US economy’s heavy dependence on arms sales should worry the world

US president Franklin D. Roosevelt, at the end of 1940 in one of his famous “fireside chats”, first coined the idea of the US as the “arsenal of democracy”. Congress might have been unwilling to directly join the war in Europe but it could certainly be persuaded to sell the military equipment its allies needed.

Since then, the United States has not only retained its formidable military dominance but also eagerly exports its arms, as a source of valuable export earnings and means of subsidising the momentous cost of maintaining global military dominance. Today, the US accounts for 43 per cent of all arms exports, supplying at least 107 countries. A large arsenal? Certainly. All to democracies? No.

Put aside the fact that these deals were mostly non-binding memorandums of understanding or had been previously announced – the gigantic sums involved were indisputably at the heart of a very substantial defence and arms sales relationship.