Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
America’s Global Weapons Monopoly
America’s Global Weapons Monopoly Don’t Call It “the Global Arms Trade”
On the relatively rare occasions when the media turns its attention to U.S. weapons sales abroad and shines its not-so-bright spotlight on the latest set of facts and figures, it invariably speaks of "the global arms trade."
Let's consider that label for a moment, word by word:
*It is global, since there are few places on the planet that lie beyond the reach of the weapons industry.
*Arms sounds so old-fashioned and anodyne when what we're talking about is advanced technology designed to kill and maim.
*And trade suggests a give and take among many parties when, if we're looking at the figures for that "trade" in a clear-eyed way, there is really just one seller and so many buyers.
How about updating it this way: "the global weapons monopoly."
In 2008, according to an authoritative report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), $55.2 billion in weapons deals were concluded worldwide. Of that total, the United States was responsible for $37.8 billion in weapons sales agreements, or 68.4% of the total "trade." Some of these agreements were long-term ones and did not result in 2008 deliveries of weapons systems, but these latest figures are a good gauge of the global appetite for weapons. It doesn't take a PhD in economics to recognize that, when one nation accounts for nearly 70% of weapons sales, the term "global arms trade" doesn't quite cut it.Consider the "competition" and reality comes into focus. Take a guess on which country is the number two weapons exporter on the planet: China? Russia? No, Italy, with a relatively paltry $3.7 billion in agreements with other countries or just 9% of the U.S. market share. Russia, that former Cold War superpower in the "trade," was close behind Italy, with only $3.5 billion in arms agreements.
U.S. weapons manufacturers have come a long way, baby, since those Cold War days when the United States really did have a major competitor. For instance, the Congressional Research Service's data for 1990, the last year of the Soviet Union's existence, shows global weapons sales totaling $32.7 billion, with the United States accounting for $12.1 billion of that or 37% of the market. For its part, the Soviet Union was responsible for a competitive $10.7 billion in deals inked that year. France, China, and the United Kingdom accounted for most of the rest.
Since then, the global appetite for weapons has only grown more voracious, while the number of purveyors has shrunk to the point where the Pentagon could hang out a sign: "We arm the world." No kidding, it's true.
Cambodia ($304,000), Comoros ($895,000), Colombia ($256 million), Guinea ($200,000), Greece ($225 million), Great Britain ($1.1 billion), the Philippines ($72.9 million), Poland ($79.8 million), and Peru ($16.4 million) all buy U.S. arms, as does almost every country not in that list. U.S. weapons, and only U.S. weapons, are coveted by presidents and prime ministers, generals and strongmen.
From the Pentagon's own data (which differs from that in the CRS report), here are the top ten nations which made Foreign Military Sales agreements with the Pentagon, and so with U.S. weapons makers, in 2008:
Saudi Arabia $6.06 billion
Iraq $2.50 billion
Morocco $2.41 billion
Egypt $2.31 billion
Israel $1.32 billion
Australia $1.13 billion
South Korea $1.12 billion
Great Britain $1.10 billion
India $1 billion
Japan $840 million
That's more than $17 billion in weapons right there. Some of these countries are consistently eager buyers, and some are not. Morocco, for example, is only in that top-ten list because it was green-lighted to buy 24 of Lockheed Martin's F-16 fighter planes at $360 million (or so) for each aircraft, an expensive one-shot deal. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia (which inked $14.71 billion in weapons agreements between 2001 and 2008), Egypt ($13.25 billion) and Israel ($11.27 billion) are such regular customers that they should have the equivalent of one of those "buy 10, get the 11th free" punch cards doled out by your favorite coffee shop.
To sum up, the U.S. has a virtual global monopoly on exporting tools of force and destruction. Call it market saturation. Call it anything you like, just not the "global arms trade."
Getting Even More Competitive?
It used to be that the United States exported goods, products, and machinery of all sorts in prodigious quantities: cars and trucks, steel and computers, and high-tech gizmos. But those days are largely over.
The Obama administration now wants to launch a green manufacturing revolution in the U.S., and in February, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke announced a new "National Export Initiative" with the aim of doubling American exports, a move he said would support the creation of two million new jobs. The U.S. could, of course, lose the renewable-energy race to China and that new exports program may never get off the ground. In one area, however, the U.S. is manufacturing products that are distinctly wanted -- things that go boom in the night -- and there the Pentagon is working hard to increase market share.
