The defense industry has for years complained about the restrictions on exports of U.S. technology, which they claim hurt the industry’s competitiveness in the global weapons market. The industry’s unhappiness with ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulation) is now reaching fever pitch. At a recent gathering in Washington, D.C., where officials unveiled a new study on the global defense market, the mood was intensely anti-ITAR.

The Pentagon-sponsored study, “Fortresses & Iceberg: The Evolution of the Transatlantic Defense Market and the Implications for U.S. National Security Policy,” was written by former deputy undersecretary of defense for industrial affairs Jeffrey Bialos. One of the findings in the study is that European nations are increasingly buying European-made weapons systems because they want to avoid dealing with ITAR.

Foreign buyers of U.S. technology not only resent the bureaucratic delays but also the fact that they have no control over their own weapons systems because of U.S.-mandated restrictions. “The United Kingdom, our closest ally, wants operational sovereignty in programs - no ITAR,” Bialos said in a presentation about the study at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “We interviewed 200 people,” he said. There have been more than 40 studies so far and it’s obvious that ITAR is a problem, Bialos said. European firms are designing weapons “around ITAR” by not incorporating any U.S. content. “Governments explicitly seek non-ITAR equipment.”

David J. Berteau, senior adviser and director of defense-industrial initiatives at CSIS, said the Obama administration has a short window of time to reform ITAR if it wants to reform it at all. Any move to relax export restrictions will face political backlash so the administration will have to expend precious political capital to achieve any meaningful reform, Berteau said. A “bellwether” development worth watching will be how the Senate handles export treaties with the U.K. and Australia, which are currently under consideration. “I don’t see how you can tackle export control until you pass those treaties.”

Joel L. Johnson, an ITAR expert and executive director of the Teal Group Corporation, says in a recent article that there are promising signs from some lawmakers and State Dept. officials that they are serious about reform. Many experts, however, remain skeptical.