people.
So we should also trust health insurance companies’ CEOs’ ideas about how health care should be structured? If they are likely to put their company’s interest above anything else, then this is a very valid question. And big corporations are notorious for doing exactly this.
As the other commenter said, they don’t appear to be the CEO
You’re right. He’s the Chairman, who in most corporations leads the hiring of the CEO. He’s actually higher up. Congrats on being technically correct.
Won’t somebody think of the shareholders!
The Chairman or CEO or whatever of a major defense corporation has a vested stake in what things might affect the defense industry and very likely has a team of people informing him of what is going on geopolitically. This person is someone who probably knows more than you on things like this, so maybe listening to him is worthwhile. We don’t have to follow what he says, but hearing what he says is probably a good idea.
Corporations should not set military policy. This is not the US.
Show me where he is setting military policy. I’ll wait.
Oh, hang on, he isn’t. He is making a public statement about what he thinks politicians should do based on what he observes in his daily work on the job. It’s literally the Chairman’s job to make public statements about what is best for the industry they work in and what is best for their company.
I mean it is not unimaginable that someone with low moral standards may be exaggerating the risks involved to fear monger governments etc to work with them. It is a general distrust of big corporations that make people here skeptical. If companies like meta, google, tesla etc have no reservations about doing extremely shitty and dogy things and also able to come out of those with net positive effects, why wouldn’t this guy? When someone says “corporations should not set defense policy”, they don’t actually mean setting it on a governmental level. What they mean is that they should not even be able to inform policies because they are likely putting their interest above other ethical considerations.
Can we afford not to raise this weapon manufacturers stock price!?
Who said anything about stock price? I sure didn’t.
We have to care about the line of the poor billionaire. How can you be so selfish?