Daily Times

The United States, Russia, France, Germany, and China, were the largest exporters of major arms in 2014-18, accounting for more than 75% of global arms transfers – said SIPRI, an international independent arms research institute.

Incidentally, the same five countries are also the permanent members of United Nations Security Council (UNSC), which is primarily responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security.

Arms imports in Middle East – particularly Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, Qatar, and Iraq – increased by 87% between 2008-13 and 2014-18 and accounted for 35% of the global arms trade in 2014-18.

SIPRI further estimates that the financial value of global arms trade sat at $88.4 billion in 2016, while US State Department reckons it at $191.8 billion in 2015. Several other forecasts hover around $100 billion.

Given that the arms sales of top-100 arms conglomerates totalled $374.8 billion in 2016 – it goes on to corroborate that arms worth of $286.4 billion were inexorably acquired by the national regimes to serve their broader military objectives, while it also connotes that the global arms trade accounts for only about one-fifth of the arms produced worldwide.

Such significant arms stock disparity shows how the international media is misdirected to report global arms trade, which accounts for roughly one-fifth of the arms produced worldwide – potentially to distract it from massive defence equipment procurements by the national governments from their arms manufacturing companies.

Much of the headlines about arms trade that broke in print or electronic media are based on highly inflated values of MOUs or agreements. It is important to understand that very few of the arms contracts are usually materialised and that too consumes several years to accomplish.

Congressional Research Service (CRS) report on arms transfers also parenthetically ratifies these shocking facts. Released in December 2016, the CRS report said that only $33.6 billion of arms were supplied to the developing countries in the world (ostensibly the largest arms buyers).

Egypt ($5.3bn), Iraq ($5.0bn), Saudi Arabia ($4.5bn), India ($1.9bn), and Algeria ($1.6bn) were the largest arms recipients in 2015.

The veracity remains that the arms industry continues to flourish primarily because of states’ foreign policy and military objectives, which are masked by arms exports to the developing countries of the world

The unclassified report also revealed that the United States ($16.9bn), Russia ($7.2bn), France ($7.0bn), China ($2.9bn), Italy ($1.8bn), Germany ($1.6bn), and the United Kingdom ($1.3bn) were the leading arms exporters to the world in 2015. Total arms deliveries by leading arms suppliers were $40.8 billion for the same year.

As a matter of fact, the arms exports of the world’s largest arms exporter – the United States – were precisely less than half (46.4%) of the sales of world’s largest arms producer, Lockheed Martin ($36.4bn) in 2015.

Additionally according to Security Assistance Monitor, a Center of International Policy program, US arms exports to Middle East soared by 38.3% – from $8.6 billion in 2014 to $11.9 billion in 2017. But again, an increase of $3.3 billion in exports cannot rationalize the hundreds of billions of arms resting in inventory.

The Security Assistance’s data interestingly enlightens that US arms sales to the region actually plummeted marginally by about 2.5% in 2017 as compared to 2016.

Although US arms sales to Saudi Arabia increased from $2.5 billion in 2014 to $6.3 billion in 2017 but still at its current pace, the kingdom should take no less than 15 years to meet the much hyped $110 billion of arms deals with the United States.

This period is subject to prolong as the kingdom’s oil revenues have substantially declined and recalling the CRS report that said from 2008 to 2015, Riyadh acquired $30.7 billion of arms from Washington at an average of $3.7 billion/year.

Yet arms sales radically contribute to the US aerospace and defence (A&D) industry, a sector which directly employees 1 million workers, with another 3 million working in support. And the role of Middle Eastern states is critical in sustaining this industry.

In 2014, the Boeing’s F-18 assembly line in St. Louis was expected to close down with two and half years after the US Navy decided to shift from F-18 to Lockheed Martin-manufactured F-35. Similar projections were also made about F-15 production line, which would come to an end after fulfilling a large order from Saudi Arabia.

Nevertheless, the two large deals with the other US key partners in the Middle East – Kuwait and Qatar – prevented those production lines from closures, helping their operations to extend into at least 2020.

Though the US is the largest arms supplier to the countries in Middle East; Russia, France, Germany, China, and the United Kingdom are also emerging as the key players in the region.

A SIPRI senior researcher Pieter D. Wezeman says ‘weapons from the USA, the United Kingdom, and France are in high demand in the Gulf region, where conflicts and tensions are rife’. ‘Russia, France, and Germany dramatically increased their arms sales to Egypt in the past five years.’

Notwithstanding, the veracity remains that the arms industry continues to flourish primarily because of states’ foreign policy and military objectives, which are masked by arms exports to the developing countries of the world – that’s contribution in global arms procurement is pretty negligible.

The writer works as amarket &business analyst who writes on domestic, regional, and global issues

Published in Daily Times, March 25^th 2019.