US dominates arms sales to Third World
WASHINGTON: The United States retained its dominance of the Third
World arms market for the eighth year in a row in 2002, according to
the latest in an annual series of reports produced by the
Congressional Research Service (CRS).
Washington accounted for close to one-half of all new arms transfer
agreements concluded during the year, as well as actual arms
deliveries.
Altogether, arms sales from all sources to developing countries made
up about two-thirds of arms sales worldwide during 2002, according to
the report, which is based on the most comprehensive data compiled by
the US government.
New arms agreements with developing nations totalled 17.7 billion
dollars, a 10 per cent increase over new deals in 2001. Of that total,
US sales came to 8.6 billion dollars, or almost 48 per cent of all
arms transfers to Third World countries, up from 41 per cent the
previous year.
Washington was followed by Russia, which sold 5.7 billion dollars
worth of arms; Ukraine (1.6 billion dollars); Italy (1.5 billion
dollars); and Germany and France (1.1 billion dollars each).
China was the leading recipient of conventional arms transfers in
2002, accounting for 3.6 billion dollars in purchases; followed by
South Korea (1.9 billion dollars); India (1.4 billion dollars); and
Oman (1.3 billion dollars).
Of the 10 top recipients, five were in the Middle East - Egypt,
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, in addition to Oman - and four in
Asia, with Malaysia ranking eighth behind China, Korea and India.
Chile, which ranked tenth on the strength of a major purchase of
advanced fighter jets from the United States, was the only country
outside the other two regions, which have been the developing world's
biggest customers for conventional arms for the past decade.
While the Middle East proved the bonanza market of the 1980s -
particularly when warring Iran and Iraq, as well as Saudi Arabia, were
making huge purchases - Asia, particularly China and India, was the
big buyer of the last seven years, according to the report,
'Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1995-2002'.
In that period, China ranked number one, with 17.8 billion dollars
worth of purchases; the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ranked second at
16.3 billion dollars; and India third at 14.1 billion dollars,
suggesting the emergence of a new arms race between the world's two
most populous nations that could dominate the marketfor some time,
particularly if purchases in the Middle East continue to decline in
relative terms.
The United States, which has sharply upgraded its military
relationship with India in the last several years, particularly since
the beginning of Washington's "war on terrorism", has made little
secret of its hopes of integrating Delhi into a containment strategy
against Beijing.
The 84-page report, whose graphs and tables are ritually pored over by
intelligence analysts around the world to glean key trends and
possible future military threats to their governments, tracks both
actual deliveries of arms, as well as new agreements that will result
in eventual deliveries.
The time between the signing of an agreement and actual delivery can
stretch beyond a decade, depending on many factors.
In addition to covering the value of sales and deliveries each year
and over periods as long as seven years, the report also tracks the
transfer by various countries and categories of countries of specific
weapons systems.
It found, for example, that a total of 60 surface-to-surface missile
systems were transferred last year, none of which was supplied by the
United States, Russia, China, the four major West European countries
(France, Britain, Germany, and Italy) or "all other European
countries".
Suppliers of the missiles were found in a category called "all
others", which includes North Korea, South Africa, and Israel.
The report does not identify the individual suppliers in a category
because that information remains classified.
In the introduction, Richard Grimmett, who has authored the report
since it was first published some two decades ago, stressed that the
overall trend in arms purchases by the developing world has been
downward since the early 1990s, when countries that could afford them
bought large quantities of advanced US weapons systems that were
displayed during the 1991 Gulf War.
While arms transfers were up in 2002 compared to the previous year,
the 17.7 billion dollars in new agreements was still the second lowest
in the last seven years.
Grimmett stressed that it was still too soon to assess the impact, if
any, of the "war on terrorism", including the ouster of the Taliban
regime in Afghanistan and this year's war in Iraq.
Economic conditions in specific countries as well as the state of the
world economy continued to be a major factor constraining arms buying,
according to Grimmett. "Economic as well as military considerations
have factored heavily in (developing country) arms purchasing
decisions, a circumstance likely to continue for some time," he wrote.
This has benefited both wealthier developing countries vis-a- vis
their rivals, as well as those arms suppliers that can provide credit
or are willing to provide offset arrangements or joint-production
ventures with buyer states in what has become a more competitive
market.
The report noted that Russia, which has encountered strong competition
for the number two spot on the arms suppliers' list since 1995,
intends to offer more flexible credit and payment arrangements than it
has in the past in order to secure its ranking.
While China has been the fourth biggest supplier over the same period,
"its role is more as a consumer than a buyer", Grimmett told IPS,
noting that over the past seven years, the combined sales of the big
four European suppliers rival Russia's sales.
Indeed, as a group, the four countries claimed 12 per cent of total
sales in 2002, up from 5 per cent in 2001.
Two major buyers of the past decade - Saudi Arabia and Taiwan - are
fading as consumers in more recent years, the report says. Riyadh has
faced financial constraints and, in fact, is still absorbing weapons
systems worth some 64.5 billion dollars that it purchased in the early
1990s.
Taiwan, which ranked second to Saudi Arabia with respect to deliveries
since 1995 (20 billion dollars) has dropped out of the top 10 in
purchasers, much to the frustration of anti-China hawks in the Bush
administration.
Different suppliers also penetrated different regional markets over
the same seven-year period. Asia - particularly China, India, and
Malaysia - accounted for 82 per cent of Russia's arms sales, or about
one-half of all arms sold to the region.
US sales to Middle Eastern clients accounted for 76 per cent of its
total arms sales since 1999 and about the same percentage of all sales
to the region in that period. It also became the dominant supplier to
Latin America in the last three years, primarily on the strength of
the warplanes for Chile.
Germany (due to a big sale to South Africa) and Russia were the
biggest single arms sellers to Africa in the last three years, at 16
per cent and 15 per cent, respectively. By contrast, Washington
accounted for only one percent of sales to that continent.
On the other hand, "all other European" countries - mainly Central and
Eastern Europe - accounted for a whopping 37 per cent of total weapons
transfers to Africa, and a clue as to the source of small arms that
are fuelling the region's many civil conflicts, according to
Grimmett.-Dawn/The InterPress News Service.
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