World's Top Arms Exporters Visualized • Hacker News Board

Re: World's Top Arms Exporters Visualized

#31

Post by Mikeb85 » Sat, Feb 21, 2015, 5:55 AM UTC

throwaway344 wrote: post #21

myth_drannon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one of the reasons for the civil war in Ukraine, an attempt(successful) to dismantle the left-over military industrial complex in Eastern Ukraine that was inherited from Soviet Union (competes with US's military industrial complex). They didn't want to do it peacefully(The EU-Ukraine association pact required shutting down these factories) , Yanukovich refused(his support base came from the East) now all of it…

In what world is the democratically elected government of Mr. Poroshenko, a "US-installed junta"?

Democratic? When they barred the Party of Regions from participating and didn't let the east vote?

Re: World's Top Arms Exporters Visualized

#32

Post by geoka9 » Sat, Feb 21, 2015, 6:05 AM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #31

throwaway344 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what world is the democratically elected government of Mr. Poroshenko, a "US-installed junta"?

Democratic? When they barred the Party of Regions from participating and didn't let the east vote?

The Party of Regions basically rebranded itself as "Opposition Block" and got 29 seats in the Parliament.

All of the country voted (including the Eastern regions). A smaller part of the Donbass region couldn't vote because the insurgents didn't let the Ukrainian polling stations to operate.

Re: World's Top Arms Exporters Visualized

#33

Post by beachstartup » Sat, Feb 21, 2015, 6:06 AM UTC

desdiv wrote: post #10

brandonmenc wrote: post #2

Germany's largest importer is Israel. What an interesting world.

...Protecting Israel's security is "part of my country's raison d'être," Merkel said in a March 2008 speech to the Israeli Knesset. "For me as German chancellor," she continued, "Israel's security will never be open to negotiation." Partly as a result, Israel gets nuclear-capable submarines from the Germans, as well as any other weapons it wants. This time the Israelis wanted more modern launchers for rocket-propelle…

new century, new alliances, new enemies.

Re: World's Top Arms Exporters Visualized

#34

Post by Xixi » Sat, Feb 21, 2015, 6:07 AM UTC

brandonmenc wrote: post #2

Germany's largest importer is Israel. What an interesting world.

It's not necessarily surprising as Germany gives huge discounts on these equipments to Israel. I don't have figures for all deals, but it seems usual for German taxpayers to pay for about a third of the costs.

Example:

> In 2006, the deal for 2 Dolphin AIP boats was finalized at a total of $1.27 billion, with the German government picking up 1/3 of the cost.

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/germany-may-sell-2-more-...

Re: World's Top Arms Exporters Visualized

#35

Post by geoka9 » Sat, Feb 21, 2015, 6:11 AM UTC

myth_drannon wrote: post #23

throwaway344 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what world is the democratically elected government of Mr. Poroshenko, a "US-installed junta"?

when one third of the country is under constant bombardment (by both sides) and not allowed to vote, the other third are refugees living in neighbouring countries, what you sadly have is not an election but a farce.

One third of the country? Please get your facts straight. It's not even one third of the Donbass region that's affected by the hostilities, and Donbass is only 2 of the 24 regions ("oblasts") of Ukraine.

Re: World's Top Arms Exporters Visualized

#36

Post by remarkEon » Sat, Feb 21, 2015, 7:06 AM UTC

I think showing the types of arms exported by country would be considerably more meaningful. I'd be interested to know if the reason the dollar amounts for certain countries is so high is that they're selling very expensive defense systems and not just a high volume of small arms. And from the source data, it looks like the value is expressed in constant 1990 dollars.

Re: World's Top Arms Exporters Visualized

#37

Post by jdfellow » Sat, Feb 21, 2015, 7:08 AM UTC

With as popular as Glock is, you'd think Austria would be bigger than a basically insignificant sliver.

