When talking about international arms sales, it usually doesn’t matter what region you’re talking about, the United States is by far the largest seller. The Middle East has a lot of wealthy customers, and while right now they’re buying from the US almost exclusively, both Russia and China are looking to get some more business.
Cheaper hardware and fewer restrictions, along with not giving one nation a monopoly on selling arms, means there are some potential customers. For those same reasons, the US says they are determined to be dependable partners to keep selling hardware, and keep those nations from buying from anyone else.
Gen. Kenneth McKenzie says the US wants to maintain a “measure of control” over how the arms are used, and to prevent Russia and China from gaining influence. A lot of this is just talking points, however, as the US rarely does anything when customers misuse purchased arms, as when UAE-bought US arms ended up with various Islamist groups in Yemen.
While influence may be an issue, the reality is that much of the incentive for the US to sell arms to these nations is politically well-connected US arms makers, who profit immensely from making and selling much of the world’s armament.
Let us see if I can walk through this one slowly.
Arms manufacturers make huge profits from arms sales. Those arms were made by US manufacturers using US taxpayers dollars and knowhow of US military experts that participate in the design, prototyping snd testing. Without US taxpayers dollars and expertise there would be no arms manufacturers and their factories. This is essentially state corporation — but unlike in China where taxpayer get the profit commensurate to its investment — for each sale — our taxpayer gets a fixed number of products! Profit on taxpayers’ capital, expertise and all the effort and facilities that get into making a product — goes to a private entity! And on the top if it — from the White House to Embassies, all are corporate sales force to the corporate lords. I thought we are done with feudalism and moved on to capitalism where money is given same respect — private or taxpayers.
Iran should be a big customer when the UN arms embargo as part of the nuclear deal expires in October
Iran won’t be using dollars to buy them either.