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Arms Trade: U.S. Outsells All Others Combined 1999 Scorecard: U.S. $11.4 Billion, Rest of World $11.3 Billion by David Lochhead and James Morrell | Foreword by Oscar Arias
At a time of unprecedented involvement of first-world nations in the affairs of developing countries, it is imperative for people everywhere to take a critical look at the nature of that involvement. Certainly, much good comes of some of these interventions: UN peacekeeping missions work to prevent old conflicts from flaring up around the world, the Organization of American States and other international bodies oversee elections, thereby aiding budding democracies to start off on the right foot, and loans from the IMF, World Bank, and other international financial institutions contribute to human development in places where public structure and private investment are lacking. Yet despite so much well-intentioned and often productive activity, an ugly practice continues to nullify progress in human development, and that is the international arms trade. The fact is that 97 percent of conventional weapons sold in 1998 originated in developed countries, and 65 percent of them ended up in developing countries. The United States is the leader of the pack when it comes to exporting weapons to poor countries, with Great Britain, France, and Russia also doing a brisk business in such sales. This report paints the grim picture of an industry which is removed from democratic controls and humanitarian standards, and which places profit and short-term strategic interests before the value of human life, or even the ideals of democracy which these exporting countries purport to defend. Although arms sales to unscrupulous and undemocratic regimes have been going on since the beginning of arms manufactures, the information contained in this report truly ought to shock and offend anyone who is concerned with human life. Time and time again, history has proved that the unchecked arms trade, rather than making the world more secure, has led to millions of unnecessary deaths. In today's armed conflicts, 90 percent of casualties are civilians. When will we say that it is enough, and that producing more weapons only produces more death? The loss of life is the most obvious of the pernicious effects of the arms trade. There are many others which also demand our attention. The manufacture and sale of ever more sophisticated weaponry promotes regional arms races that are costly, destabilizing, and entirely unnecessary. Arms which are sold to today's allies often boomerang back on the country who supplied them when that alliance no longer holds. American weapons have killed American soldiers in Panama, Somalia, and Iraq. Additionally, the sale of arms without regard to the record of human rights abuses by the buyers conveys a message of tacit endorsement of illegitimate regimes, as well as helping them to consolidate their power and extend their illegal rule. Such has been the case with dictator after dictator, supported with arms to defend against the "communist threat," when in reality what they were defending was only their own power to repress their people and murder with impunity. The final consequence of arms trade out of control is perhaps the most invisible, and the most insidious. Spending on arms is the best way to perpetuate poverty. It is estimated that $780 billion was spent on military technology and training worldwide in 1999. Just 5 percent of that amount would be sufficient to guarantee basic education, health care and nutrition, potable water, and sanitation to all of the world's people. If the countries who endorse arms sales, either by their governments or by private merchants, were truly interested in defending and promoting democracy, they would make the much more sensible investment in eradicating the poverty which keeps half of the world's people in a de facto state of disenfranchisement. For it is grinding, absolute poverty that is the true enemy of both peace and democracy. Ask any child on the streets of India, Burundi, or Myanmar whether she would rather have bread to eat and a school to go to or a fighter jet to protect her, and you will have the obvious answer that national security means nothing in the absence of human security. As the leader in promoting arms sales, the United States is in the unique position to take the lead in reducing arms sales, and in particular, in subjecting arms exports to a Code of Conduct which would prevent military technology from being transferred to undemocratic or repressive regimes. There has been some corrective action in this vein: the 1999 McKinney-Rohrbacher Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers Act, the Leahy laws cutting support to foreign units with human-rights abusers, and the Transparency of Budgets amendment prohibiting loans to militaries who won't allow audits. And yet "Plan Colombia" shows us how easy it still is for military aid to go to armies who don't meet human- rights standards written into the law; all that was required in this case was the president's signature waiving human-rights requirements, in the supposed interests of U.S. security. The figures presented in this report make clear that the fight against unchecked