In a letter sent to British Prime Minister David Cameron roughly two weeks before he was to announce stringent defense cuts, BAE Systems Chief Executive Officer Ian King wrote that scrapping the HMS Prince of Wales, one of two aircraft carriers currently under construction for the British navy, would be more expensive than building it.

Moreover, canceling the carrier would mean that production in BAE Systems shipyards across Britain would cease at the end of 2012.

"This means that the business would be unsustainable and all three yards would have to close by early 2013, with the loss of more than 5,000 jobs in BAE Systems and many more across the U.K. in hundreds of companies in the supply chain," he wrote in the letter which was make public Thursday. "In practice that means the end of the U.K.'s capability in complex warships."

London instead decided to complete both carriers for a cost of an estimated $9.5 billion. They're built by a consortium including BAE Systems and Babcock International from Britain and France's Thales. The first of the carriers, the HMS Queen Elizabeth, is due to enter service in 2014. Once the second carrier is built, it is to be mothballed or sold to a third country.

The announcement was made last month as part of the country's first strategic defense review in more than a decade. Cameron said his government would cut defense spending by 8 percent, reduce troop numbers by 17,000 to 158,500, scrap defense equipment such as airplanes, tanks and artillery and ax 25,000 civilian jobs in the Defense Ministry.

The decision to build both carriers and the plan to launch an exportable frigate, for which work is to start in 2016, is good for the British military industry, King wrote in the letter.

"With the prospect of a new exportable frigate as part of the current plan, the potential for the industry would be extremely bright," King wrote.

BAE Systems is one of Europe's largest arms companies. The main equipment manufacturer of the British armed forces and strong in the United States where it generates more than half of its sales, BAE Systems involved in the Joint Strike Fighter and Eurofighter programs.

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