Sourcing murder & war's profitabilty : US triumphs in Global Arms Trade

international | anti-war / imperialism | news report Monday September 07, 2009 15:56 by gurgle-tweet iosaf mac diarmada

Until this week most young people doing juggling two worthwhile tasks like convincing their elders to vote No to Lisbon (either for the second time or the all important first) or researching a hefty Junior Cert project on international strategic relations and peace studies - would have had to rely on figures on the official arms trade dating from 2007. Since then we've seen a celtic tiger die and a mismanagement of the US economy under its war presidency of Bush infect the world with an economic crises. Unsurprisingly therefore arms trading of the official kind is down. But in good news for pro-Americans and pro-Lisbon Europeans, the share of the US in arms trading has jumped and second place globally is now taken for the first time not by Russia but our own catholic soulmates of the Italian Republic.

Before we look at the figures and estimates and sources and so on, let us be clear what is meant by official arms trading . For one we are not talking about the black market in 9mm pistols which has boomed in Ireland or its equivalent in light machine guns which has the underworld of our British neighbours in a purchasing frenzy. Nor are we examining the procurement orders, delivery profiles and updating armouries and ordinance of groups which despite having financial clout (& the readies as it were) do not have the requisite sovreign statehood to legally by complex arm systems over the counter. That category includes terrorist groupins and mercenary companies.

In 2007 the Global official arms trading to "developing nations" (i.e. the place your trociare box proceeds go to) carve up looked rather like this, it really is worth peeping at these figures if only to appreciate how splendindly Italian arms dealers and the Italian state have done to take this year's second position :

USA............$12,793m
Russia.........$4,700m
UK.......... ......$2,600m
France..........$2,100m
China............$1,400m
Germany...... $1,000m
Canada.............$900m
Sweden.............$800m
Spain.................$600m
Israel..................$500m
Italy.....................$500m
http://www.caat.org.uk/resources/facts-figures/top-arms...s.php

This last year's share has been rather different according to the annual report produced by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, a division of the US Library of Congress. According to the "New York Times" it is "regarded as the most detailed collection of unclassified global arms sales data available to the general public, it was delivered to the House and Senate on Friday, ready for members’ return from the Labor Day recess". (as you know the US celebrates labour rights not on the anniversary of a massacre of striking anarchist trade unionists in Chicago on May Day but sometime in the Fall as they euphemistically term Autumn).

..."The value of global arms sales in 2008 was $55.2 billion, a drop of 7.6% from 2007 and the lowest total for international weapons agreements since 2005."

...."The United States signed weapons agreements valued at $37.8 billion in 2008, or 68.4% of all business in the global arms bazaar, up significantly from American sales of $25.4 billion the year before".

Comparing that 2007 figure of 25,400,000,000$ of total "over the counter arms deals" for the USA with the aforementioned 2007 figure of 12,793,000,000$ to developing nations in need of trocaire box funds you will see that the US managed to sell just under half of its weaponry to state who are grown up and developed in 2007.

& then this last year (2008) the USA has really excelled itself in seeing off the competition from Russia, the UK, China, France and all the others to make up for global recessionary woes and take its 68.4% share with a dollar increase of about 12,400,000,000$. Which just in case you're wondering is enough to supply every man, woman and child in the USA with lots of goodies. According to their dinky US & global population estimate clock their population today (people who are there legally) stands at 307,383,572. http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html

You do the math.
OK I'll do it for you, humungous figures are so difficult for long division sums.

$122 dollars and 92 cents. That could give each American citizen a new pair of sneakers from Walmart, 5 jars of aspirine, some internet viagra, 72 condoms, 3 boxes of 7mm hunting ammunition (again from Walmart) and enough left over to not only buy one happy meal in Mc Donalds every full moon but heed the wisdom of the ages and save something for a rainy day.


................"In the highly competitive global arms market, nations vie for both profit and political influence through weapons sales, in particular to developing nations, which remain “the primary focus of foreign arms sales activity by weapons suppliers,” according to the study.

Weapons sales to developing nations reached $42.2 billion in 2008, only a nominal increase from the $41.1 billion in 2007.

The United States was the leader not only in arms sales worldwide, but also in sales to nations in the developing world, signing $29.6 billion in weapons agreements with these nations, or 70.1% percent of all such deals.


So you see for every euro you accrue in the Trocaire box a more than significant percentage is going back to the US people and their legitimate wishes and ambitions for health care through their highly respectable fiscal and corporate tac systems.

..........."The study found that the larger arms deals concluded by the United States with developing nations last year included a $6.5 billion air defense system for the United Arab Emirates, a $2.1 billion jet fighter deal with Morocco and a $2 billion attack helicopter agreement with Taiwan. Other large weapons agreements were reached between the United States and India, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, South Korea and Brazil."

Q: So have our Italian soul-mates made?
A : $3,700,000,000

olé! to the Berlusconi & Ratzinger duo is all I can say considering the jump in only one year, for in 2007 the Italians only managed to squeeze the trocaire box nations for half a billion dollars.

Rank 3 went to the Russians, who in between selling mig fighters to South American nations only managed to approximate 3.5 billion dollars in global sales. Considering this is a drop of 1.2 billion on their sales in the 2007 figures to trocaire nations alone, we might understand why Russians have reportedly been taking to attempting illegal arms shipments recently. Their 2007 figures had given them a 10.8 billion dollar cash injection. Which would have been enough for their citizenry to enjoy the usual aforementioned aspirine, condoms, happy meals, ammunition and even have enough left over for some Gucci jeans and Baileys cream liquor.

Rank 4 went to France with with $2.5 billion in arms sales to developing trocaire nations, or about 5.9 percent of weapons deals with these countries.

The top buyers in the developing trocaire world in 2008 were the United Arab Emirates, which signed $9.7 billion in arms deals; Saudi Arabia, which signed $8.7 billion in weapons agreements; and Morocco, with $5.4 billion in arms purchases.

No doubt the smartest of readers or those who have been able to bear with this blood soaked text and my repellent writing style so far, will feel moved to point out that the top trocaire nation buyers are muslim states and thus quite probably not getting a centimo of an Irish euro's charity.

you'd be right too.

Oh yes- for the experts it is worth noting that the dollar values given in this article are in 2008 US dollars and not the fecking worthless greenbacks they have going this year.

______________________________ ( € = $ )_______________________________

news source : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/world/07weapons.html?...=2&hp

additional reading for the Junior Cert student :

US Congressional Research Service Reports on Conventional Weapons Systems
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/index.html