arms sales and buildup is far from over. The U.S. shows itself to be as militaristic and unilateral in its foreign policy as ever before. It is time for the American people to wake up and press their government to finally realize that diplomacy, dialogue, and multilateral cooperation must always be a greater priority than military engagement, and in fact, are the only civilized way to deal with conflicts and ensure lasting peace in our world. It is my hope that all who read this report will come to the same conclusion and raise their voices in a collective call for peace. Oscar Arias U.S. Outsells All Others Combined In 1999 the United States outsold all other countries combined, selling $11.4 billion in military hardware to Third World countries, according to a recent government report (see Table 1). No continent was spared. During 1996-99 (the last period for which the report differentiates by region), the United States sold $13 billion to Asia, $27 billion to the Middle East, $1.5 billion to Latin America, and even found the time to do $114 million to the threadbare countries of Africa. Again looking at the new figures for 1999, we see the other exporters trying hard: Russia with $2 billion; France, $2.2 billion; Great Britain, $3.9 billion; China, $300 million; Germany, $600 million, the rest of Europe $1.8 billion; and all others, $500 million. But all of them together could not match the United States' $11.4 billion. These figures suggest that all along, the United States could have led downward without losing out to competitors. From that dominant position it could and still can propose mutual restraint in which it retains its share of a diminishing market. But instead, when Thailand canceled a fighter purchase in the midst of the 1997 financial crisis Secretary of Defense William
Source: Richard F. Grimmett, "Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1992-1999" (Washington: Congressional Research Service, August 18, 2000), p. 51.
Cohen personally flew there to try to salvage the sale. The Thais canceled anyhow. This U.S. dominance also comes at a time of such crucial shortages of high-tech personnel that Congress has opened the doors to an unprecedented influx of foreign workers. The United States could have cut back arms exports without causing unemployment and, by negotiating mutual restraint, without losing appreciable market share to competitors. This report is the fifth in a series by our Demilitarization for Democracy program. Our last report, "Arms Un-Control: A Record Year for U.S. Military Exports," took the story through 1997. It reported that the United States in that year had achieved a dubious "Triple Crown," setting records in:
The current report covers gross trends in 1999 and country details through 1998. It goes beyond last year's in comparing U.S. sales to activity by competitors. But also, as in previous years, we look at destinations: While the top destinations were the Middle East and Taiwan, in 1998 the United States also sold or trained in eight of the ten poorest countries in the world (see map). The United States sold to or trained in seventeen of the twenty-four countries involved in major conflicts, including Israel, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Angola, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Colombia, and Peru. The United States provided weapons or training to both sides of four different armed conflicts in 1998 involving ten countries, including:
Sixty-three percent of all U.S. arms sales in 1998 were directed at the Third World. Of these Third World recipients, 54 percent were undemocratic based on criteria in the State Department human-rights reports (see Table 4). The number of troops trained by Special Forces through the Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) program doubled in fiscal year 1998 to 18,239. The number trained through both the International Military Education and Training (IMET) and JCET programs rose from 12,554 in 1997 to 22,334 in 1998 (a 78
Some twenty leading recipients are receiving top-of-the-line U.S. air assets. In most cases this means fighter aircraft, but it can also include attack helicopters, aerial refueling tankers, command-and-communications aircraft and air-to-air, air-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles. While the Pentagon and the arms industry argue that in each case the United States retains air superiority and that in some cases these allies are conducting missions alongside our forces, the general threat environment for U.S. forces has obviously become more sophisticated as a result of this aggressive U.S. export policy. Further, military-industry lobbyists use U.S. transfers of high-tech combat aircraft to justify the need for expensive U.S. aircraft upgrades. In its brochure for the $80-billion F-22 next-generation fighter program, one of Lockheed-Martin's key selling points was, "Sophisticated fighter airplanes and air defense systems are being sold around the world." Lockheed-Martin will also be producing the fighters for the United Arab Emirates, thus contributing to the very problem it proposes to solve. Should a corporation be allowed to promote a global arms race? Arms manufacturers ran sophisticated lobbying campaigns which are more responsible for