Does anyone ever wonder, can the World really be a better place with all these weapons running around?
What World peace is the Americans trying to preach? With hypocrisy and deceive.
(AFP) - The United States expanded its role as the world's leading weapons supplier, increasing its share to more than two-thirds of all foreign armaments deals, The New York Times reported.
Citing a new congressional study, the newspaper said the United States signed weapons agreements valued at 37.8 billion dollars last year, or 68.4 percent of all business in the global arms bazaar.
The figure marked a significant increase from US arms sales of 25.4 billion dollars the year before, the paper noted.
Italy was a distant second, with 3.7 billion dollars in worldwide weapons sales in 2008, while Russia was third with 3.5 billion dollars in arms sales last year -- down considerably from the 10.8 billion in weapons deals signed by Moscow in 2007, the report pointed out.
The growth in weapons sales by the United States last year was particularly noticeable against worldwide trends, The Times said.
The value of global arms sales in 2008 was 55.2 billion dollars, a drop of 7.6 percent from 2007 and the lowest total for international weapons agreements since 2005, according to the report.
The increase in American weapons sales around the world "was attributable not only to major new orders from clients in the Near East and in Asia, but also to the continuation of significant equipment and support services contracts with a broad-based number of US clients globally," the paper quotes the study produced by the Congressional Research Service.
maybe they input a program into all the weapons that they sell, one fine day, they just need to push a device n all the weapons they sold become worthless scraps. hahaha
they still developing
nanotech warheads
Don't only blame the Americans. The Russians, Chinese and EURO countries did play a part in sales of these weapons too, especially to the third world countries.
ahtansh,
What is the "World peace is the Americans trying to preach" anyway ???
"World peace is the Americans trying to preach"
It depends on how you view human nature.
If you view human nature as brutish, selfish, and ever greedy for more and more, then the so called "American" world peace is merely one based on the institution of deterrence. The more people are afraid to hit each other because of retaliation, the less likely that that would happen.
The world isn't governed by a World government of any sorts. Its essentially an anarchy when it comes to state to state relations where they have little assurances on security. That encourages most states to work to a minimal level of deterrence.
Open your eyes wide wide......
Reporting from Bogota, Colombia — France signed multi-billion-dollar arms deals Tuesday to sell Brazil 50 military helicopters and five submarines, including one nuclear-powered vessel.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy joined his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, at a news conference at a hotel fronting Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana beach to announce the deals, whose value could exceed $11 billion
Sunday 06 September 2009
Analysts say France's offer to give Brazil the technology behind the multi-role combat aircraft as part of the sale of 36 planes could give it the edge over rival bids from the United States and Sweden.
If France's Dassault does sell its Rafales to Brazil, it would be the first time the jets have been sold abroad.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told AFP in an exclusive interview ahead of Sarkozy's two-day visit that the technology transfer offer gave the Rafale "an exceptional comparative advantage" over Boeing's F/A-18 Super Hornet and Saab's Gripen NG fighters.
While cautioning that Brazil's decision process still had to be approved by air force commanders and lawmakers, he praised France as "the only important country ready to discuss transfer of technology in all areas with us."
He stressed that "a country the size of Brazil can't buy a product from another country without technology transfer."
Clearly , everyone in his right mind wants World Peace. But World Peace also comes in different brands depending on who is promoting it.
In reality, peace in many cases exist only because of " deterrence ". And to be able to deter, a nation needs not only to be armed , but also be willing to fight.
History is littered with examples of nations wanting to appease belligerents but end up being conquered because they had neither the means nor will to defend themselves from their foes.
I remember a particular line from one movie.
"Peace means having a bigger stake than the other guy"
The main peacekeeping force should have more firepower than the bad guys.
Arms race is a case of injecting fear and doubts into our enemy's mind. There will never be a "Stagnant" scenario in military advancements because we are in a "healthy competition".