Don't for a second think that the American global monopoly on weapons sales is accidental or unintentional. The constant and lucrative growth of this market for U.S. weapons makers has been ensured by shrewd strategic planning. Washington is constantly thinking of new and inventive ways to flog its deadly wares throughout the world.
How do you improve on near perfection? In the interest of enhancing that "competitive" edge in weapons sales, the Obama administration is investigating the possibility of revising export laws to make it even easier to sell military technology abroad. As Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morell explained in January, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wants to see "wholesale changes to the rules and regulations on government technology exports" in the name of "competitiveness."
When he says "government technology exports," Morell of course means weapons and other military technologies. "Tinkering with our antiquated, bureaucratic, overly cumbersome system is not enough to maintain our competitiveness in the global economy and also help our friends and allies buy the equipment they need to contribute to global security," he continued, "[Gates] strongly supports the administration's efforts to completely reform our export control regime, starting ideally with a blank sheet of paper."
The laws that regulate U.S. weapons exports are a jumbled mess, but in essence they delineate what the United States can sell to whom and through what bureaucratic mechanisms. According to U.S. law, for example, there are actually a few countries that cannot receive U.S. weapons. Myanmar under the military junta and Venezuela while led by Hugo Chavez are two examples. There are also some weapons systems that are not intended for export. Lockheed Martin's F-22 Raptor jet fighter was -- until the Pentagon recently stopped buying the plane -- deemed too sophisticated or sensitive to sell abroad. And there are reporting requirements that give members of Congress a window of opportunity within which they can question or oppose proposed weapons exports.
Given what's being sold, these export controls are remarkably minimal in nature and are constantly under assault by the weapons industry. Bans on weapons sales to particular countries are regularly lifted through aggressive lobbying. (Indonesia, for example, was offered $50 million in weapons from 2006 to 2008 after an almost decade long congressional arms embargo.) The industry also works to relax controls on new technology exports to allies. Japan and Australia have mounted campaigns to win the ability to buy F-22 Raptors, potential sales that Lockheed Martin is now especially happy to entertain. The reporting window to Congress remains an important export control, but the time frame is shrinking as more countries are being "fast tracked," making it harder for distracted representatives to react when a controversial sale comes up.
In addition to revising these export controls, the administration is looking at the issue of "dual-use" technologies. These are not weapons. They do not shoot or explode. Included are high-speed computer processors, surveillance and detection networks, and a host of other complex and evolving technologies that could have military as well as civilian applications. This category might also include intangible items like cyber-entities or access to controlled web environments.
Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and other major weapons manufacturers have invested billions of dollars from the Pentagon's research and development budgets in exploring and perfecting such technologies, and now they are eager to sell them to foreign buyers along with the usual fighter planes, combat ships, and guided missiles. But the rules as they stand make this something less than a slam dunk. So the weapons industry and the Pentagon are arguing for "updating" the rules. If you translate updating as "loosening" the rules, then the United States would indeed be more "competitive," but who exactly are we trying to beat?
Weapons Sales are Red Hot
"What's Hot?" is the title of Vice Admiral Jeffrey Wieranga's blog entry for January 4, 2010. Wieranga is the Director of the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which is charged with overseeing weapons exports, and such pillow talk is evidently more than acceptable -- at least when it's about weapons sales. In fact, Wieranga could barely restrain himself that day, adding: "Afghanistan is really HOT!" Admittedly, on that day the temperature in Kabul was just above freezing, but not at the Pentagon, where arms sales to Afghanistan evidently create a lot of heat.
As Wieranga went on to write, the Obama administration's new 2010/2011 budget allocates $6 billion in weaponry for Afghan Security Forces. The Afghans will actually get those weapons for free, but U.S. weapons makers will make real money delivering them at taxpayers' expense and, as the Vice Admiral pointed out, that "means there is a staggering amount of acquisition work to do."
It's not just Afghanistan that's now in the torrid zone. Weapons sales all over the world will be smoking in 2010 and beyond.
The year began with a bang when Wieranga's Agency announced that the Obama administration had decided to sell a nifty $6 billion in weapons to Taiwan. Even as the United States leans heavily on China for debt servicing, Washington is giving the Mainland a big raspberry by offering the island of 22 million off its coast (which Washington does not formally recognize as an independent nation), a lethal cocktail of weaponry that includes $3 billion in Black Hawk helicopters. This deal comes on top of more than $11 billion in U.S. weapons exports to Taiwan over the last decade, and is certain to set Chinese-U.S. relations back a step or two.
