Newshoggers Comments
"That accounts for two thirds of all arms exports and is double what the entire European Union has managed."
I'm not going to argue with you, but I will say that while you are close to a correct figure on the first statement in the last five years, the EU (mainly France and the UK) will always be the number one arms dealer to the rest of the world. They've been doing it a lot longer, transporting Soviet arms with European arms to Third World nations since 1968, and while the US may subsidize arms dealing, five countries, including France and Britain, have entire government departments dedicated to the promotion of war and arms sales.
If you need proof to my "Europe selling arms to Third World nations longer than the US" statement, let me ask you who gave the colonials guns to fight for their independence against England in 1774? (Answer: France) LOL
Hi McClaud,
You may well be right, unfortunately no-one produces figures on raw tonnage of arms - just money values. The EU, I suspect, ships a lot of tonnage of low value items like ammunition and rifles. For the big-ticket items like jet fighters and advanced missiles, it's USA every time.
The figures I gave are from the article at the first link in my post which clearly shows the EU as having half the dollar value of US arms exports.
Regards, C
Indeed, but it's not raw money or 16 F-16's in the hands of Third World countries that starts wars. It's AK-47s and C-4 that can be bought by the ton and handed out to every member of your army. You are not an arms dealer if all you do is give money to countries (regardless of what they do with it AFTER you give them money).
I used to work for a US Intel service. Which doesn't help, because I really can't say a lot to prove my point. Other than most Third World nations that employ any sort of air force usually don't use F-16's - they have mostly MiGs and Eurofighters. They don't carry M-16s or drive Abrams - they use AK-47s and T-72 Russian tanks. They don't employ US Army C-4 - they use 5 lbs of Russian detblock.
If the US sells arms to countries who might be trouble to them later (6%), they sell them in such limited amounts so that a simple cruise missile attack will wipe out our their US weapons stockpile in less than a day or so.
Yes, we have the upper hand in selling weapons to Allied or European nations (52% of our sales are to those countries), but we don't sell arms in massive amounts to countries like Pakistan. We can't tell the EU what to do with the F-16s or missiles we sell them, so if they sell them to Pakistan by the hundreds, that does not make the US guilty by relation.
I like your articles - you make some good points based on some solid facts. I just wanted to point out a phrase that sounded ... skewed.
I'm not going to argue (much) because you have a serious point with regards to the like of the UK and France. They too, would do well to heed the warnings of the 2003 panel I quoted above. It's no defense though to simply claim "we're marginally better than the next guy". Free democracies, in my mind, should be striving to do better than that.
I would, though, argue that Pakistan and India are a special case because both already have the Bomb - selling them tanks is nasty but selling either delivery methods, early warning systems or an anti-missile capability is downright destabilizing. Selling both sides these things is simply profiting from an arms race which I cannot see ending except badly.
Mind you - the Russians have just announced they are going to help India develop nuclear-powered subs and carriers and provide India with uranium! That's real destabilisation, too.
Regards, C
PS thanks for the complement on my articles, especially from someone "in the know".
Please note the link in the post for the information on the China/Pakistan naval exercise next year is now dead. Here's another link for the same story.
http://pakistantimes.net/2005/07.../07/09/
top5.htm
Regards, C
http://azvas.blogspot.com/2008/1...an-
arrange.html
Oy gevalt, the terror attack in Mumbai was all we talked about at Shabbat last week.
With a few bottles of Uncle Shlommi's kosher wine from Chile pushing up the angst levels, old Mrs Mendelsohn became quite tearful about India being Israel's biggest customer in the global arms trade, and the way India invited our Mossad to provide intelligence and training to the paramilitary mobs of Hindutva, and keep the country safe from the Achmeds and Mustafas.
And we raised our glasses to the hard work put in by our Bush'le to encourage an arms race between India and Pakistan, making them feel honoured to join the nuclear club and get their chance to wipe one another out, without involving our armies and our gelt.........
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