SIPRI has released its latest report on the global arms trade, and as has been the case in recent studies, the conclusion is that the United States dominates the production and sale of arms. The US is not only in a leadership position, but dominates the entire rest of the planet combined.
The dominant position of US arms makers reflects both the US government’s long-standing priority of pushing overseas allies to buy American weapons, and the US military itself being by far the largest on the planet, and throwing hundreds of billions of dollars at the industry annually.
So it’s unsurprising that Lockheed Martin would not only be the biggest seller of arms to the US military, but also the biggest seller overall. Lockheed has the political influence to both ensure a key position domestically and protect its interests in exports abroad.
Other countries are eager to increase their own positions in the always growing global arms market, with Russia and Turkey both looking to grow substantially. Even with enormous growth, however, few non-US companies can even touch the top 10, and even then, are far behind the US leaders.
Death and corruption the two things where the US is the undisputed leader.
Weapons are the last thing that will be made in the US and who knows for how long before these companies start shipping production to China.
What a marvellous achievement. The USA is exceptional in the low level of health, life expectancy, education, and high level in gun deaths, drug deaths, teenage pregnancy, incarceration. What it really needs is more spending on violence, invasions, training military forces in lethal actions at home and abroad, improvements in nuclear arms so there will be no future for any of us. Making more enemies is an important part of being a big developer, user and seller of arms, and the USA has had plenty of practice at that too, including former “allies” as well as anyone else we can call a rival, which must mean they want to destroy us. Spending lots of money means all our weapons must be good, and nobody can compete with us or we sanction them. What fun.
SIPRI stopped mentioning China. It’s figures are now just fantasies. donthomson1@hotmail.com