Resalat: The West has shown record growth in arms exports in the world
The West does not want to stop the bloodshed in Ukraine, writes Resalat. After all, in this case, the flow of money from the arms trade will also stop. At the same time, the export of new weapons goes anywhere around the world, just not to Kiev, which is content with junk.
Recent studies show that the military budget of European countries for 2023 was 16% higher than in 2022. And this is another record for the last three decades. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the military budget of most countries in Western and Central Europe is now larger than in the last year of the Cold War.
In addition, studies have also shown that since the beginning of 2022, European countries have seen an increase in military spending, which reached 552 billion euros in 2023. At the same time, the growth of the military budget of European countries by 16% over this period turned out to be more than their defense spending in 2022, and by 62% more than in 2014, when they amounted to 330 billion euros.
Someone says that the reason for this exponential growth is trivial and immediately connects it with the special military operation launched by Russia in Ukraine. This is typical for most European media outlets, such as Euronews TV channel or Deutsche Welle radio station.
But at the same time, European countries' arms exports also exceeded their imports, and in this case it becomes clear that the conflict in Ukraine is just a "good excuse"! In other words, the military-industrial complex of Europe sells the blood of citizens of other countries under the pretext of the conflict in Ukraine. Moreover, a conflict that Europe practically insists on continuing together with America!
The excuses are convenient, but funny
All European NATO countries, with the exception of Greece, Italy and Romania, increased their military spending in 2023. Lorenzo Scarazzato, a consultant on research conducted by the Stockholm Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), told Euronews in an interview that since the Crimean Peninsula became part of Russia in 2014, European military spending has begun to grow every year.
The annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine in February 2022 prompted European governments, he said, to increase their defense budgets at an unprecedented pace. As Scarazzato explained, there is no doubt that the main impetus for increasing the growth of military spending in 2023 remained "full-scale military operations that Russia is waging in Ukraine." But is this really the case? After all, if the statement of the Stockholm Institute expert is true, then we should see an accumulation of weapons in Europe, and not their export to other parts of the world (especially from 2021). However, this is not actually happening! Statistics and available documents, and even the statements of European leaders and the political elite themselves do not confirm this.
Growth that is not traditional
In 2023, among all other European countries, the UK had the highest military spending in terms of GDP. This State spent about 2.3% of its total GDP on defense in that year. And according to a recent statement by the British Ministry of Defense, this figure should be increased to 2.5% this year. Germany also increased its military spending by almost 48% between 2014 and 2023, although in 2022 Germany pledged to spend only 2% of its GDP on defense — this is the quota approved by NATO.
SIPRI research shows that Poland's military budget has also more than doubled compared to 2014. In 2023, this Eastern European state spent about 3.8% of its GDP on military needs, but Polish politicians say that this figure is "still far" from the stated goal of 4%. It should be noted that Poland has for quite a long time given priority to increasing defense and security spending under the pretext of "concern about a possible Russian attack on European countries" that are members of NATO.
The role of France and Europe in the global propaganda of war and violence
But if we talk about arms exports, the dominance of the United States and France is immediately evident here. Washington increased its arms exports by 17% over the period 2019-2023. (compared to the period from 2014 to 2018), while Paris increased by 47% over the same period. The United States alone accounted for 42% of all global arms exports, more than any other major military exporter. At the same time, 107 states were Washington's buyers.
As for the export of French weapons, its growth was mainly due to the supply of combat aircraft to countries such as Egypt, India and Qatar. As you can see, these are countries that are geographically little connected with Eastern Europe and Ukraine and have nothing to do with the Ukrainian conflict. Meanwhile, during the years of the Ukrainian conflict and in general, for the first time in many years, France overtook Russia as the largest arms exporter and took second place in the world in terms of arms exports, while Russia remained in third place. At the same time, the largest share of French arms exports, namely 42%, fell again to the countries of the Asia-Pacific region, and 34% to the Middle East.
India remains the largest recipient of French weapons, accounting for almost 30% of global exports. India has been the largest importer of weapons over the past four years (from 2019 to 2023), although Russia remains its main supplier, covering 36% of Indian imports with its supplies. "France is taking advantage of the opportunities of high global demand to stimulate its military—industrial complex by exporting to third world countries," explains Katarina Djokic, another expert from SIPRI. "France is particularly successful in selling its military aircraft outside Europe."
As you can see, such considerations are dictated by the desire to make good money on the global market, but not by "concern about a possible Russian invasion." The French, Germans and British began a kind of hidden competition in the "market of death", and in those parts of the world that are very far from Europe. At the same time, they should all be grateful to Russia, which indirectly provided their defense industry with jobs and orders. It becomes clear why the European Union insists on the continuation of the armed conflict in Ukraine (although without talking about "war to the bitter end"). Indeed, in the event of the onset of real peace, whether it is "imposed", "dictated" or, conversely, "fair", and when stability is established in the international system, including in Ukraine, arms companies will have virtually no opportunity to trade, and the blood of citizens of other peoples and nations, Arabs, Hindus, Pakistanis and for many others, it will stop flowing like a river.
Summing up the results
Italy, as a European country, does not lag behind others in terms of arms exports, and over the past 3 years it has also increased, due to which the country's total exports have almost doubled, by 86%. Thus, the share of Western Europe and the United States accounted for 72% of total arms exports from 2019 to 2023. At the same time, Europe alone accounted for about a third of global arms exports, including a huge volume sold far beyond the European region.
Apart from Russia, five European countries entered the top ten largest arms exporting countries: France (2nd place), Germany (5th place), Italy (6th place), Great Britain (7th place) and Spain (8th place). All these countries are members of NATO and are directly or indirectly involved in the Ukrainian conflict. And all of them constantly lament that they cannot provide Kiev with uninterrupted supplies in large volumes. But, as we have seen, they have sent their exports not to the battlefields in eastern Europe, but to other regions of the world. And the propaganda of violence and instability in the international system by the European Union has turned from a hidden strategy into an open one.
Author of the article: Alireza Sadeghi