Developing nations were once
again the largest buyers of weapons as total sales dropped to $80bn from $89bn
in 2014
Edward Helmore in
New York
Monday 26 December 2016
The sale of global arms
dropped slightly last year to $80bn from 2014’s $89bn, according to a new
congressional study, with the US maintaining its position as the world’s
dominant supplier.
But at $40bn the US market
share of weapons sales amounted to about half of all arms agreements in 2015,
and more than double the orders recorded by France, its nearest rival with
$15bn in sales. The US and France both grew their market shares, by around $4bn
and $9bn respectively.
Russia recorded a slight
decline in arms orders, dropping to $11.1bn in sales from its $11.2bn total in
2014, while China reached $6bn, double the previous year’s estimates.
The latest figures were
released last week by the Congressional
Research Service, a division of the Library of Congress, and are considered
one of the most reliable measures of the global arms trade.
US arms exports in 2016 looks
set to remain broadly in line with the previous year’s sales.
Last month, the Defense
Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), the Pentagon agency that handles
foreign sales, announced weapons sales of $33.6bn for 2016. The figure did not
included deals for fighter jets to Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain valued at $7bn
that for accounting purposes will be rolled in 2017 sales.
The 2015 study, titled
Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 2008-2015, found that
developing nations continued to be the largest buyers of arms.
The largest such buyers in
2015 were Qatar, which signed deals for more than $17bn in weapons; Egypt,
which agreed to buy almost $12bn; and Saudi Arabia, which spent over $8bn.
Other leading buyers included
South Korea, Pakistan, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq.
Authors of the report said the
slight contraction in overall sales reflected “the weakened state of the global
economy”.
“Concerns over their domestic
budget problems have led many purchasing nations to defer or limit the purchase
of new major weapon systems,” wrote Catherine A Theohary, a national security
policy specialist and author of the study.
Not only did the US rank first
in new arms orders, it also ranked first in the value of all arms deliveries
worldwide at $17bn, or nearly 37% of all shipments. This is the eighth year in
a row that the US has led in global arms deliveries.
Russia ranked second in
worldwide arms deliveries in 2015, making $7.2bn, and ranked second for all of
those eight years. France ranked third in 2015, making $7bn in such deliveries.
The increase
in French orders is in a large part due to deals with Egypt for ships and
combat aircraft. Sales of two amphibious assault vessels to Russia were
cancelled after the Ukraine crisis and re-sold to Egypt.
The report’s findings conform
to a study released in November that found that the Obama administration has
approved more than $278bn in foreign arms sales in its eight years, more than
double the total of the Bush administration, which approved $128.6bn.
Most of 2015’s deals were made
to the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia making orders to US manufacturers
totaling more than $115bn.
The weapons include F-15
fighter jets, Apache attack helicopters, Blackhawk utility helicopters, missile
interceptors, armored vehicles and bombs and missiles. However, arms experts
point out that congressional approval for sales does not necessarily result in
contracts.
Still, the dubious honor of
record arms sales certainly goes to the Obama administration. Defence
One recently estimated that the outgoing administration brokered more arms
deals than any administration since the second world war.
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