Other bonanzas on the horizon? Brazil wants new fighter planes and Boeing is battling a French company for the contract in a deal that could be worth a whopping $7 billion. India, once a major arms buyer from the Soviet Union, is now another big buy-American customer, with Boeing and Lockheed Martin vying to equip its air force with new fighter planes in deals that Boeing estimates may reach $11 billion.
Such deals are staggering. They contribute more bang and blast to a world already bristling with particularly lethal weaponry. They are a striking American success story in a time filled with failures. Put in the lurid but everyday terms of a nation weaned on reality television, the Pentagon is pimping for the U.S. weapons industry. The weapons industry, for its part, is a pusher for every kind of lethal technology. The two of them together are working to ensure that more of the same will flow out of the U.S. in ever easier and more lucrative ways.
Global arms trade? Send that one back to the Department of Euphemisms. Pimps and pushers with a lucrative global monopoly on a killing drug -- maybe that's the language we need. And maybe, just maybe, it's time to launch a "war on weapons."
- Posted in
63 Comments so far
Show AllThis is our true vocation in this world! Not only do we kill more people than all other nations in history combined but we keep the jobs in America.
Not necessarily.
More of each $$ goes outside the country for military expenditure than almost any other section of government. Large companies are almost invariably international or offshore, the more so when they're nominally "American."
Once again, capital pays 1/2 of the working class to kill the other.
Obama economic adviser Christina Romer: "Unemployment is stable."
This morning one of Prezdint Otoken's worthless "economic advisors"
opined that "unemployment is stable." Wrap your brain around that
with some pine nuts and a grape Nehi. Prez Obombit and the
Dimocratic Party have completely abandoned the proud
legacy of FDR and couldn't give a shit. They actually are going to
just TALK about job creation without doing anything about it and hope
the dumbed-down public buys this as "addressing the problem."
Now ponder this: There is a bill in one of the State legislatures to make
the insertion of a computer chip inside another human being without
that human being's knowledge a misdemeanor. I kid you not.
But that's A.O.K. because Bush and now Obama
claim the anti-Constitutional right to kill American citizens overseas
who are SUSPECTED of committing or aiding the commission of terrorist
acts. No trial, no evidence--just poof!--American citizens
assassinated by their president on SUSPICION of engaging in terrorism.
And according to their sainted White House lawyers it's not even a
misdemeanor. Oh, and the presidential definition of what constitutes terrorism?
Even the ACLU doesn't know: It's a State secret.
Hillary Clinton and the chief Ayatollah of Iran are calling each
other's governments dictatorships while our Nazi neo-con Republicans
are itching to spread a wider war to Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia,
Columbia and Venezuela complete, no doubt, with a military draft
triggered by another "Pearl Harbor-like event" right on time when they
need it like the first one. Poverty has already made military
recruitment soar for two years now.
I can hear their 2012 slogan now: "Jobs! Patriotism! Pride!"
Pat Robertson will swear in the new Fuhrer, er-uh, President with the
new (actually being written) Republican Bible. George Washington's
and Thomas Jefferson's spinning corpses will light the entire State of
Virginia.
When all our currently touring psychologically ruined troops (some on
their 9th tour now) come home to "stable unemployment" they'll need
some songs to sing. Here are the words to the Horst Wessel Nazi
marching anthem (auf English):
The flag high! The ranks tightly closed!
SA march with bold, firm steps. [Tea-Baggers and soldiers with PTSD]
Comrades shot by the Red Front and reactionaries [Weimar Republicans & Democrats]
March in spirit in our ranks.
Clear the streets for the brown battalions,
Clear the streets for the stormtroopers!
Already millions look with hope to the swastika
The day of freedom and bread is dawning! [DYING!]
The storm warning is sounding for the last time!
We are all already prepared for the fight!
Soon Hitler's flag will fly over all streets.
Our servitude will soon end! [BEGIN!]
The flag high! The ranks tightly closed!
SA marches with bold, firm steps.
Comrades shot by the Red Front and reactionaries
March in spirit in our ranks.
