The Middle East accounts for approximately 32 percent of the United States’ weapons export market. From 2010 to 2014, the United States exported $43 billion in arms worldwide, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Russia has a thriving weapons export market as well. In 2012-2013, it sold $58.8 million in weapons to Iran and $1.2 billion in weapons to Syria
Weapons Manufacturers Are Making a Fortune Off Mid-East Chaos, Reader Supported News By Tim Mak, The Daily Beast 29 April 15
The Middle East is on a knife’s edge, thanks to a lunatic ISIS and a rising Iran. For American arms-makers, that means only one thing: opportunity.
ar in Yemen. The continued threat of ISIS. Ongoing conflict in Iraq and Syria. Increasing Iranian influence. As America’s Middle Eastern allies watch their neighborhood burn, the U.S. defense industry is viewing increased instability as a money-making opportunity.
An unintended consequence of growing Iranian clout in the Middle East—punctuated most recently by a framework nuclear deal—has been the Obama administration’s decision to ease Gulf ally concerns by approving more sales of U.S.-made weaponry.
According to defense industry sources, inquiries for their product are way up. So while the region is a disaster for the Gulf states, the recent chaos is a timely godsend for the American defense industrial base—which due to congressional spending cuts is badly in need of customers.
“If you stop building product, you’re potentially shedding employees—and that’s constituents. That’s taxpayers. That’s your brother, your cousin, your friend—that doesn’t have a job because of a smaller defense budget. But if you can add foreign sales…” said a top defense industry lobbyist. “It’s ensuring a continuation of our industrial base and employment here.”
Over the last eight months, the State Department has approved foreign military sales of Hellfire missiles to Egypt, rocket launchers to Jordan, M1A1 Abrams tanks to Iraq, Patriot air defense systems to Saudi Arabia, and artillery rocket systems to the UAE.
Defense industry officials are signaling to Congress that they expect a flood of new weaponry requests from Arab allies in the coming days, according to The New York Times. In 2012-2013, the United States sold nearly a billion dollars worth of weaponry to Saudi Arabia, and half a billion to Qatar, for example. This upcoming year’s totals could be much, much higher.
“There [is] a sharp increase in sales” to Gulf States, said Anthony Cordesman, the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “You not only see that they’re accelerating, but they’re accelerating far faster than Iran can afford to match.”
In a new report published Tuesday, Cordesman writes that Iran’s defense spending is dropping as a percentage of its GDP, even as Gulf state defense figures increase.
The accelerating weapons imports by Gulf states “is a reaction to Iran,” said Cordesman, and has “accelerated over the last four, five years. It has continued to evolve—not just in dollars—[to involve] some of the most sophisticated [weapons systems] in the world,” especially in missile defense and airpower.
The Middle East accounts for approximately 32 percent of the United States’ weapons export market. From 2010 to 2014, the United States exported $43 billion in arms worldwide, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
And arms imports to Gulf Cooperation Council states increased 71 percent from 2010 to 2014, as compared to the previous five-year period, the SPRI notes……..
Russia has a thriving weapons export market as well. In 2012-2013, it sold $58.8 million in weapons to Iran and $1.2 billion in weapons to Syria.http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/29886-weapons-manufacturers-are-making-a-fortune-off-mid-east-chaos
