Governmental Report to Congress Highlights U.S. Arms Exports: U.S. Weapons Sales Fuel Conflicts and Arms Races Worldwide

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Arms Sales Monitoring Project, Federation of American Scientists

July 13, 1999

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For Immediate Release:
Contact: Tamar Gabelnick, Director, Arms Sales Monitoring Project
Phone: (202) 675-1018

A recent report to Congress from the Defense and State Departments details more than $40 billion worth of U.S. arms shipments and export licenses to 165 countries. The U.S. has exported similarly large amounts of weapons throughout the 1990s, dominating the post-Cold War global arms market.

The Pentagon's portion of the fiscal year 1998 "Section 655" report lists $13.9 billion worth of arms and training delivered through the government-negotiated Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. The following top ten recipients represent nearly 80% of that total:

(Dollars in thousands)
1. Saudi Arabia-4,307,585
2. Israel-1,617,819
3. Taiwan-1,489,671
4. Korea-955,848
5. Egypt-611,796
6. Turkey-541,204
7. Japan-419,892
8. Greece-414,397
9. Netherlands-346,729
10. Australia-343,623

A separate section of the FY 98 Section 655 report lists $26.4 billion worth of State Department approved manufacturing agreements and weapons export licenses negotiated directly between U.S. defense firms and foreign entities-both governments and private companies. Export licenses for Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) are valid for four years, and not all licenses will be acted upon. Because it is difficult to obtain delivery data on DCS, this category of sales is often left out of reports on U.S. arms exports, skewing the picture of global arms sales and the U.S. portion of the trade.

Under U.S. arms export policy guidelines, U.S. military equipment may not be sold to countries where they might exacerbate regional arms races or contribute to human rights abuses. Yet the list of top ten recipients of FMS sales tells a different story. The already highly militarized Middle East region absorbed the most U.S. arms in 1998, accounting for just over half of all FMS deliveries. Long-time rivals Greece and Turkey are also involved in a costly arms race, with the U.S. government acting as a willing partner.

The U.S. government also exported or authorized licenses for arms sales to several states involved in internal conflicts and with poor human rights records: $176 million of arms exports were sent or authorized for export to Colombia in FY 98, $185 million for Mexico, and over $2.1 billion for Turkey, where the U.S. State Dept. has documented the military's use of U.S.-origin arms against civilian populations in its war against the Kurdish rebels. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of military equipment and training were also delivered to Ethiopia and Eritrea while a bloody war continues between them, and small amounts of military equipment were also provided to Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone, involved in violent internal conflicts.

"These arms sales lend both logistical and political support to the pursuit of military, rather than negotiated, solutions to conflicts," noted Tamar Gabelnick, Director of the Federation of American Scientists' Arms Sales Monitoring Project. "Foreign militaries interpret the U.S. government's decisions to export arms as a signal of tacit approval for their military policies."

The commercial sales portion of the Section 655 also highlights the U.S. contribution to the proliferation of "small arms"-the weapons credited with most of the casualties in today's internal conflicts. In FY 98, the State Department authorized the export of approximately $478 million worth of small arms, light weapons, ammunition, and their components (spare parts or manufacturing equipment), up slightly from fiscal year 1997. Included in this figure are over 440,000 pistols, rifles, shotguns, submachine guns, and machine guns, as well as over 650 million ammunition cartridges.

Among the top recipients of small arms licenses were Taiwan and Venezuela, which received $46.5 million and $39 million worth of small arms licenses, respectively. Major small arms recipients also included countries with internal conflicts, such as Israel and Indonesia. Brazil and South Africa-two states plagued with high gun-related murder rates-also topped the list of small arms license recipients.

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