I agree with your point that the arms trade enriches a specific constituency--the right-wing--of our country. Not only the elite, however. Veterans and their families, military contractors--and there are tons of those--those actively serving in the military--all of them tend to vote conservative and all secure benefits from inflated spending on "defense." Compare their treatment with, say, education--perhaps a larger segment of our economy, a group more likely to vote Democratic. It is easy to see that the United States pays out more benefits to right-wing voters than to the left. Part of the reason might be that foolishness called the United States Senate, an abominable structure of governance that grants more political power to states full of right-wingers than to those that harbor the great cities, the arts, the universities, as well as ethnic and racial minorities. The love affair America has with the Pentagon, the military, and arms exports connects directly with the center of political power in these United States--the North Dakotas, the Wyomings, the Oklahomas--places where military bases prevail and shape people's voting habits. So the rewards of right-wing thinking may proceed from the very structure of governance of these very disunited states.
Visiting...is the professorship in History?
I am fairly ignorant of US history and appreciate any instruction in that area I can get. A former science teacher, I have only lately come to understand the importance of history in explaining why things are as they are. With some background in evolutionary biology, I suppose that understanding should have come sooner than it did.
Many people writing here on CD attribute the bizarre actions of the United States population to "stupidity" but I have always felt that is not an explanation but simply a fit of pique. The real explanations for our people's distrust of government and dislike of "socialism" comes from values they brought with them as immigrants. The same can be said for our undying support for militarism. We are what we are because of what we were.
Your comments about the elitism of our founders are right-on. Sometimes I wonder if it is worthwhile to continue to use such a flawed document as the Constitution as the basis for a democracy. It has already been amended how many times--twenty or more and needs a complete overhaul, much as my 1997 Ford Escort. It is as if people would take an ancient collection of Hebrew stories as a basis for moral teachings. Oh wait! We are doing that, aren't we?
Keep up the intelligent posts at this site. I enjoy reading them.
"It is as if people would take an ancient collection of Hebrew stories as a basis for moral teachings."
Forgive the interjection into a question directed at Visiting Professor, but that one really got me chuckling. For some reason it started me thinking about the benefits of a book in which the supreme being is the real estate agent for his chosen people who just happen to be the authors.
Ha! real estate agent and tax collector both. (animal sacrifice accepted),
drosera says, "The same can be said for our undying support for militarism."
Alexis de Tocqueville, in the famous "Democracy in America" (1835), called the U.S. "the coldest, most calculating, least military, and, if I may say so, the most prosaic of all nations of the world." (BTW, he also said people ate lousy food on the run, so to speak, they were so intent on "business". Interesting how it relates to another article posted today.)
There's another aspect of militarism. Citizens were notoriously undisciplined and it was very difficult to get them to understand anything about "military discipline". They tended to run off and do their own thing guerrilla-style. Whole units in the war of 1812, for example, ran off to try to capture British units, usually failing miserably. But in pure guerrilla warfare they could also be quite effective.
Violent, often murderous, but "militaristic"?...maybe not.
IMO, the general militarization of society is more recent and is closely related to industrial capitalism; the use and movement of capital equipment, financial assets, and "bodies" (labor) combined with ruthless management, which not only created a class of industrial "barons" but got the nation used to manipulation of big things in a dehumanized manner. The first big surge of this kind of thing was after the Civil War, but there have been many more. The aftermath of WWII sealed and delivered the corporate/military/propaganda society that is blindly destroying everything worthwhile in the world.
(Yes, history is my thing. One of 'em anyway.)
But the US isn't the only industrial capitalist nation in the world. There are many industrialised capitalist nations in the world that do not in anyway have the pervasive influence of the military on their societies. Furthermore, various other very militaristic nations in the past, during the medieval era for example, weren't necessarily industrially militaristic nations.
IMO, the cause of militarism is empire / the desire for empire. The militarism is necessary to support the empire.
I thought it was to "defend our Freedom©"?
rfloh -- You'll get no argument from me that there are degrees of militarism and that there are many other factors involved. Nevertheless, I think you will agree if you examine it closely in many examples that industrial capitalism (well, really, industrialism) *does* induce militarism and encourages imperialism. (Not all nations are as successful as others, of course.) It's one of the reasons why the 20th century was the most destructive century in history.
In the case of the U.S., the resource base, the notion of "manifest destiny", the culture of greed and acquisitiveness combined with the methods and practices of industrial capitalism practically assured that there would be militarized empire.
