Pentagon Arms Agreements Grow

In its annual accounting of arms deals, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) reported that 92 countries and territories, as well as multilateral organizations, signed up for more than $12.2 billion in Pentagon weapons and construction sales in fiscal year (FY) 1999, which ran from October 1, 1998, to September 30, 1999. This total marks the highest value of concluded deals since FY 1994. In FY 1998, total agreement values equaled more than $8.5 billion.

Israel topped all arms buyers with $2.3 billion in FY 1999 agreements from the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program, which is the channel for U.S. government-to-government weapon sales. Egypt ranked second with $1.9 billion, and Saudi Arabia, which led all customers with more than $2.1 billion in agreements during the previous fiscal year, placed a distant third with $1.3 billion in new deals. Nearly $600 million in classified weapons deals were concluded with unknown recipients.

Accounting for half the total, countries in North Africa and the Middle East signed more than $6.1 billion in agreements. The Asia-Pacific region, led by Singapore's $680 million in agreements and Taiwan's $559 million, accounted for $2.6 billion. Canada and 34 European countries tallied nearly $2.5 billion in deals, with Greece and Turkey accounting for roughly a third.

DSCA figures for actual FMS weapons deliveries have not yet been made available. Arms licenses approved for deals between private U.S. companies and foreign governments during the same period are not included in the above totals and will not be available until later this year.

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