the gross volumes of sales than Pentagon and State Department strategy. Throughout the 1990s, political-action committees associated with the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) and its member corporations contributed between $6 to $10 million to political candidates and parties in each two-year election cycle. A number of AIA campaigns actually overturned existing U.S. security policies. In 1997 the AIA achieved its longstanding objective of ending the moratorium on high-tech weapons sales to Latin America. Only a financial downturn prevented Chile from purchasing F-16s this year in what will certainly be the beginning of a new arms race in the region. Even before it came off the assembly line, U.S. Air Force officials advocated the export of the F-22 fighter jet because, as one official said, "We've been feeling the heat from Lockheed." Chief sources for this report:
Deliveries Vs. Agreements This report's 1999 figures measure deliveries of arms to the Third World based on the Grimmett report, pp. 50-52. The Grimmett series also reports on agreements. Neither method is intrinsically superior. Agreements show the most recent trends in arms-contract activity by major suppliers. Deliveries reflect implementation of sales decisions taken earlier. For our predecessor 1999 "Arms-Uncontrol" report, deliveries were used as the more objective measure. This was on the advice of Mr. Grimmett after a consultation with him, for which we remain grateful. The same method is used for this report. The finding that the United States outsold the rest of the world rests on the razor-thin margin of 50.15 percent. Grimmett is right in cautioning that these data should be used to assess only general trends in seller-buyer activity. The fact that the United States outsold all others on a delivery basis in 1999 does not mean that it did so every year or that it did so on an agreements basis. These data do show that the United States is by far the biggest arms seller to the Third World, easily outselling Russia and most major European countries year after year, and indeed in this one year outselling them all. Undemocratic Vs. Democratic A democratic country is defined by the Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers Act as one that:
We determined which countries were democratic by using U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1998 , with special attention to "Respect for Political Rights: The Right of Citizens to Change Their Government." Military-assistance totals in this report are more complete by virtue of including data on Excess Defense Articles and Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) programs, hitherto excluded because of the difficulty in establishing reliable values. Also tabulated are: FMS The Foreign Military Sales delivery total is the total dollar value of defense articles and defense services delivered to a foreign government or international organization by the United States in any fiscal year after the implementation of an FMS agreement. All values used in the charts and tables are deliveries, not agreements. Foreign Military Construction Sales (FMCS) Deliveries FMCS deliveries refer to the total dollar value of disbursements against design and construction services provided to a foreign government in any fiscal year. These sales are authorized under section 29 of the Arms Export Control Act and include the necessary construction equipment, materials, engineering services, and construction contract management services. FMCS is more commonly referred to as Military Construction. Design and construction services refers to actual military-support infrastructure the United States builds. Real-property facilities built include airstrips, air bases, port docking, and other maintenance infrastructure that facilitate military operations. See Legislation on Foreign Relations Through 1997, Arms Export Control Act in chapter 2A, section 29 and chapter 4, section 51. Commercial Exports Licensed Commercial exports refers to the total dollar value of deliveries made against purchases of munitions by foreign governments directly from U.S manufacturers. The Defense Department's Defense Trade Controls office and the State Department compile the relevant data. The data used in our report from the Commercial Exports Licensed category are likely much lower than the actual. Information from the DSAA is known to be far lower than the actual as the reporting requirements on these sales do not insure full and accurate accounting. IMET The International Military Education and Training program (IMET), created in 1976, is a financing arrangement through the foreign-aid appropriations and authorizations process. Through the IMET program, the United States pays for the professional training and education of foreign military students and a limited number of civilian support personnel. The vast majority of those trained are officers. This training takes place primarily in the United States. The U.S. government receives no dollar reimbursement for the cost of training aids and materials. This program is considered fully delivered when funded. The data for foreign military-sales deliveries, foreign military-construction sales deliveries, commercial exports licensed, and international military education and training programs are from Foreign Military Sales, Foreign Military Construction Sales and Military Assistance Facts as of September 30, 1998, produced by the Department of Defense Security Assistance Agency (DSAA). EDA Excess Defense Articles are surplus military items owned by the United States but not originally procured for anticipated sales or assistance programs elsewhere. Equipment delivered ranges in scope from uniforms to more complex field equipment such as artillery and warships. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) Tracking Report on EDA lists two separate dollar values for specific line items delivered to each country, acquisition value and current value. Current value ranges from 50 percent to as low as 5 percent of acquisition value. For example, Australia got SH-2F helicopters with an acquisition value of $41.8 million for $9.3 million. Morocco got M85 machine guns with an acquisition value of $22.1 million for $1.4 million. In this report we use current values. Research for this section was also carried out from the EDA On-line Bulletin Board, Defense Security Cooperation Agency, (703) 601-3718. Data were compiled from "Excess Defense Articles-Tracking Report for FY 1998" from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. JCET Joint Combined Exchange Training consists of combat exercises combining Special Operations Forces (SOF) unit training and an overseas presence in countries throughout the world. During this training, units exchange ideas, techniques, and experiences in unconventional military operations with foreign counterparts. The Defense Department says JCET exercises "sharpen critical SOF mission essential task list skills and enhance host nation skills." The department adds that as a bonus, the United States benefits from "long-term . . . influence in the participating countries." The State Department decides which countries may join in JCET exercises. The Defense Department says JCET exercises have the primary purpose of training U.S. forces. Data compiled here are divided by U.S. Special Operations Commands:
Data derived from U.S. Department of Defense, "Report on Training of Special Operations Forces, Under 10 U.S.C. section 2011," April 1, 1999, and "Foreign Military Training & DoD Engagement Activities of Interest, In Fiscal Years 1998 and 1999," jointly presented by the Department of Defense and the Department of State. Information on counter-narcotics and humanitarian de-mining is from "DoD Engagement Activities, Unified Command Activities, De-mining and Counter-Narcotics" of the Foreign Military Training report to Congress, FY 1998 and 1999. To determine the total number of foreign troops trained under the IMET, JCET, counter-narcotics and de-mining programs, "Civilian Unexploded Ordinance Personnel" were excluded. The data used below are for U.S. fiscal years (FY) running from October 1 of the previous calendar year to September 30 of the following year. The overall values include Pentagon categories that are not attributed to specific countries: classified and regional, representing $496 million (3 percent) of the total $16 billion in total U.S. military assistance in FY 1998. The Code of Conduct legislation would help the executive branch use military assistance as an incentive for democracy, a supposed cornerstone policy of the Clinton administration. However, the legislation includes a national-security waiver. Table 2. Countries Receiving U.S. Military Training, FY 1998
Table 3. U.S.-Trained Foreign Military Personnel, FY 1998
Table 4. U.S. Military Exports, FY 1998 (in thousands of dollars) To Undemocratic Regimes
To Democratic Regimes
Table 5. U.S. Arms Sales and Military Training to the World's Ten Poorest Countries, FY 1998
Determination of the poorest is based on the U.N. Development Program's 1999 Human Development Report. Its human-development index is a composite of life expectancy, educational attainment and income. Ranked more to least developed.
Table 6. U.S. Arms Sales and Military Training to Countries in Conflict, FY 1998.
Definitions are from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's SIPRI Yearbook 1999, Armaments, Disarmament and International Security (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). SIPRI defines a major armed conflict as the "prolonged use of armed force between the military forces of two or more governments, or of one government and at least one organized armed group, incurring the battle-related deaths of at least 1,000 people Now in paperback National Insecurity: U.S. Intelligence After the Cold War Edited by Craig Eisendrath • Foreword by Senator Tom Harkin Temple University Press, 2000 • A project of the Center for International Policy "Veteran diplomats, former congressional staff members and journalists who specialize in intelligence coverage join forces in this collection of essays to call for a total overhaul of U.S. intelligence strategy." --James M. Wall, Christian Century |
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| Asia | | | Latin America Security | | | Cuba | | | National Security | | | Global Financial Integrity | | | Americas Program | | | Avoided Deforestation Partners | | | Win Without War | | | TransBorder Project |
| Center
for International Policy |