{"id":14634,"date":"2012-12-07T10:07:58","date_gmt":"2012-12-07T17:07:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=14634"},"modified":"2012-12-07T10:07:58","modified_gmt":"2012-12-07T17:07:58","slug":"66-3-billion-in-weapons-sales-mostly-to-the-saudis-u-s-arms-sales-break-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=14634","title":{"rendered":"$66.3 Billion In Weapons Sales, mostly to the Saudis, U.S. Arms Sales Break Record"},"content":{"rendered":"

With $66.3 Billion In Agreements, U.S. Arms Sales Break Record In 2011<\/strong>
\nby Eyder Peralta – 27 August, 2012 – NPR<\/p>\n

A U.S. Air Force F-16 multi role fighter Falcon during an exercise at the U.S. airbase in Osan, South Korea. Enlarge image<\/p>\n

A U.S. Air Force F-16 multi role fighter Falcon during an exercise at the U.S. airbase in Osan, South Korea.
\nLee Jin-man\/AP<\/p>\n

The United States was the biggest provider of weapons to other countries, last year. In terms of how much money it moved, it tripled its 2010 purchases and moved $66.3 billion worth of arms.<\/p>\n

According to a Congressional Research Service report (pdf), that is the biggest amount in the history of the United States and most of it comes from sales of weapons to Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

The New York Times reports:<\/p>\n

“The previous high was in fiscal year 2009, when American weapons sales overseas totaled nearly $31 billion.<\/p>\n

“A worldwide economic decline had suppressed arms sales over recent years. But increasing tensions with Iran drove a set of Persian Gulf nations \u2014 Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman \u2014 to purchase American weapons at record levels.<\/p>\n

“These Gulf states do not share a border with Iran, and their arms purchases focused on expensive warplanes and complex missile defense systems.”<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia, the report concludes, bought about $33.7 billion worth of weapons. $33.4 billion were purchased from the United States. India followed with $6.9 billion and the United Arab Emirates came in third with $4.5 billion.<\/p>\n

Russia, by the way, was the second biggest seller with $4.8 billion in agreements.<\/p>\n

Foreign Policy zooms in on Saudi Arabia’s spending. It points out that its 2011 purchases are several times bigger than Iran’s entire defense spending.<\/p>\n

“Put it another way, that purchase alone would give Saudi Arabia the world’s 11th highest military spending,” Foreign Policy reports. “Given that the Kingdom’s total spending in 2011 was just $48.5 billion according to SIPRI, the purchase was a pretty significant upgrade.”<\/p>\n

The report notes that the Saudi purchases distort the market, which is likely not growing as those figures might suggest.
\n…source<\/a><\/p>\n

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With $66.3 Billion In Agreements, U.S. Arms Sales Break Record In 2011 by Eyder Peralta – 27 August, 2012 – NPR A U.S. Air Force F-16 multi role fighter Falcon during an exercise at the U.S. airbase in Osan, South Korea. Enlarge image A U.S. Air Force F-16 multi role fighter Falcon during an exercise more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[3781],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14634"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14634"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14635,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14634\/revisions\/14635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}