The U.S. is the top arms dealer in the world - sold $40 billion in weapons in 2015
WASHINGTON — The
United States again ranked first in global weapons sales last year, signing
deals for about $40 billion, or half of all agreements in the worldwide arms
bazaar, and far ahead of France, the No. 2 weapons dealer with $15 billion in sales,
according to a new congressional study.
Developing nations
continued to be the largest buyers of arms in 2015, with Qatar signing deals
for more than $17 billion in weapons last year, followed by Egypt, which agreed
to buy almost $12 billion in arms, and Saudi Arabia, with over $8 billion in
weapons purchases.
Although global
tensions and terrorist threats have shown few signs of diminishing, the total
size of the global arms trade dropped to around $80 billion in 2015 from the
2014 total of $89 billion, the study found. Developing nations bought $65
billion in weapons in 2015, substantially lower than the previous year’s total
of $79 billion.
The United States and
France increased their overseas weapons sales in 2015, as purchases of American
weapons grew by around $4 billion and France’s deals increased by well over $9
billion.
The report, “Conventional Arms Transfers
to Developing Nations, 2008-2015,” was prepared by the nonpartisan
Congressional Research Service, a division of the Library of Congress, and
delivered to legislators last week. The annual review is considered the most
comprehensive assessment of global arms sales available in an unclassified
form. The report adjusts for inflation, so the sales totals are comparable year
to year.
Constraints on the
expansion of foreign weapons sales are “due, in part, to the weakened state of
the global economy,” wrote Catherine A. Theohary, a national security policy
specialist at the Congressional Research Service and author of the study. “Concerns over their
domestic budget problems have led many purchasing nations to defer or limit the
purchase of new major weapon systems,” she added. “Some nations have chosen to
limit their purchasing to upgrades of existing systems and to training and
support services.”
Russia, another
dominant power in the global arms market, saw a modest decline in orders for
its weapons, dropping to $11.1 billion in sales from the $11.2 billion total in
2014. Latin American nations, in particular Venezuela, have become a focus of
marketing for Russian arms, the study found. China reached $6
billion in weapons sales, up from its 2014 total of over $3 billion.
Among arms
manufacturers that also are NATO allies, Germany has found success in marketing
naval systems to the developing world, while Britain has done the same with
warplanes, according to the report.
The most significant
overseas weapons sales for the United States last year included new agreements
with Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Qatar and South Korea. Over all, the largest
buyers of weapons in the developing world in 2015 were Qatar, Egypt, Saudi
Arabia, South Korea, Pakistan, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq. After
the United States, France, Russia and China, the study found that the major
global arms suppliers were Sweden, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Britain and Israel.
