Economic crisis, but not for war profiteers

ARMSFLOW.org from Jeffrey Warren on Vimeo.

This video says about itself:

ARMSFLOW is a data visualization which displays arms transactions globally between 1950 and 2006. It was created by Jeffrey Warren of Vestal Design with data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Jeffrey Warren, Vestal Design, and ARMSFLOW are not affiliated in any way with SIPRI.

ARMSFLOW includes 14,619 arms transactions (each is a sum of 1 year’s exports) and 228 government entities.

From SIPRI in Sweden:

21 Feb 2011: Top global arms industry increases arms sales despite ongoing recession, says SIPRI

(Stockholm, 21 February 2011) Despite the continuing global economic recession in 2009, the total arms sales of the SIPRI Top 100 of the world’s largest arms-producing companies increased by $14.8 billion from 2008 to reach $401 billion, a real increase of 8 per cent, according to new data on international arms production released today by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

… [T]he SIPRI Top 100 maintained the upward trend in their arms sales, an increase of a total of 59 per cent in real terms since 2002.

Arms sales of the Top 10 arms-producing companies approached $228 billion, which is 56.9 per cent of the SIPRI Top 100 total arms sales in 2009.

‘US government spending on military goods and services is a key factor in arms sales increases for US arms-producing and military services companies and for Western European companies with a foothold in the US arms and military services market,’ states SIPRI arms industry expert Dr Susan Jackson.

Major regional differences

Of the SIPRI Top 100 arms-producing companies, 78 are based in the United States and Western Europe. These companies generated $368 billion in total arms sales, which is 91.7 per cent of the total arms sales of the SIPRI Top 100 arms producers in 2009.

The following describes the breakdown of the SIPRI Top 100 in the USA and Western Europe.

* 45 of the SIPRI Top 100 are based in the USA. These companies generated just under $247 billion in total arms sales, which is 61.5 per cent of the SIPRI Top 100 arms sales.
* 33 of the SIPRI Top 100 are based in nine Western European countries (Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK). These companies generated $120 billion in total arms sales, which is 30 per cent of the SIPRI Top 100 arms sales.
* 26 of the top Western European arms producers are based primarily in four countries: France, Germany, Italy, and the UK.
* Ten of the SIPRI Top 100 are based in Asia (3 in India, 4 in Japan, 1 in Singapore, 2 in South Korea), excluding China, and 5 in the Middle East (3 in Israel, 1 in Kuwait, 1 in Turkey). The SIPRI Top 100 companies in these two regions generated $24 billion in combined arms sales, which is 6 per cent of the SIPRI Top 100 arms sales in 2009.
* None of the companies in the SIPRI Top 100 in 2009 are based in Latin America or Africa.

Also from SIPRI, the Top 10 of their Top 100 of merchants of death; (between brackets) the corporations’ positions on the 2008 list:

1 (2) Lockheed Martin, USA

2 (1) BAE Systems, UK

3 (3) Boeing, USA

4 (4) Northrop Grumman, USA

5 (5) General Dynamics, USA

6 (6) Raytheon, USA

7 (7) EADS, Trans-European

8 (8) Finmeccanica, Italy

9 (9) L-3 Communications, USA

10 (11) United Technologies, USA

The #8 on this list, Finmeccanica, has links to the Berlusconi regime in Italy, and to the regime in Libya, where a bloody suppression of demonstrations is going on now. From Defense News:

Where Italy’s Berlusconi Goes, Finmeccanica Profits

By Tom Kington

Published: 7 December 2009

ROME – Italy’s Finmeccanica is getting a toehold in far-flung foreign markets thanks to the roving, hands-on diplomacy of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, officials in Italy have said.

The industrial giant recently sealed deals in Libya, Kazakhstan and Belarus on the heels of recent Italian diplomatic initiatives in those countries.

In those arms deal contacts with the Libyan regime, Berlusconi may very well have met his old pal Tony Blair, now making lots of money from his links to that regime.

Britain: Tory defence minister Gerald Howarth’s shameful links to the arms trade: here.

Anti-arms trade campaigners today condemned the Tories after it was revealed that they received hundreds of thousands of pounds from the wife of a billionaire arms dealer: here.

“The gift that keeps on giving” should have been the headline on the Pentagon’s decision to award the Boeing Co. a $35 billion defense contract. Defense of the nation, of course, had nothing to do with it: here.