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USA’s empire of weapons sales – world-wide

The recent announcement that the U.S. will supply Saudi Arabia with a staggering $80 billion worth of arms in the next few years is paralleled by its plans to become India’s main arms provider

India: U.S. Completes Global Military Structure,  Scoop News,  10 September 2010,  Rick Rozoff “……..the U.S. is arming India and Pakistan, regional military rivals possessing nuclear weapons outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty regime, as it is deepening defense ties with other nations on both sides of local conflicts and disputes: Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, Greece and Turkey over Cyprus and the skies over the Aegean Sea, Croatia and Slovenia over the Adriatic coast, Serbia and Kosovo over the latter, recognized by almost two-thirds of United Nation member states as a province of the former, and so on…..

By supplying arms to those nations and eliminating traditional rivals for that role, Washington is laying the groundwork for integrating most every country in the world into its military network. Weapons sales are followed by instruction, maintenance, upgrade and field training agreements, with U.S. military personnel assigned to the purchasing nations.

Regional and other multinational air, naval, interceptor missile, armored and ground combat exercises and war games are held to test weapons in live-fire and other maneuvers and to provide the U.S. opportunities for simulated warfare against potential rivals’ equipment, tactics and warfighting doctrine…..This July the Reuters news agency reported that U.S. arms sales abroad could surge from $37.8 billion to $50 billion next year, an increase of almost one-third……
Nations that had never purchased American weaponry before and that only had negligible armed forces now offer lucrative prospects for American arms manufacturers. India is preeminent in the first category.

The weapons manufacturers’ wares are produced for – deadly – use and not for simple display, deterrence and (dubious) prestige.

Weapons sales are promoted through international arms shows and exhibitions, but more so through actual demonstrations. War games suit that purpose, but war itself does it to a greater degree.

The U.S. offered the world large-scale military hardware expositions in the three wars it launched in less than four years: Yugoslavia in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003.

The recent announcement that the U.S. will supply Saudi Arabia with a staggering $80 billion worth of arms in the next few years is paralleled by its plans to become India’s main arms provider…….In July the Raytheon Company announced that India is evaluating the Patriot ground-based anti-ballistic missile system for purchase and deployment and that the U.S. had provided New Delhi with “classified” material on it recently. Sales of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptor missiles to India are reported to be on Barack Obama’s agenda during his November visit.

India: U.S. Completes Global Military Structure | Scoop News

September 10, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear weapons