We should probably debate this more as a society.
>The United States again ranked first in global weapons sales last year, signing deals for about $40 billion, or half of all agreements in the worldwide arms bazaar, and far ahead of France, the No. 2 weapons dealer with $15 billion in sales, according to a new congressional study.
Developing nations continued to be the largest buyers of arms in 2015, with Qatar signing deals for more than $17 billion in weapons last year, followed by Egypt, which agreed to buy almost $12 billion in arms, and Saudi Arabia, with over $8 billion in weapons purchases.
Although global tensions and terrorist threats have shown few signs of diminishing, the total size of the global arms trade dropped to around $80 billion in 2015 from the 2014 total of $89 billion, the study found. Developing nations bought $65 billion in weapons in 2015, substantially lower than the previous year’s total of $79 billion.
The United States and France increased their overseas weapons sales in 2015, as purchases of American weapons grew by around $4 billion and France’s deals increased by well over $9 billion.
I know that some of these weapons help provide stability and peace, but I have a very hard time believing that the net effect of pumping $40 billion worth of weapons into the world in a single year can possibly be to reduce the level of global violence and or avoid increasing the lethality of conflict.
I also know that you can’t erase $40 billion of economic activity and foreign exports without it having a negative effect on the national economy.
I don’t know what the correct balance is, but what I really don’t like is the sense I have that we’re economically dependent on the maintenance a huge market for our arms manufacturers.
But, then I’m just an aging Deadhead, so what do I know?
Small arms are the WORST! If we were selling bazillion dollar F35s that don’t work it would be a much better thing.
It’s cool how YouTube can transport me back 30 years to a 16 year old kid sitting in the Spectrum, flying on post-wisdom tooth codeine, hallucinogens, beer and gangja, sitting with boyhood friends as the roof was torn off and the band left early because there was nothing left to possibly prove that night.
Middle night of a three night run, and the best overall show. Recording here is tinny and yet gives a feel for what it was like to have that feedback pierce through the pillars of the Spectrum into your brain as it was torn from your skull like weak bark.
Of course, the Dew from my first show was even greater and more mind-bending.
Here’s a version with the exact stub I still have. It has the whole second half of the second set, which included some read oddities, like a Playing’ In the Band reprise that was actually reprising the song from the night before, followed by an Uncle John’s Band reprise from earlier in the second set. But, first, you get some Space.
I still think 10/12/1984 was the best played show of the 80’s. It’s better than anything else I’ve heard, from beginning to end.
Thanks for these, Martin. Listening to them as I do stuff.
Foreign sales appear to be a fraction of USG purchases. Public disclosure of DOD 2016 budget. Base budget $107.7 billion for procurement and $69.8 billion for R&D. Is that R&D USG subsidies to weapons manufacturers to build better weapons that will later be more desirable in the global weapons market?
Cognitive dissonance – noun – “I know that some of these weapons help provide stability and peace”
What next? More guns make you safer?
“An armed society is a polite society.”
well, on the bright (?) side, it probably won’t be the weapons that kill us, but starvation and drought after global warming advances enough.
Actually, you’re right: even then it will probably be nukes, but more the power plants than anything else. As the majority of us are wiped out by starvation, drought, and loss of inhabitable land, we will doubtless come to a point where there are no longer any people capable of running the nuclear plans. Those things will pop off like 4th of July eventually…
The value of weapons sales can be misleading, especially foreign sales. Defense expenditures on armaments and equipment (including planes, ships, missiles, etc.) is amongst the most capital and resource intensive (energy and materials) of any economic endeavor. They have relatively high capital-output ratios, which means the marginal productivity of capital is rather low. Though all defense spending, including labor and infrastructure amounts to only 3% of GDP, the work is spread out among many states for strictly political reasons also adding to production inefficiency in a very Soviet-like way, actually. Krugman calls this weaponized Keynesianism. So modern military grade weapons tend to be insanely expensive. hence, while $40 billion is an enormous sum, it would be more useful to know what is being sold and to whom than to focus just on the $ sale amount.