Aggressive postures by disruptive states have boosted arms sales in Europe, the Middle East and Asia over the past five years, according to a new report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
Russia's war in Ukraine contributed to a doubling of arms purchases in Europe in 2019-23 relative to 2014-18, the think tank said on Monday, with Ukraine becoming the largest regional importer and the world's fourth largest.
Arms exports to Asia accounted for the largest share globally (37 percent), with US allies Japan, Australia and India leading the buying spree.
These were “largely driven by one key factor: concern about China's ambitions,” said Pieter Wezeman, senior researcher at SIPRI's arms transfers program.
Japan, for example, multiplied its imports by two and a half and ordered, among other things, 400 long-range missiles capable of reaching North Korea and China.
US allies Qatar, Egypt and Saudi Arabia also led purchases in the Middle East, which accounted for 30 percent of global imports.
“It's not just fear of Iran. In reality, it is a war,” Wezeman told Al Jazeera. “Over the past 10 years, Saudi Arabia has used these weapons in operations it directs itself, including in Yemen. In Saudi Arabia this is considered a direct confrontation with Iran through proxies.”
Regional rivalry also played a role.
Qatar, for example, quadrupled its arms imports after Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates imposed a blockade on the Gulf country in 2017, ordering fighter jets from the United States, France and the United Kingdom.
“We live in a world in transition. It is fluid and unstable. The UN has a decorative role. There is a whole class of revisionist powers,” American College of Greece history professor Konstantinos Filis told Al Jazeera.
“There is insecurity on the part of friendly states of the West about whether American power can deter an attack against them,” Filis said. “They say: 'If I don't rearm, there will be no one to protect me, there are no strong multilateral mechanisms like in previous years, so I have to prepare for a future attack.'”
The United States expands its advantage as the main exporter
Western allies are also the largest exporters.
Increased spending by allies helped the United States expand its lead as the top arms exporter, reaching 42 percent of the global market, up from 34 percent in 2013-18.
This is in part because the United States is the only country with an exportable fifth-generation fighter jet, the F-35 Lightning II, and many of its allies are now transitioning their air forces to adopt the stealth technology of the plane. Europe has almost 800 next-generation fighter jets on order, including the F-35, the Eurofighter Typhoon and the French Rafale.
But the pattern of increases in sales to key Western allies, which comprise eight of the top 10 arms importers, suggests the most important reasons are political.
Other Western arms producers have also benefited. France increased exports by almost half to overtake Russia and take second place, and Italy almost doubled them.
Fighter jets have increased France's order book, with Dassault going from selling 23 4.5th generation Rafale jets in the 2013-2018 period to 94 in the last five years. It currently has 193 orders.
In fact, Europe, including the United Kingdom and Switzerland, exported 31 percent of the world's weapons in 2019-23.
South Korea has also become a major exporter, signing major deals with Poland for tanks, artillery, aircraft and artillery rockets.
China, on the other hand, sold 5.8 percent; 60 percent of its exports went to Pakistan and most of the rest to Bangladesh and Thailand.
Russia, once the United States' greatest rival in arms sales, has halved its exports to 11 percent of the global share, partly due to the stewardship of its resources to fight Ukraine, but also due to a longer decline before their full-scale invasion.
Russian exports have been falling in part because China, a major customer since the 1990s, has been increasingly manufacturing its own weapons, and India, a long-term buyer of Russian weapons, is beginning to question the technologies and Russia's ability to deliver weapons.
“India seems to be moving away from the Russian teams,” Wezeman said. “There have been some orders that have not yet led to deliveries, for example, the nuclear-powered submarine that Russia will deliver this year or next, some frigates, some aircraft.”
“We also see what appears to be disappointment on the part of India in the technical level of the Russian equipment they have acquired and therefore a shift towards other suppliers such as France and Israel in the last 20 years, and the United States.”
A hopeful sign for Europe
It is a hopeful sign, experts say, that Europe has begun to revive the forges of its own defense industry, giving it greater capacity to supply Ukraine, especially given the delays in American military aid.
“It's very clear that Europe is making a huge effort to increase its production of ammunition and a whole range of other products,” Wezeman said. “It turns out that there is capacity, but of course it is dispersed throughout Europe. Much of this has been stopped. There is experience, there are idle production lines,” he stated.
“Only when things get really bad do people mobilize,” Suzanne Raine, a former British diplomat and professor at the Center for Geopolitics at the University of Cambridge, told Al Jazeera.
“There was a moment at the beginning when Russia invaded and it looked terrible and there was an immediate response,” he said, referring to the first avalanche of weapons promises for Ukraine in early 2022.
He believed that Ukrainian success was misunderstood in the West.
“That moment when it became clear that Ukraine was going to be able to contain the Russians was a dangerous turning point, because it allowed for the first hint of complacency,” he said.
Last May, French President Emmanuel Macron called for greater European defense autonomy. Not everyone agrees with this approach to the debate.
“Defense industrial associations that protect European nations and support Ukraine cross European borders,” Cambridge University historian Hugo Bromley told Al Jazeera.
“Ultimately, the goal should be less 'European autonomy' and more national and international capacity building among friends and allies.
“We must not let the pursuit of 'European autonomy' stand in the way of providing the best possible support,” he said.
