World disarmed, Europe Armed

The worldwide export figures of arms businesses in the background of a new war in Europe are of particular importance. The Stockholm Institute for Peace Studies, SIPRI, notes increases between 2017 and 2021 and from 2012 to 2016. The figures still do not reflect Russia's war stage against Ukraine, but are researched before the war. However, these figures are already talking about enormous tensions in Europe.

While the global arms trade has dropped by 4.6 per cent, European states have bought 19 per cent more weapons. Europe marks the largest growth compared to all regions. Pieter Wezeman, one of the authors of the SIPRI study, calls this a <x0 malmatation that raises concern”.

According to Ian Anthony, head of the European Security section at the SIPRI Institute and expert on Russia, recent figures include NATO reactions” to the Russian annexation of the Crime in 2014 and aggression at Donbas”. Then, in 2014, NATO decided that “changed the tendency of defence spending”, Anthony told Deutsche Welle.

In the context of the war, it is interesting to note some major shifts in specific arms exports. Russia's arms sales, number two in the world after the United States, have dropped by 26 per cent. But this is about lowering orders from only two countries in India and Vietnam, while next year India is expected to buy weapons again in a volume. The decline in Chinese purchases has been even higher by 31 per cent.

Germany, the world's fifth exporter, has a minus 19 per cent. While US arms exports against the research period have increased by 14 per cent, France's, with even 59 per cent, which takes third place in the world. /dw