I guess I agree with you half-way. I think there is a feedback process, though.
Hmm, I'm not convinced though.
The Romans didn't build an empire, along with the associated militarism, because indusrial capitalism pushed them to do so. Greed yes, but not industrialism. And part of the reason for the rise of their imperialism was that militarism was built into the Roman political system. To move up the political ladder, a man had to serve in the military, to command. The politicians were also soldiers / generals. Governors of provinces on the border during the Republic often had a financial incentive to start a war with neighbours: loot, slaves, maybe more territory. And since they were in charge of the troops, the means.
The Portuguese, the Spanish, the Dutch, the English, weren't driven to empire by industrialism. And while the 20th century was certainly very bloody, I'm also not convinced that it was necessarily more bloody, relative to the global population at the time, than when the Spanish, for the most egregious example, but all the other imperialist nations were guilty too of the same crimes, were wiping out entire native populations in the Americas. And along the same time as these imperialist empires were wiping out native populations, they were also often engaging in wars against each other.
Furthermore, in recent decades, many East Asian nations have experienced rapid industrialisation, without the associated militarism. In fact, those countries that have been militaristic, where the military is too strong, are the ones that have struggled economically.
And Japan in some ways has managed to achieve its economic and industrial aims in Asia, some of the things it wanted / tried to do in WW2, not via militarism but via cooperation and mutual benefit to both sides.
rfloh -- Taking last things first...Japan is not a good example of your point because industrialism, militarism, and imperialism fed off each other almost classically there, and it provides evidence of what I am saying. It's defeat made it impossible to any longer be a militaristic imperial power.
The various small nations of East Asia have to exist in a world of U.S. military hegemony. There are also economic considerations that mitigate any trend toward militarism. I am certainly not making an inclusive "rule" that overrides all other considerations.
I must clarify myself. I am not saying that industrialism is the only path toward militarism. I am saying that the requirements of industrialism as practiced (regimentation, dehumanization, central control, greed) are not only conducive to the development of militarism and imperialism, but are *useful* in establishing a ruling class and a system that feeds on itself thereby creating the multifarious conditions necessary to sustain a militaristic society. I believe it clearly happened in the U.S. I don't discount "manifest destiny" and so on. I just believe the character of its militarism cannot be explained adequately without understanding the relation between industrialism and militarism.
BTW, I would argue that the "Golden Age" of imperialism in the 19th century was unquestionably fueled by industrialism, particularly capitalist industrialism.
I think drosera (as a botanist) will understand when I say there are various "species" of militarism. Ultimately, everything is derived from the same principles, but it is generally useful to study on the species level (keeping the root principles in mind, of course.)
That's how I see it, anyway.
Thanks for the lesson. Important book recommendations are always welcome.
The Founders had pretty good reasons NOT to trust the people -- the people wanted more freedoms and liberty, and even more important, they wanted a bigger share of the pie. Wealth was very concentrated during the Revolutionary and immediately after period. Sharing the wealth was called "leveling" and was especially feared by the richer Founders and Southern "aristocrats." It would cut into their enormous profits.
That concentration has never ended, it shrinks sometimes, but usually quickly regains the lion's share of generated wealth and income. The rich have always been with us, but now they pull the strings quite openly, confident the Fawning Corporate Media will never call them on this. Indeed, the FCM is composed of large corporations controlled by the very rich. So the power of selective "news" is used to conceal the raw expressions of power.
But I smell a great unease in the land. Too many businesses going under, too many foreclosure signs going up, too many friends and neighbors out of work or working low-wage jobs for lack of something better. The reactionary and reprobate actions of government are no longer a well hidden thanks to the Internet -- which does an end-run around the FCM.
Gary
"The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the State but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime..."
-- Albert Einstein
I think you're right about the "great unease in the land." I read that 76% of Republicans oppose the recent SCOTUS decision concerning the right of corporations to spend unlimited dollars on political campaigns. As soon as Americans can put the proper name on whatever is screwing things up (hint: it is NOT socialism), then we can proceed to fix the problem.
In my own community, the agricultural implement industry has evaporated while the weapons industry continues to expand. War is, in fact, our game.
In inverse relation to social progress, plowshares have literally been transformed into swords. Our blindness and greed take us to the brink of the end.
The US, as the purest example of a 'terrorist state,' would seem to be curiously vulnerable in the "war on terror."
