A $7 bil­lion mis­sile-defense sys­tem for the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates. An esti­mat­ed $15 bil­lion poten­tial sale of Lock­heed Martin’s brand-new fight­er plane to Israel. Bil­lions of dol­lars in weapon­ry for Tai­wan and Turkey. These and oth­er recent deals helped make the Unit­ed States the world’s lead­ing arms-export­ing nation.

In 2007, U.S. for­eign mil­i­tary sales agree­ments totaled more than $32 bil­lion – near­ly triple the amount dur­ing Pres­i­dent Bush’s first full year in office.

The Pen­ta­gon rou­tine­ly jus­ti­fies weapons sales as ​“pro­mot­ing region­al sta­bil­i­ty,” but many of these arms end up in the world’s war zones. In 2006 and 2007, the five biggest recip­i­ents of U.S. weapons were Pak­istan ($3.5 bil­lion), Iraq ($2.2 bil­lion), Israel ($2.2 bil­lion), Afghanistan ($1.9 bil­lion) and Colom­bia ($580 mil­lion) – all coun­tries where con­flict rages.

In Pak­istan, the fight­ing ranges from com­mu­nal vio­lence and state repres­sion, to attacks against India, to dead­ly bat­tles between Pak­istani mil­i­tary and al Qae­da forces in the north­west provinces. Israel has used U.S.-supplied weapons in the West Bank and Gaza, as well as in the 2006 inva­sion of Lebanon. Colom­bia uses U.S. weapon­ry to fight the drug war. Of the 27 major con­flicts dur­ing 2006 and 2007, 19 of them involved U.S‑supplied weapons.

While full data is not yet avail­able for 2008, the Unit­ed States con­tin­ues to flood war­zones with more desta­bi­liz­ing weapons. In 2008, the Pen­ta­gon bro­kered more than $12.5 bil­lion in pos­si­ble for­eign mil­i­tary sales to Iraq, includ­ing guns, ammu­ni­tion, tanks and attack helicopters.

Raed Jar­rar, an Iraqi ana­lyst with Amer­i­can Friends Ser­vice Com­mit­tee, notes the chance that this weapon­ry will pro­mote peace and democ­ra­cy in Iraq is slim.

“The cur­rent Iraqi armed forces are the same forces and mili­tias that have been com­mit­ting eth­nic and sec­tar­i­an cleans­ing dur­ing the last years and they have a vio­lent record full of human rights vio­la­tions, tor­ture and assas­si­na­tions,” says Jarrar.

What’s more, the Unit­ed States can­not suc­cess­ful­ly track its weapons. Hun­dreds of thou­sands of U.S.-supplied pis­tols and auto­mat­ic weapons des­tined for Iraqi secu­ri­ty forces between 2004 and 2005 remain lost, accord­ing to the Gov­ern­ment Account­abil­i­ty Office.

The Pen­ta­gon has ​“no idea where they are,” Rachel Stohl, a senior ana­lyst at the Cen­ter for Defense Infor­ma­tion, a nation­al-secu­ri­ty think tank, told the Wash­ing­ton Post in 2007. ​“It like­ly means that the Unit­ed States is unin­ten­tion­al­ly pro­vid­ing weapons to bad actors.”

U.S. law curbs weapons sales to coun­tries engaged in a ​“gross and con­sis­tent” pat­tern of human rights abus­es or to coun­tries using U.S. weapons for aggres­sive pur­pos­es. But these require­ments are often set aside in favor of short-term objectives.

Michael Klare, direc­tor of the Amherst, Mass.-based Five Col­lege Pro­gram in Peace and World Secu­ri­ty Stud­ies, has fol­lowed the arms trade for decades. He dis­counts offi­cial claims that the deliv­ery of arms can help pro­mote stability.

“The more we help one side, the more that régime’s oppo­nents are dri­ven to seek arms from anoth­er sup­pli­er, lead­ing to an inevitable spi­ral of arms buy­ing, provo­ca­tion and con­flict,” Klare says.

Accord­ing to Stohl, ​“The Bush admin­is­tra­tion has demon­strat­ed a will­ing­ness to pro­vide weapons and mil­i­tary train­ing to weak and fail­ing states and coun­tries that have been repeat­ed­ly crit­i­cized by the U.S. State Depart­ment for human rights vio­la­tions, lack of democ­ra­cy and even sup­port of terrorism.”

The Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion could mark a new era in arms trade. On the cam­paign trail, Oba­ma expressed open­ness to sign­ing the glob­al clus­ter muni­tions ban, but he has yet to speak about a glob­al Arms Trade Treaty – which would estab­lish more rig­or­ous con­di­tions for weapons exports – or about curb­ing weapons sales, in general.

“The arms trade is nev­er a panacea for insta­bil­i­ty,” Klare says. ​“It can only enflame region­al ten­sions and height­en the risk of war.”

2008

Weapons at War: Beyond the Bush Lega­cy