The latest arms sales figures are in, and as usual the United States is responsible for the largest number of weapons exports of any nation in the world. Indeed, as of 2015 they are responsible for fully half of all exports, $40 billion out of an $80 billion global market.
Global sales actually dropped a bit from the $89 billion market of 2014, likely reflecting how falling oil prices made it more difficult for Gulf nations to continue throwing reckless amounts of cash at advanced weaponry from nations like the US, Italy, and France.
Not that the Gulf nations stopped buying. In fact, Qatar was the largest arms purchaser on the planet, buying $17 billion by themselves, with other traditional purchasers of US arms like Egypt and Saudi Arabia eating up $12 and $8 billion, respectively.
A lot of this drive to purchase weapons has historically been presented as a counter to Iran, though in practice nations like Saudi Arabia far outspend Iran militarily. The 2016 figures will likely show growing Saudi purchases as well, reflective of the ever-escalating war in Yemen.
President Obama has made much of his desire to keep increasing military exports worldwide, and has been able to do so. At the same time, soaring humanitarian crises in places like Yemen are leading to growing pressure on the US to stop exporting bombs that end up getting dropped on civilians.
It would be fun to know what weapon sales Russia has made . I fully expected them to pass United States In the 90s Russia was broke and never had much manufactured machinery to export . But the did have the old Soviet weapons factories and a good reputation for Making very good weapons Selling raw commodities and Arms sale was almost the only thing a broke government could do .
In addition August 16, 2016 Pentagon Cannot Account For $6.5 Trillion Dollars
A new Department of Defense Inspector General’s report, released last week, has left Americans stunned at the jaw-dropping lack of accountability and oversight. The glaring report revealed the Pentagon couldn’t account for $6.5 trillion dollars worth of Army general fund transactions and data, according to a report by the Fiscal Times.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/pentagon-cannot-account-for-6-5-trillion-dollars/5541244
April 08, 2016 U.S. Government Accounting Is Fraudulent
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is the non-partisan auditor and investigator for Congress. The GAO says that the U.S. government’s records are so poorly kept that it can’t really audit them. Moreover, the Pentagon hasn’t even attempted to comply with government audits … and “$8.5 trillion in taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon [between] 1996 [and 2013] has never been accounted for.” The military wastes and “loses” trillions of dollars.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-government-accounting-is-fraudulent/5519261
The foremost merchant of death. What else to expect from the evil empire?
As long as war is as profitable and as easy to finance as it is today – it will never end…
Dont forget the money laundering going on with the U.S. selling all sorts of hardware to Israel using the U.S. Foreign Aid from the U.S. taxpayer ….Slick huh ?
The U.S. can rent a battle field anywhere !