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The arms industry is a massive global industry. Its products include guns, bullets, missiles, military aircraft, and their associated consumables and systems. The arms trade is the exchange of arms or weapons among two or more parties, generally but not exclusively sovereign nations.It is estimated that yearly over 150 billion dollars (150 G$) is spent on arms.
Almost every industrialized country in the world has its own arms industry to supply its own military forces. Some countries also have a substantial trade in weapons for legal civilian use. There is an illegal trade in small arms everywhere. In addition, there is a substantial international trade in arms, both legal and illegal. Frequently, there are links between the legal arms trade and the illegal arms trade, with legally purchased weaponry being re-sold for illegal purposes.
Massive contracts for weapons are awarded by governments, making arms contracts of substantial political importance for the giver and the recipient. There are often allegations of political corruption in regard to large arms contracts.
The link between politics and the arms trade can result in the development of what General Eisenhower described as a military-industrial complex, where the armed forces, commerce, and politics become unhealthily close.
Amnesty International, Oxfam, and the International Network on Small Arms say that roughly 500,000 people are killed each year by the use of small arms, and that there are over 600 million of such arms in circulation.
1 Top 15 arms exporters in 1999
- United States, 33 G $
- United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a state in Western Europe, usually known simply as the United Kingdom the UK Britain or less accurately as Great Britain . The UK was formed by a series of Acts of Union which united the formerly, 5.2 G$
- RussiaThe Russian Federation ( Russian: , transliteration: Rossiyskaya Federatsiya or Rossijskaja Federacija , or Russia (Russian: , transliteration: Rossiya or Rossija , is a country that stretches over a vast expanse of eastern Europe and northern Asia. With, 3.1 G$
- FranceThe French Republic or France ( French: Republique francaise or France is a country whose metropolitan territory is located in western Europe, and which is further made up of a collection of overseas islands and territories located in other continents., 2.9 G$
- GermanyThe Federal Republic of Germany ( German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland is one of the world's leading industrialized countries, located in the middle of the European Union. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark and the Baltic Sea, to the east, 1.9 G$
- SwedenThe Kingdom of Sweden Konungariket Sverige in Swedish) is a Nordic country in Scandinavia, in Northern Europe. It is bordered by Norway on the west, Finland on the northeast, the Skagerrak and the Kattegat on the southwest, and the Baltic Sea and the Gulf, 0.7 G$
- IsraelThis article discusses the State of Israel. For other meanings of Israel see Israel (disambiguation). The State of Israel Medinat Yisrael in Hebrew, Daulat Israil in Arabic) is a country in the Middle East on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea., 0.6 G$
- AustraliaAustralia is the sixth-largest country in the world (geographically), the only one to occupy an entire continent, and the largest in the region of Australasia. Australia includes the island of Tasmania, which is an Australian State. Its neighbouring count, 0.6 G$
- CanadaCanada historically the Dominion of Canada is the second-largest, and northernmost, country in the world. It is a decentralized federation of 10 provinces and 3 territories, governed as a constitutional monarchy, and formed in 1867 through an act of Confe, 0.6 G$
- Ukraine, 0.6 G$
- Italy, 0.4 G$
- People's Republic of China, 0.3 G$
- Belarus, 0.3 G$
- Bulgaria, 0.2 G$
- North Korea, 0.1 G$
source: Federation of American Scientists, [1]
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