The 1990s global peace offensive counts the international weapons bazaar as a prized casualty. Armed with an array of facts and figures, authoritative weapons-monitoring agencies from Washington to Stockholm are unanimous in diagnosing the defense market as experiencing its worst crisis in modern times. But these new world order enthusiasts have prematurely bid farewell to arms. Statistically, the case for an arms trade decline is compelling. Worldwide, military expenditure in 1992 depreciated by 15 percent. The value of foreign deliveries of major conventional weapons fell to about $22 billion, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)--a 40 percent drop in only five years from the 1987 peak of $40 billion. A July report by the U.S. Congressional Research Service graphically charts a steady post-Cold War reduction in weapons agreements and deliveries to the Third World, only momentarily arrested by the Persian Gulf conflict. This overall arms recession is mirrored in each of more than 50 countries that allowed national security, economic growth, and foreign policy throughout the 1970s and '80s to become inordinately dependent upon overseas military transfers. Leading weapons importers can no longer afford lavish purchases of military hardware; India, for example, has cut back its arms buys by more than half, from $5.4 billion in 1987 to $2 billion in 1991.
On the supplier side, Russia's plight is indicative: Its Third World sales plummeted from a 1988 high of $28.8 billion to $5.9 billion in 1991 and a mere $1.3 billion in 1992. Other ranking exporters like France, China, former Czechoslovakia, and Brazil are similarly unable to preserve their respective market shares, traditional clients, or annual sales revenue.
At the domestic and corporate levels, the signposts of industrial crisis are regularly reported by the world press: employee layoffs, project cancellations, huge cost overruns; shrinking research and development funds, earnings, and profit margins. Instances of outright factory closures are increasing, while surviving defense firms desperately adopt recovery programs that feature a mix of belt-tightening, product specialization, and a hurried shift to nonmilitary civilian goods.
IT'S IN THE NUMBERS
Despite first impressions, the data is one-sided and incomplete, and it ignores the difference between an arms market in transition--undergoing a period of serious contraction and extensive restructuring--and one on the verge of collapse. In an international arms trade known for secrecy, the numbers game is far from an exact science and can prove terribly misleading. Even the most reputable figures are at best rough estimates; and
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