Europe had the world’s largest increase in the importation of weapons in the last five years and the trend points to an acceleration, after the recent announcements of rearmament in the face of the threat from Russia, according to a report released on Monday.
Although arms exports fell 4.6% worldwide in the 2017-2021 period compared to the previous five-year period, Europe had a 19% increase in its purchasesaccording to the annual report of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
“Europe is the new hot spot”Siemon Wezeman, co-author of the SIPRI annual report, warned the AFP news agency.
“We are going to increase our military spending and not just a little, but a lot. We need new weapons and a lot of that will come from imports,” the researcher said, noting that most would come from other European countries and the United States.
Germany has already announced plans to increase its war spending, as have Denmark and Sweden.
European countries alarmed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine must strengthen their military apparatus with fighter planes, missiles, artillery and other heavy equipment.
“A lot of these things take time. It takes a process, you have to make the decision, you have to order, you have to manufacture. This usually takes a couple of years at least,” according to Wezeman.
He indicated that the upward trend began after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the effects become visible now.
The European share of the global arms trade rose from 10% to 13% in the last five years and this percentage will grow “substantially,” according to Wezeman.
The Russian threat is the main reason for rearmament in Europe. Photo Sergey Bobok/AFP
The global arms trade
The opacity of many contracts and unpaid arms donations make it difficult to give an exact figure for the global arms trade, but experts estimate that it is close to $100 billion annually.
According to SIPRI, Asia and Oceania are the main importing region in the last five yearswith 43% of war transfers and six of the world’s largest importers: India, Australia, China, South Korea, Pakistan and Japan.
Although arms imports into the world’s most populous region have fallen by around 5% in the past five years, East Asia and Oceania have grown strongly, at 20% and 59%, respectively.
“Tensions between China and many other countries in Asia and Oceania are the main driver of arms imports in the region,” the report’s authors said in a statement.
On middle Eastthe second largest market with 32% of global arms imports, the increase was 3%, mainly due to investments from Qatar amid tensions with its Gulf neighbors.
“At current oil prices they are going to have a lot of revenue and that usually translates into large arms orders,” Wezeman said.
While, the Americas and Africa have seen sharp declines in their arms purchases36% and 34% respectively, and each accounts for about 6% of global arms imports.
In individual countries, India and Saudi Arabia share the lead as the largest importerseach with 11%, ahead of Egypt (5.7%), Australia (5.4%) and China (4.8%).
India, along with Saudi Arabia, leads the first place among the arms importing countries. Photo Dar Yasin/AP
As for exporters, the United States is the leader with 39%.
Russia remains in second place, although its share has fallen to 19% in the past five years, largely due to falling purchases from China, which is now almost completely independent of Russian imports.
Russian isolation and sanctions over the war in Ukraine will likely affect its war industry in the future.
“There is a threat from the US side that says ‘if you buy weapons from Russia we will sanction you,'” Wezeman said, citing tensions after Turkey bought a Russian S-400 missile defense system.
“I think the pressure will be huge on countries like Algeria or Egypt, which are big importers of Russian arms,” he added.
France is the third largest exporter, with 11%, while China and Germany remained in fourth and fifth place with 4.6% and 4.5%, respectively.
With information from AFP
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