Arms sales record

as firms duck controls with 'flat-pack' weapons http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1886021,00.html

Worldwide spending on weapons is expected to reach record levels this year at a time when the arms industry is increasingly able to avoid export controls, human rights and aid agencies say in a report published yesterday.

By the end of the year, military spending is estimated to reach $1,058bn (£561bn), about 15 times the amount spent on international aid, say Amnesty, Oxfam, and the International Action Network on Small Arms (Iansa).

Arms sales record as firms duck controls with 'flat-pack' weapons

· Spending to surpass cold war heights, says report
· Shipping components avoid embargoes and bans

Richard Norton-Taylor
Tuesday October 3, 2006
The Guardian


The figure is higher than the cold war record reached in 1987-88 of $1,034bn in today's prices, they claim, adding that last year the US, Russia, Britain, France and Germany accounted for an estimated 82% of all arms transfers.
Other countries are emerging as major exporters. Brazil, India, Israel, Singapore, South Africa, and South Korea have arms firms in the top 100, Amnesty says.

Tough to hold a good arms merchant down.

Not to make any predictions of disaster, but worth saying.

I am reading Tuchman's "Proud Tower" at the moment, and the correspondence of rhetoric politics is eerie.