{"id":52060,"date":"2025-03-13T07:20:36","date_gmt":"2025-03-13T15:20:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=52060"},"modified":"2025-03-14T02:01:22","modified_gmt":"2025-03-14T10:01:22","slug":"were-1-in-selling-weapons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/13\/were-1-in-selling-weapons\/","title":{"rendered":"We’re #1 in Selling Weapons!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views<\/a> with the author\u2019s permission.<\/i><\/p>\n

We\u2019re #1 (once again) in selling weapons! Amazingly, the USA now accounts for 43% of the world\u2019s trade in deadly weaponry. No country beats more plowshares into swords and pruning hooks into spears than America, which is also, obviously, the most Christian nation in the world.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a look at a useful chart<\/a> from Stephen Semler (be sure to check out his blog<\/a> on Substack):<\/p>\n

Finding #1: The US is the world\u2019s largest arms dealer<\/strong><\/p>\n

The US accounts for 43% of global arms exports, more than the next seven largest arms-exporting countries combined. All the countries outside the top eight account for less than 17% of the worldwide total.<\/p>\n

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^Alt text for screen readers: The U.S. exports more weapons than the next 7 largest arms exporters combined. This graph has two columns, one showing the U.S.\u2019s 43% share of global arms transfers, and the other showing the combined share of France, Russia, China, Germany, Italy, U.K., and Israel, totaling 40.4%.<\/em><\/p>\n

For another perspective on America\u2019s record-breaking year of selling deadly weaponry, check out this column<\/a> by Lenny Broytman.<\/p>\n

Way back in 2012, I wrote a column for TomDispatch<\/a>: \u201cWeapons \u2018r\u2019 us,\u201d in which I examined America\u2019s dominance of the weapons trade. Here\u2019s what I wrote back then:<\/p>\n

Yes, we\u2019re the world\u2019s foremost \u201cmerchants of death,\u201d the title of a best-selling expos\u00e9 of the international arms trade published to acclaim in the U.S. in 1934. Back then, most Americans saw themselves as war-avoiders rather than as war-profiteers. The evil war-profiteers were mainly European arms makers like Germany\u2019s Krupp, France\u2019s Schneider, or Britain\u2019s Vickers.<\/em><\/p>\n

Not that America didn\u2019t have its own arms merchants. As the authors of Merchants of Death noted, early on our country demonstrated a \u201cYankee propensity for extracting novel death-dealing knickknacks from [our] peddler\u2019s pack.\u201d Amazingly, the Nye Committee in the U.S. Senate<\/a><\/strong> devoted 93 hearings from 1934 to 1936 to exposing America\u2019s own \u201cgreedy munitions interests.\u201d Even in those desperate depression days, a desire for profit and jobs was balanced by a strong sense of unease at this deadly trade, an unease reinforced by the horrors of and hecatombs of dead<\/a><\/strong> from the First World War.<\/em><\/p>\n

We are uneasy no more. Today we take great pride (or at least have no shame) in being by far the world\u2019s number one arms-exporting nation. A few statistics bear this out. From 2006 to 2010, the U.S. accounted for nearly one-third<\/a><\/strong> of the world\u2019s arms exports, easily surpassing a resurgent Russia in the \u201cLords of War\u201d race. Despite a decline in global arms sales in 2010 due to recessionary pressures, the U.S. increased its market share, accounting for a whopping 53%<\/a><\/strong> of the trade that year. Last year saw the U.S. on pace to deliver more than $46 billion<\/a><\/strong> in foreign arms sales. Who says America isn\u2019t number one anymore?<\/em><\/p>\n

Who, indeed? And we remain, of course, our own best customers, as this year\u2019s Pentagon budget soars to $900 billion, even as the Trump administration argues for \u201cpeace through strength<\/a>,\u201d or, put bluntly, peace through superior firepower.<\/p>\n

Only in America is Jesus heavily armed and packing heat. Truly exceptional!<\/p>\n

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Obviously, American Jesus preached peace through strength<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

William J. Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), professor of history, and a senior fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network (EMN), an organization of critical veteran military and national security professionals. His personal substack is Bracing Views<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author\u2019s permission. We\u2019re #1 (once again) in selling weapons! Amazingly, the USA now accounts for 43% of the world\u2019s trade in deadly weaponry. No country beats more plowshares into swords and pruning hooks into spears than America, which is also, obviously, the most Christian nation in the world. Let\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[758],"class_list":["post-52060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":"American Exceptionalism Defined"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52060"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52067,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52060\/revisions\/52067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52060"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=52060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}