Russia Tops in Quantity of Arms Shipped in 2002

Due to its export of hundreds of missiles to China and Kuwait, Russia shipped more individual weapons around the globe than any other country last year, according to data volunteered by arms sellers to the UN Register of Conventional Arms.

Roughly 120 countries have submitted reports this year on their 2002 arms trade to the register, which was established in 1992 to shed light on the global arms market. All countries are called upon annually to provide information to the register on their previous year’s imports and exports of seven types of weapons: tanks, armored combat vehicles (ACVs), large-caliber artillery, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, and missiles and missile launchers. The intent underlying the register’s creation was that arms sellers might show more restraint in brokering weapons deals if they had greater awareness of the total amount of arms a potential buyer was stockpiling.

Moscow claimed that it exported 330 missiles to China and 941 missiles to Kuwait as part of 1,626 total arms deliveries last year. The Kremlin identified another 11 countries, including Algeria, Angola, Burma (Myanmar), and Sudan, as also receiving Russian arms.

Most of Russia’s declared arms exports, including those to China and Kuwait, could not be verified because many of the recipients do not participate in the register.

China stopped providing arms transfer figures in 1998 to protest U.S. reporting on its arms sales to Taiwan, which the mainland views as a renegade province. Beijing condemns Washington’s practice of publicly reporting on U.S. exports to the island as wrongly conferring legitimacy to Taiwan’s independent weapons purchases. China blasts all foreign arms shipments to Taiwan as infringing on Chinese sovereignty.

Kuwait sides with most other Arab governments in boycotting the register. The Arab governments claim they do not participate because the register does not cover weapons of mass destruction, a stance aimed at trying to compel Israel to reveal its suspected holdings of nuclear, chemical, and biological arms.
African countries have also generally shied away from the register, saying, in part, that it is not relevant to their security since the small arms and light weapons that are so abundant and lethal on the African continent are not subject to the register’s weapons categories.

A group of government experts representing two dozen countries charged with reviewing the register’s operation this year proposed in August that the large-caliber artillery category be expanded to capture smaller artillery pieces, such as 81mm and 82mm mortars, to help better address African concerns. This recommendation, along with the proposed inclusion in the missile category of shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles, also known as Man-Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS), is expected to win the UN General Assembly’s approval later this year.

If not for Russia’s missile exports, the United States would have easily surpassed all other arms suppliers with 1,027 total exports, including 425 missile transfers to 10 different countries. The United States also shipped 487 ACVs to eight countries and 60 attack helicopters to 10 separate buyers.

In sum, arms suppliers reported delivering more than 4,200 major weapons last year. The average amount of reported arms exports per year for the register’s 11-year history is roughly 7,000.

Counting all weapons transfers equally can distort the significance of individual arms deals because the export of one missile is treated the same as the delivery of one combat aircraft or one warship.

A country’s arms trade can also be quantified by the value of its sales. By this measure, U.S. arms exports worth $10 billion far exceeded Russia’s $3 billion mark last year, as detailed in a recent Congressional Research Service report. (See ACT, October 2003.)

UN Register of Conventional Arms

The figure preceding each recipient state indicates the number of weapons declared by the exporting country. The figure following the recipient state gives the number of weapons that the importing state claimed it had received. States in italics did not participate in the register. Australia and Singapore both reported making weapons imports, but did not always specify exact quantities. In such cases, a DNR appears for “did not report.”