Statistics on Arms Trade

Content

1. Total world arms trade
2. Top suppliers and buyers of weapons
3. Largest arms producing companies
4. Small arms

1. Total world arms trade

12 billion bullets are produced every year – enough to kill everyone on earth twice.

Global transfers of large conventional weapons such as tanks and planes were 24% higher in 2007-2011 than in 2002-2006, according to new data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

However, estimates of the financial value of the international arms trade vary a lot depending on how one defines “arms”:

(source)

There’s a higher estimate here:

(source, click image to enlarge)

And then there’s this estimate, which includes the sale of military services:

(source)

What is clear, however, is that downward trend following the end of the Cold War has been reversed during the last decade.

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2. Top suppliers and buyers of weapons

Three-quarters of all exports in the past five years since 2007 were made by five or six countries: the US, Russia, Germany, the UK, China and France (in decreasing order). The US alone represents a thrid of global weapons exports.

(source)

The main buyers of arms are China, India, and the United Arab Emirates.

(source)

Given China’s increasing ability to manufacture its own weapons, India is today the biggest importer of arms, buying 10% of the world’s total.

(source)

(source, click images to enlarge)

This covers only international transfers. We should also include domestic sales of arms. Many industrialized countries have a domestic arms industry to supply their own military forces, and a domestic trade in weapons for use by their citizens. Dwight D. Eisenhower coined the phrase “military-industrial complex”, where the armed forces, industry and politics become closely linked and encourage each other’s hunger for arms.

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3. Largest arms producing companies

According to SIPRI,

“arms sales by the 100 largest arms-producing companies in the world (excluding China) – the SIPRI Top 100 – amounted to $315 billion in 2006, an increase of 9 per cent in nominal terms and 5 per cent in real terms.”

(source)

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4. Small arms

Over 600 million items of small arms are in circulation. According to Oxfam, around 500.000 individuals die in small arms-conflicts every year, approximately one death per minute. About 60% of human rights violations documented by Amnesty International have involved the use of small arms and light weapons.

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