WE are our own wost enemy, a puveyor of circular, suicidal doom.
WE have to save ourselves from ourselves. But how?
My how tolerant of tyranny we've become.
Americans are awfully good sports aren't they? Getting royally fucked every day, year after year, tyranny after tyranny, atrocity after atrocity, and taking it all with a shrug and a smile and being oh so tolerant, awfully sporting of us overall.
The bodies and the money just keep piling up, the insanity just keeps growing, the futility and the mendacity have tipped the richter scale, yet, here we all are, sucking it all up, taking it in the posterior and sappily shrugging it all off as if it were all normal.
We can take a lickin' and keep on tickin'. I wonder if we will ever, ever get tired of it, get to a point where we've simply had enough and say so, or if we'll just vanish into the fog of apathy and oblivion with a sigh and a whimper, like abused wives, tolerating it until we just give up in exhaustion and frustration. Or has this already occurred?
My, how very, very tolerant of tyranny we've all become.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
But as dumbed-down, childishly selfish, depressive, over-medicated and intimidated as the general public is our ruling elite and media are the true horror. These blatantly fascist ruling classes PREFER that the world be in an economic and environmental downward spiral and, since the mid- to late 1990s, they've been doing everything in their power to destabilize the entire planet including America itself. They keep kicking America off-balance and kicking it again to keep it off-balance to soften up the populace for farther and farther transitions toward a corporatist military dictatorship.
>>>Consider the "competition" and reality comes into focus. Take a guess on which country is the number two weapons exporter on the planet: China? Russia? No, Italy, with a relatively paltry $3.7 billion in agreements with other countries or just 9% of the U.S. market share.
The focus of this article may be on the U.S. monopoly of the weapons "trade", but to list Italy as the number two exporter completely distorts the picture. Italy may be number two for the last year based on deals signed, but Britain has consistently been the number two weapons exporter for most of the last two decades - year after year. France is not too far behind when it comes to hi-tech weapons like fighter jets and submarines - but at least their sales are not so much to "rogue" nations and nations headed by brutal dictators. The USA and Britain top the list in that category - that is, selling weapons to conflict zones and to known repressive regimes. Britain's weapons exports got a major push ever since Tony Blair got elected, and the British weapons industry also enjoys quite a bit of subsidies. In fact, despite being an ally and having a "special relationship", the Americans were furious when Britain bribed their way to secure a major contract with the Saudi's, and the U.S. was actually conducting an "investigation" into the deal, making Tony Blair and his government hot under the collar. Britain has also been a major, major exporter to Israel all through the last 15 years. Interestingly, as of 2007, Israel was listed as the fourth largest weapons exporter. That's right - "exporter". So, listing Britain and Israel on the list of importers of U.S. weapons, but *not* mentioning their own weapons export record is unprofessional - even when the focus is on U.S. weapons monopoly. Try Googling "britain weapons export", "britain weapons export israel" and "israel weapons export".
Britain hasn't been number 2 in the 2000s. Britain's "performance" in the 2000s has been pretty poor. For most of the 2000s, Russia has been number 2, Germany and France contesting 3rd. UK is fifth.
Last 10 years, similar. US, 1st, Russia 2nd, Germany 3rd, France close behind, UK 5th.
Last 20 years, US, 1st, USSR / Russia 2nd, Germany 3rd, France 4th, UK 5th.
From the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute:
http://www.sipri.org/databases/armstransfers
I don't want to turn this thread into a debate on Britain's export. I merely wanted to point out the absurdity of mentioning Italy as the the number 2 exporter, without putting it in context. However, your statement that Britain's "performance" in the 2000s has been pretty poor is not correct - from what I've read:
**********************************************
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13790
Britain's Weapons' Exports: It's thriving, but lethal - Global Research, May 31, 2009
Britain's decade of arms exports puts the lie to any notion of an ethical foreign policy under Blair:
Yesterday's report by the NGO Saferworld documents the £45bn worth of arms delivered by Britain in the past 10 years, making us the world's second-largest arms exporter. In the past three years, arms have been exported to 19 of the 20 countries identified in the Foreign Office's annual human rights report as "countries of concern".
**********************************************
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/21/armstrade.saudiarabia
UK tops world table of weapons sales - The Guardian, 21 June 2008:
A controversial deal with Saudi Arabia catapulted Britain to the top of the world arms export league last year, as UK firms won a record £10bn in orders from overseas, official figures show.
