In Focus: The Business of War: Global Arms Trade
| Author | Benjamin D. Hennig |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/20419058231167263 |
| Published date | 01 March 2023 |
| Date | 01 March 2023 |
20 POLITICAL INSIGHT • MARCH 2023
In Focus
War is good for business.
Well, at least it is for the
companies that make their
money manufacturing
and selling weapons and armaments. War is
also a global business. While most of the rms
which dominate the global arms trade are
based in countries that are not in conict, the
economic impact of wars often reaches far
beyond immediate conict zones and aected
populations.
Calculating the total value or volume of the
global arms trade is a generally challenging
task. Most major weapons producing countries
publish some form of ocial data on their
exports which allows for a rough estimate of
this trade. Nevertheless, this does not always
account for the entire volume of trade. Some
countries, including the United Kingdom, only
publish statistics based on export agreements
and licences. Other countries such as China do
not release any gures at all.
Dierent countries also use dierent
denitions that make such data dicult to
compare. Germany, as one of the ten largest
arms exporters, for example, only includes data
about ‘war weapons’ in its arms trade statistics
which results in an underestimation of its arms
exports.
Consequently, the quantication of the global
arms trade varies signicantly depending on
the approach taken to estimate such statistics.
UK Defence and Security Exports (UKDSE),
an organisation within the Department for
International Trade, estimates that the global
defence export market was $89 billion in 2019.
The Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute (SIPRI) estimates that the global arms
trade was worth at least $112 billion in 2020. The
real gures are most likely even higher than that.
SIPRI is a Stockholm-based think tank
conducting research into conict, armaments,
arms control and disarmament. The SIPRI Arms
Transfers Database ‘is designed to serve as an
indicator of the volume of military equipment
transferred in the world’. Instead of assessing the
nancial value of the international arms trade, it
uses the ‘trend-indicator-value’ (TIV), displayed
in these graphics, that relates to the actual
deliveries of major conventional weapons in a
standardised way that allows for the comparison
of such data across countries and over time.
According to SIPRI’s data, the largest exporters
of arms by far are the United States of America
and Russia, while Europe overall plays an equally
important role in the global war business
(see top map and bottom left chart). France,
Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and
the Netherlands were all in the top ten of arms
exporting countries between 2012 and 2021.
The political justication for this industry
follows a carefully balanced line of argument.
The UK government’s UKDSE for example,
celebrates the country’s leading role in ‘global
defence exports’ which according to its own
calculations put the UK in second place after
the USA in terms of trade value. Such successes
seem essential for the government’s pursuit of
nding economic success stories in the UK’s
industries.
This narrative plays less well with the
country’s moral responsibility on the world
stage as an advocate of human rights and
democracy, that is often undermined through
wars and conicts that are arguably fuelled
by global arms trade. In 2019 for example,
the then-Secretary of State for International
Trade, Liam Fox, was forced by a High Court
judgement to announce the government’s
decision to temporarily pause granting new
export licences to Saudi Arabia for goods that
might be used in the conict in Yemen.
While conict and war provide a protable
business for the arms industry, the major
exporting countries are walking a tightrope
when deciding on export licences that are
granted to the industry. These political decisions
require careful navigation of international
regulations and agreements, such as the UN’s
Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) as well as general
The Business of War:
Global Arms Trade
geopolitical considerations.
Major recipients of arms include some of the
(competing) signicant political players on the
world stage when seen from the perspective
of major arms exporters. Among the largest
importers are China and India as emerging
world powers, but also countries in the conict-
ridden Middle East and Northern Africa. Saudi
Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Turkey,
Egypt and Algeria are all among the top ten
arms importing countries over the past decade
(see bottom map and bottom right chart).
The arms trade does pose major questions
for arms exporting states. While economic
self-interest often trumps all other concerns, the
moral aspects of the arms trade started taking
centre stage following the major escalation of
the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Most
western states, especially those within NATO,
showed varying degrees of reluctance to get
indirectly involved in the conict through
arms supplies. This discussion was perhaps
most controversially led by Germany which
was reluctant to commit to arms supplies
for Ukraine, while having many less such
reservations about arms trade with conict-
ridden regions in the Middle East or with Egypt’s
authoritarian regime.
Germany’s population has turned rather
pacist since the end of the Second World
War. The peace movement was a vocal feature
especially in the 1980s post-war society. In an
unlikely twist, Germans began public protests
demanding arms deliveries to support Ukraine.
This led to the current government eventually
committing to signicant contributions in an
unprecedented political move.
Besides receiving increasing military aid
through western allies as the current conict
was building up, Ukraine’s actual import of arms
over the past decade remained relatively low.
This was not least due to budget constraints,
while the country’s arms industry increasingly
shifted from export orientation towards
building up domestic supplies. Ukraine’s arms
industry itself is not an insignicant element of
the global arms production and trade, too.
SIPRI’s database has not been updated to
The global arms trade is worth billions, but is it just about making money
or more about wielding power and influence asks Benjamin D. Hennig.
Political Insight March 2023 BU.indd 20Political Insight March 2023 BU.indd 20 27/02/2023 13:5027/02/2023 13:50
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