From: mtaghavi@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Amir Taghavi)
Subject: U.S. led in 1991 Thirld World arms sales
Summary: "They think of themselves as the World Peace Maker" 
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 18:56:43 GMT

 
	WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The United States led the world in arms sales to
the developing nations for the second straight year in 1991r, but that
arms market was rapidly shinking because of changes in global power
relationships, a report for Congress concludes.
	``The major political transitions wrought by the end of the Cold War
continued in 1991, accelerating the changes under way in 1990 which have
had a significant impact on the Third World arms marketplace,'' writes
Richard Grimmett, a national defense specialist for the Library of
Congress and an expert on global arms sales.
	``The dramatic political and economic evolution in the Soviet Union
contributed to a substantial decline in its arms transfer agreements
with the Third World in 1991,'' he said. ``The United States, meanwhile,
remained the leader.''
	Total arms sales to the developing nations last year amounted to $24.
7 billion, down almost 40 percent from 41.1 billion in 1990 and the
lowest in seven years. The U.S. share in last year's total was $14.2
billion, down from $19.1 billion in 1990, but enough for a commanding
57.4 percent of the shrunken Third World arms market.
	In contrast, the Soviet Union, which went out of business as a
country just weeks before the end of the year, saw its arms sales to
developing nations shrink from $11.8 billion in 1990 to $5 billion in
1991, a reduction of almost 60 percent. While Moscow ramained the No. 2
supplier, its share in the total of such sales dropped from 27.2 percent
to 20.3 percent in the same period.
	This resulted largely from the Soviet decision to stop cut-rate arms
deals for such states as Vietnam, Cuba, Syria and India in favor of hard
currency sales to nations like oil-rich Iran, which are capable of
paying in badly-needed foreign exchange.
	It is a policy that the new Russian government of President Boris
Yeltsin has proposed to continue, causing concern abroad over its effect
on regional power balances.
	Grimmett's annual report to Congress, which he has been producing for
more than a decade, is as well known for its rigorous methodology as for
its role as a benchmark of the global power pecking order.
	Its author defines ``Third World'' countries as all those except the
United States, the Soviet Union, those composing Europe, Canada, Japan,
Australia and New Zealand. This places Israel, whose military techology
is very advanced, among the developing states, but Grimmett said it is
logical in view of its Middle Eastern military context.
	Grimmett gets his unclassified data from the U.S. Defense Department
and intelligence agencies. He refines his figures each year, so that all
those for the entire seven-year period covered are restated in the
after-inflation dollar value prevaling in the final year, in this case
1991.
	``Comparisons of data in earlier editions with those in the most
recent edition,'' he warns, ``can result in significant computational
errors.''
	Among the more striking turn-abouts which Grimmett found is between
Iran and Iraq, both of which frantically bought arms from their
suppliers during their long war throughout most of the 1980s.
	From 1984 through 1987, Iraq bought $15.4 billion worth of arms from
the Soviet Union, 57 percent of its total arms imports during that
period. Iraq was a favored Soviet client because it could pay for arms
with oil money.
	From 1988 through 1991, however, Iraq bought only $3.1 billion in
arms from all its suppliers combined, a result both of the end of its
war against Iran and of the United Nations trade embargo imposed after
the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. In 1991, Iraq, which had consistently been
third among the world's leading arms importers, dropped off the list of
the top 10.
	With Soviet sales to Iraq cut off because of the U.N. embargo, Moscow
started selling weaponry to Baghdad's enemy, Iran.
	From 1988 through 1991, the Soviets, who did not even register as a
significant Iranian arms supplier in the previous four years, became
that nation's principal source of arms, writing $4.8 billion in sales
for almost 50 percent of Teheran's total. Among its acquisitions from
Moscow were advanced aircraft, tanks and even submarines. Last year,
Iran was the world's fourth leading arms importer.
	First in that category consistently and by a considerable margin is
Saudi Arabia, which concluded $7.8 billion in total arms sales last year
alone, or 31.6 percent of all those made to the developing world. The
Saudis also accounted for $5.6 billion of U.S. arms sales last year,
nearly 40 percent of the total.
	Other leading U.S. clients among the developing nations last year
were South Korea with 2.9 billion in arms purchases and Egypt with $2.3
billion. Those same two nations were respectively second and third among
the developing world's leading arms importers in 1991. In fifth place
was Afghanistan.
	Ranking behind the United States and Soviet Union as leading arms
sellers to the developing nations last year were Britain, Czechoslovakia
in fourth, and Germany fifth.
	China, which had become an important Third World supplier in the
1980s fell to a distant eighth in 1991.
	``China's arms transfer agreements ... fell sharply in 1991,''
Grimmett says, ``because the Soviet Union displaced China as Iran's
preferred supplier. Iraq, another important Chinese client, was barred
from arms purchases by the U.N. embargo.''
	Other leading arms dealers also felt the pinch as markets in the
developing world contracted last year. All four major European
suppliers, Britain, France, Germany and Italy saw such sales fall.
	``Because these major West European suppliers do not often tie their
arms sales decisions to foreign policy considerations but essentially to
economic ones, they have provided a viable alternative source of arms
for nations to which the United States will not sell for policy reasons,
'' Grimmett said.
	``But in the post-Cold War environment,'' he says, ``individual West
European suppliers may be hard pressed to secure large new Third World
contracts and may choose to reduce or eliminate those product areas in
which they attempt to compete.''
	Likely to continue the squeeze on the arms trade, Grimmett predicts,
are arms control initiatives, general reductions in defense spending
both in the United States and elsewhere, a credit squeeze even among
oil-producing states and pressures by such international economic
organizations as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, which
frequently make reduced military spending a condition of their bail-out
programs.
	``More and more arms suppliers are likely to be pursuing a smaller
and smaller list of buyers with the ability to pay,'' he predicted. ``In
the next few years, economic factors may be more significant than any
arms control regime in restraining the international arms trade.''


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