World's Top Arms Exporters Visualized • Hacker News Board

Re: World's Top Arms Exporters Visualized

#51

Post by trhway » Sat, Feb 21, 2015, 9:59 AM UTC

icegreentea wrote: post #9

aint wrote: post #3

Interesting that Ukraine has higher arms export numbers than Sweden, Netherlands and Spain. I never knew Ukraine was an arms exporter at all.

The USSR based a LOT of stuff in the Ukraine, both in terms of operational units, and supporting industry. Most of which was inherited by Ukraine when the USSR was dissolved. While many of the operational units were also dissolved, or traded back to Russia (for example, some Tu-160 strategic bombers), arms export is a pretty sweet way (relatively) for a new country to get some nice cashflow. Wiki says that Ukraine re…

>arms export is a pretty sweet way (relatively) for a new country to get some nice cashflow.

Ukraine was delivering relatively modern tanks - T-84 - to Thailand about the time when they outlawed Russian language while its army still had the old T-64. Historic lesson - putting your army on modern tanks should be the first step while outlawing a language of a major minority - second - and not otherwise :)

Re: World's Top Arms Exporters Visualized

#52

Post by throwaway765 » Sat, Feb 21, 2015, 10:59 AM UTC

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.

The data is actually sales not exports, the US also exports a significant amount under military aid which doesn't seem to be included here.

For example (and not to make a political point), the graph lists exports to Israel as $35m, but military aid was $2.8b in 2010

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/spc/multimedia/military-spending...

Re: World's Top Arms Exporters Visualized

#53

Post by hurin » Sat, Feb 21, 2015, 11:22 AM UTC

trhway wrote: post #46

throwaway344 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

>democratically elected government of Mr. Poroshenko interesting how democratically elected Poroshenko is ok while democratically voted separation of Crimea isn't. Democracy is supposed to be a principle not a substitute for the "i like the outcome" label :)

The U.S. by some accounts set a bad international precedent with Kosovo. Crimea is not objectively any different from the former.

Even the civil war in Ukraine, which is absolutely criminal has international precedent (vis a vis Syria).

Re: World's Top Arms Exporters Visualized

#54

Post by EliRivers » Sat, Feb 21, 2015, 11:41 AM UTC

fit2rule wrote: post #42

bottled_poe wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of my arms are made in Russia or USA, if that means anything. As an Australian, I found this statement difficult to parse. The idea of owning a gun is so foreign to me, let alone multiple.

As an Australian, I remember when guns were not something to be feared, but rather used if you need to .. my grandmothers 410 was used to dispatch snakes (dangerous) and rabbits (vermin) on a regular basis, and I remember fondly the bush trips with my uncles and cousins to eradicate invasive swine in the region. Fortunately, Australia is yet to be invaded (unless you count our own ancestors heinous actions against th…

Many nations in which guns are commonplace amongst the citizenry have been invaded, many times. The armies fought, the occupation happened, the vast majority of citizens did not pick up whatever weapon they had to hand to fight the invading army. The prevalence of weaponry amongst the citizenry of the countries involved has no bearing that I can see.

Re: World's Top Arms Exporters Visualized

#55

Post by InInteraction » Sat, Feb 21, 2015, 1:07 PM UTC

Hi my name is Natalia, and I'm the creator of this visualization. I want to thank the person who posted it here, and everyone for the discussion. I'd love to hear topics/ideas you are interested in for the future visualizations.

Re: World's Top Arms Exporters Visualized

#56

Post by blumkvist » Sat, Feb 21, 2015, 1:31 PM UTC

InInteraction wrote: post #55

Hi my name is Natalia, and I'm the creator of this visualization. I want to thank the person who posted it here, and everyone for the discussion. I'd love to hear topics/ideas you are interested in for the future visualizations.

Hi Natalia. Where did you get the data? Bulgaria's export shows 6m, but a quick google search shows 300m euros for 2014, up from 260 in 2011.

Re: World's Top Arms Exporters Visualized

#57

Post by joshuapants » Sat, Feb 21, 2015, 1:41 PM UTC

curiouslurker wrote: post #26

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 wonder how much of this is AK-47s. It is arguably the most successful arm.

Well they haven't made -47s since 1959 so probably 0.

Re: World's Top Arms Exporters Visualized

#58

Post by InInteraction » Sat, Feb 21, 2015, 1:43 PM UTC

blumkvist wrote: post #56

InInteraction wrote: post #55

Hi my name is Natalia, and I'm the creator of this visualization. I want to thank the person who posted it here, and everyone for the discussion. I'd love to hear topics/ideas you are interested in for the future visualizations.

Hi Natalia. Where did you get the data? Bulgaria's export shows 6m, but a quick google search shows 300m euros for 2014, up from 260 in 2011.

Data source is SIPRI Arms Transfers Database http://www.sipri.org/databases/armstransfers (the link for the data source is always given below all data visualizations). The latest data available is for the year 2013.

Accoutring to SIPRI exports from Bulgaria in 2013 was US$ 6M, you can check it here http://armstrade.sipri.org/armstrade/page/values.php.

Please keep in mind that figures are expressed in US$ m. at constant (1990) prices.

Re: World's Top Arms Exporters Visualized

#59

Post by guard-of-terra » Sat, Feb 21, 2015, 2:06 PM UTC

hurin wrote: post #30

No surprise with Russia topping the list. Since 1990 the country's entire economic output has been exploiting what's left of soviet infrastructure and selling natural resources.

Any countries with totally new economies in the last 25 years?

China comes to mind, along with other east asia. But it's natural to exploit what you've already got.

And most of Russia's non-military industries turned out not competitive.

Re: World's Top Arms Exporters Visualized

#60

Post by hurin » Sat, Feb 21, 2015, 2:16 PM UTC

guard-of-terra wrote: post #59

hurin wrote: post #30

No surprise with Russia topping the list. Since 1990 the country's entire economic output has been exploiting what's left of soviet infrastructure and selling natural resources.

Any countries with totally new economies in the last 25 years? China comes to mind, along with other east asia. But it's natural to exploit what you've already got. And most of Russia's non-military industries turned out not competitive.

Well non-competitive isn't quite correct. Certain industries indeed were non-competitive (i.e. automotive, which btw boomed domestically post 1990), but as a whole they were torn apart by privatization and corruption.

One reason being that the way these business and industries transferred into private holdings was always somewhat dubious (and hence the very real risk of losing these holdings with the next change in political winds e.g. Khodorkovsky). Anyone that got their hands on a piece of the soviet-pie tried to get as much out of it putting as little as possible into it.