....
Traditionally, American arms companies have occupied the top spot in the global arms market, with Britain, Russia and France vying to be the runners-up. Over the past five years the top arms exporters have been the US, with $63bn worth of sales, UK ($53bn), Russia ($33bn), France ($17bn) and Germany and Israel ($9bn each), according to government figures. Analysts yesterday said that the latest figures reporting Britain's top spot in 2007 should be treated with caution, as they represent orders and not actual deliveries of equipment.
...
According to the latest annual report on weapons-related exports, the government in 2006 approved arms exports to 19 of the 20 countries it identified as "countries of concern" for abusing human rights.
**********************************************
Like I said, I didn't want to turn this about Britain - except to point out there are others out there who conveniently hide behind the big, bad US of A. From Indonesia during Suharto's time to Colombia to Sri Lanka to Israel, weapons have been exported everywhere knowing that they would be used by repressive regimes against unarmed people. I also know that the numbers from various sources don't always agree.
People focus on the US because the US has always been number 1. Regardless of how you slice the time periods, 1 year, 5 years, 6 years, 10 years, etc, the US is number 1. That is why people focus on the US. Yes, other people do it too, but to a less extent than the US.
In any case, that link I posted is interesting not simply because of how much the UK exports. It has an extensive database, and is an interesting look. I bet not many leftists are aware that the Netherlands and Sweden, are both pretty major arms exporters.
1990 was the last year of the Soviet Union's existence.
With out constant preoccupation with the "arms race," we are hastening the last year of our own existence as a country.
WHY do we need to keep increasing our armaments as well as sell them to other countries when there are so many more pressing needs in our country for creating a "homeland" that is welcoming and which cares for its citizens?????
Religious people do not kill.
Name this world's Global Slaughterers who claim to be religious.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
George W. Bush claimed he stopped drinking alcohol because he found religion.
Alcohol is theology in a bottle.
Irony, right?
I'm assuming your statement is meant to be ironic?
A better question: Name this world's Global Slaughterers who do NOT claim to be religious.
The U.S. Government has been in the war business for a long time and its slogan should be: THERE IS NO BUSINESS LIKE WAR BUSINESS! The economic paradigm of supply and demand works with this business just as it does with any business. No wars; no business. Peace is an anathema to the war business, because it takes away the demand for bombs and munitions which need to be used in illegal and egregious wars. I am not a pacifist nor anti-military for legitimate defense purposes, as there are always evil people in the world and if you are not willing to die to protect your country or your family in a legitimate attack, that is cowardice,but this evil U.S. government is using the bravery and patriotism of its citizens for the punic and nefarious war business and that is why they always need a boogie man like al Queda ect.
Hey Paul, let's not let your entirely justifiable 'call to alarm' be only, "THERE IS NO BUSINESS LIKE WAR BUSINESS!".
We have to remember that when it's a hidden EMPIRE behind the wars and WAR BUSINESS, there's also alot of truth in the old standby, "THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE 'SHOW' BUSINESS".
After all, if there's not a very sophisticated and staged 'show' being put on by the two-party 'Vichy' sham of democratic government, and great 'supporting roles' by the equally 'Vichy' corporatist media, that the "WAR BUSINESS" can't be effectively hidden and disguised from the American people.
And "if the Empire can't (secretly) do the crime", then the WAR BUSINESS "can't (profitably) do the time"!
Best,
Alan
Well said, Alan.
Weapons are us? My, what a surprise!
If the link works check out this banner:
http://www.progressiveindependent.com/shalom/DC_3_18_07/images/IMG_0452.JPG
Nice work coyote.
I've often heard that coyotes are good at stealthy strikes in urban areas --- like the metro DC White House, and now I believe it!
Best,
Alan
Tiny URL: http://tinyurl.com/yzx29jk
Neat photo. Too bad the Man probably did not see it.
Gary
"A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on."
-- Carl Sandburg
Thanks GD. How did you do the Tiny URL thingie?
I'm the one on the right, a friend, Keith, is on the left. It was a pretty surreal day. Won't go into all that went down. Too tired right now.
Excellent article, much thanks to Frida Berrigan!
But, where's the surprise, that the largest and only disguised Global Empire left standing in this 21st century is quite naturally the largest Global 'Merchant of Death'.
After all, that's what Empires do --- (as we learned from another excellent CD article by Michael Parenti, "What Do Empire Do?"
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/13-0
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
Saw my first drone today (I think.)
It was flying low over the Walmart here in southern Md.
What you gonna do when they come for you.
No shit, dude. You got that right!
It is disturbing to recognize that drones would be particularly valuable against a domestic population, since they would make it easier for Hoosiers to fire on people in Illinois and vice versa.
It's suggested that all of you passionate thinkers and writers research Google's
reports on The Carlyle Group, which is known to want to reduce the population of the planet to ONE BILLION. You'll find a lot of puzzling knots unwound...
NOW: WHAT CAN WE DO???
We could volunteer to assist the proposers in becoming leaders of the attrition process, followed immediately by all of their close friends and associates.
Frida Berrigan writes, "The laws that regulate U.S. weapons exports are a jumbled mess, but in essence they delineate what the United States can sell to whom and through what bureaucratic mechanisms." She neglected to mention that every US arms sale or gift to Israel violates the US Export Control Act, which prohibits weapons transfers to violators of international law.
An experiment for Common Dreamers: A few years ago--when Israel was trashing Lebanon, again--I wrote to "my" congresspersons a simple question, "Does Israel possess nuclear weapons?" --The senators did not reply. The representative for my district replied with a wonderfully Orwellian exercise in doublethink to the effect that since Israel has a don't-ask-don't-tell policy regarding its weapons of mass destruction, they have no problem with US law.
The US and UK were instrumental in Israel's acquisition of a nuclear arsenal.
...but look on the bright side...
ought to be easier to see with all that phosphorus lighting up the place.
Not only do we own the global trade in weapons of human destruction, we deprive ourselves of education, healthcare, and decent transportation systems in order to spend the bulk of our taxes on war.
During the Vietnam war, the government started the practice of combining trust and federal funds, to make the human needs portion of the U.S. Federal Budget seem larger and the military portion smaller when they draw up their annual pie chart. As you file your income tax return this year, you might want to consider the real figures:
U.S. Federal Budget 2009 Fiscal Year: Total Outlays (Federal Funds): $2,650 billion.
MILITARY: 54% : $1,449 billion. NON-MILITARY: 46%: $1,210 billion.
http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm
Is it any wonder that our lives here at home are in ruin? Maybe we should just be glad that our suffering is nothing compared to the devastation we are inflicting all over the world.
I wouldn't count on that comparative comfort lasting indefinitely if I were you, especially not if the purveyors of advanced weaponry perceive greater profits in an altered situation. For that matter, their "homeland allegiance" already looks pretty shaky from where I sit, and "the possibility of revising export laws to make it even easier to sell military technology abroad" isn't reassuring.
This cancer has grown from American former economic clout.
The Weapons of Mass Destruction dealers sell to make death devout.
The only honour left is to be excluded from such a deal.
The rewards of growth and prosperity is a killing zeal.
As part of the international disease of financial frigging,
Huge profits can be made while the politicians are pigging.
Sums of money are tightly squeezed from the over taxed poor,
To further the richest crimes of larceny, embezzlement and war.
So much scope for corruption by wealth should give us fright.
While more weapons made do march the world into the long night
Poor nature lies dying while our best and brightest are weapons boffins.
Planning to increase their wealth by selling means of creating coffins.
In such a future world as they have implicitly planned,
There is no need left for social security or need to understand.
Death will strike early from the whims of trigger, joystick, or pen.
With a scream or agonized whimper, by these weapons human life will end.
The makers and sellers care not whom and what the weapons harm.
So long as they get lots of money, their own life is a charm.
As we treat with the nature of Gaia, remember it gives us our health.
As we treat with so many others, at the end, expect the same for oneself.
Cool. Can't wait to hunt deer with a bazooka in National Parks.
clinton was a busy boy...can't help but notice how the vast majority of this stash is being dumped in the middle east...
gonna be some hot times there, eh?
by the way...what's this?
As Wieranga went on to write, the Obama administration's new 2010/2011 budget allocates $6 billion in weaponry for Afghan Security Forces. The Afghans will actually get those weapons for free, but U.S. weapons makers will make real money delivering them at taxpayers' expense and, as the Vice Admiral pointed out, that "means there is a staggering amount of acquisition work to do."
at taxpayers expense?