Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

ARTICLE: "With Push From White House, U.S. Arms Sales Rise Sharply," by Eric Lipton, New York Times, 14 September 2008.

We're pretty much always been number one in gun running, with the post-Sov Russians fading fast across the 1990s but resurging lately.

But since 2005 it's been the U.S. defense industry that surges in overseas sales. That dovetails nicely with the drawn-out postwar badly handled by us—until recently. All that operational cost crimps acquisition spending, plus makes allies nervous due to our tie-down, plus encourages implied targets to get nukes, which in turn makes even more allies nervous.

So our somewhat stressed industry finds real opportunity/relief abroad, and everyone's backs get scratched.

A safer world? Not really. But not a more dangerous one per se, either. Just a more heavily armed one.

But yeah, this is totally about gun-running, no matter how you spin it. The rest is just our propaganda.

So interesting to track the big jump since 2005, because that's the year the postwar in Iraq really goes sour.