I suppose if it was scaled by units sold instead of dollar values that may swing it towards inexpensive small arms like Glock pistols. Actually, that may be why USA and Russia are so enormous as exporters: they make expensive heavy arms like tanks, artillery, warplanes, ships, machine guns, bombs, while lots of places "gun guys" (which I sort of am) would think may show up (like Austria) won't because they only make relatively cheap small arms.

All of my arms are made in Russia or USA, if that means anything.

EDIT: Some other commenters have mentioned the stats don't include firearms and crew-served machine guns. Again, it's all the big stuff.

Re: World's Top Arms Exporters Visualized

#38

Post by cbd1984 » Sat, Feb 21, 2015, 7:10 AM UTC

throwaway344 wrote: post #21

myth_drannon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one of the reasons for the civil war in Ukraine, an attempt(successful) to dismantle the left-over military industrial complex in Eastern Ukraine that was inherited from Soviet Union (competes with US's military industrial complex). They didn't want to do it peacefully(The EU-Ukraine association pact required shutting down these factories) , Yanukovich refused(his support base came from the East) now all of it…

In what world is the democratically elected government of Mr. Poroshenko, a "US-installed junta"?

Probably because just coming right out and claiming it's a "Zionist plot" doesn't fly very well around here.

/s

Re: World's Top Arms Exporters Visualized

#39

Post by xnull6guest » Sat, Feb 21, 2015, 7:20 AM UTC

throwaway344 wrote: post #21

myth_drannon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one of the reasons for the civil war in Ukraine, an attempt(successful) to dismantle the left-over military industrial complex in Eastern Ukraine that was inherited from Soviet Union (competes with US's military industrial complex). They didn't want to do it peacefully(The EU-Ukraine association pact required shutting down these factories) , Yanukovich refused(his support base came from the East) now all of it…

In what world is the democratically elected government of Mr. Poroshenko, a "US-installed junta"?

In the world where the February 21st deal to keep Yanukovych in power until end of term [1] was reneged on with support by Voice of America and funding and training to Euromaiden groups from the West, prior US knowledge of the ouster and discussions about a suitable replacement [2], and a world where US policy makers suggest covert arming of the Ukraine [3]. It's also important to keep the broader context - that the nine former Warsaw Pact nations have in the past decade joined the EU of NATO and that the very aggressive terms and a near NATO deal with the Ukraine caused the original crisis that led up to the Feb deal. That the West and US armed other conflicts in the region (Moldova and Georgia). That US anti-ballistic missile battery systems have been installed along the Baltic that denies Russia it's anti-nuclear interception capabilities and directly violates Cold War treaties. Russia, too, plays dirty. But we can't pretend the West doesn't.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/21/agreement-on-th...

[2] http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/20/a_new_cold_war_ukraine... (25:00)

[3] http://csis.org/files/publication/150129_Mankoff_RussiaUkrai...

Re: World's Top Arms Exporters Visualized

#40

Post by eldr » Sat, Feb 21, 2015, 7:31 AM UTC

powertower wrote: post #24

jostmey wrote: post #18

Wow. I always knew the US exported arms, so I kind of expected that we were the worst offenders. But whoa! Look at Russia. The country must be depending on weapon exports to keep their economy going, which is simply not diversified enough to weather through the down times.

I don't think those values can be interpreted like that. They are some type of "trend indicator values" that "do not represent real financial flows but are a crude instrument to estimate volumes of arms transfers, regardless of the contracted prices, which can be as low as zero in the case of military aid". I'm pretty sure the US exports for sale dollar amounts much much more than anyone else does. There is also the…

I agree with you, I don't think this graphic (or at least the underlying data) is very useful as an indicator of international military relationships. Of course it doesn't claim to be either.

As a single example, I recently decided that I don't know enough about US-Israel relations and started reading more on the topic. A report[1] I found linked from Wikipedia states that the US has provided Israel with $121 billion dollars (non-inflation-adjusted) since WWII, almost all of it military aid. The graphic shows $35 million in exports to Israel for 2013, the report lists $2.9 billion dollars in military aid in 2013.

If those figures didn't make it onto the graphic, there are probably many others which also don't.

[1] http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf