Outgunned? A Debate Over the Shifting Global Arms Market
Foreign Affairs, Mar/Apr 2013
Part 2 of 2
The Less, the Better
Lawrence J. Korb
Jonathan Caverley and Ethan Kapstein are correct that lax management and shortsighted decisions in the Pentagon have bloated the U.S. defense budget. But their proposed solution is misguided. Contrary to their argument, flooding the world with more weapons would not serve U.S. security interests.
Caverley and Kapstein fail to note the numerous downsides to Washington's global arms sales. They neglect to mention that the vast majority of the United States' more than 100 customers are developing countries, many of which are headed by authoritarian regimes that are both unpredictable and prone to instability. An unfortunate few, including allies such as Bahrain, are liable to use their American-made weapons against their own people.
Moreover, because the United States now leads the world in arms deliveries by such a wide margin, Washington has little credibility when it chides other governments for transferring weapons to U.S. enemies, such as Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria. And although many countries buy U.S. arms using their own revenues, about one in every five dollars that Washington earns from arms exports is actually paid for by U.S. taxpayers (via foreign aid programs). That money could be better used to deal with global challenges such as disease, poverty, and malnutrition.
There is a solution on the table. The Arms Sale Responsibility Act, which awaits a vote by the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, would prohibit weapons transfers to countries where there is a substantial risk that the arms could facilitate human rights abuses. As the bill's supporters rightly point out, such a policy not only is morally sound but also would enhance long-term U.S. security strategy, which invariably relies on partnerships that can be undermined by resentment and anger born of shortsighted decisions about arms sales. These long-term concerns, not Washington's share of the global arms market, are what Caverley and Kapstein should be most concerned about.
Caverley and Kapstein Reply
We appreciate our critics' feedback, but all three responses are deeply misguided, largely because each fails to understand the available data.
J. Thomas Moriarty agrees with our recommendation for a reformed procurement process for U.S.-made weapons systems. But the errors and contradictions underpinning his case make us hesitant to embrace his support. If middle-tier countries are successfully developing indigenous arms industries, why is the sum of global arms transfers increasing? Moriarty's description of India as a success story only underscores the shallowness of his case. New Delhi's light combat aircraft program, begun in 1983 and still under development, has been an unmitigated disaster, marred by cost overruns and performance failures. And India's inability to develop a domestically produced engine means that the plane will be powered by General Electric. Missteps such as this help explain why India is now the world's largest arms importer.
Moreover, Moriarty's use of flyaway costs to compare the French Rafale and the F-35 is grossly misleading. This metric excludes the F-35's development costs, which will keep rising as technicians continue to refine the aircraft. The Rafale, by contrast, is a largely mature jet. Moriarty's low-ball price tag for the F-35 is based on a projected order of 3,159 planes, a number few believe will actually be realized. A more realistic price is therefore the Government Accountability Office's current F-35 flyaway cost estimate of $154 million per jet. As Moriarty himself states, "If all goes according to plan, Lockheed Martin will export at least 500 F-35s." That is a far lower number than the 716 planes slotted for export in the current plan and considerably less than the 2,000-3,000 originally envisioned. And when it comes to the F-35, little has ever gone according to plan.
Unlike Moriarty, we offer a solid policy recommendation to make the procurement process more efficient. If simply "rationalizing" the process were sufficient, the United States would have fixed its problems decades ago. We do not expect the Pentagon and the defense industry to reform if they do not have to face the competition that comes from a mandate to export and outperform possible imports.
Daniel Katz's mistaken reliance on arms agreements, rather than arms deliveries, reflects the government complacency we are trying to overcome. The eye-popping sums cover varying numbers of years, frequently get revised downward, and are therefore useless for analyzing trends. Statistics about weapons deliveries provide a more accurate picture, because they are based on actual exchanges of goods and cash. Looking at the data on real transfers, there is clear evidence of a steady decline in the U.S. market share over the past decade.
Furthermore, arms deliveries can be compared with other measures, such as the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's weapons transfer data, to show that over time, U.S. clients have paid increasingly more for the same capability. This finding -- coupled with the fact that, as Katz points out, Washington's share of the global arms market is tightly tied to oil prices -- speaks volumes about the United States' Gulf-dependent export model. The current strategy merely ensures plum profits for major U.S. contractors and allows U.S. allies to recycle petrodollars for jets that, given the historically low levels of Saudi and Emirati participation in U.S. military operations, will do little more than gather dust.
If the United States wants to increase its influence in Asia, it should reconsider this approach. In terms of Asian deliveries, U.S. market share has dropped from 27 percent to 24 percent between the periods of 2004-7 and 2008-11. If U.S. grand strategy is really making a "pivot" to Asia, Washington's arms export policy there needs to change.
Lawrence Korb's concern about the proliferation of weapons to undesirable regimes is legitimate. Indeed, that danger served as one of the reasons we wrote our original essay. But instead of cutting exports, the policy we recommend is more likely to keep American weaponry out of the wrong hands.
The Congressional Research Service's data on both deliveries and agreements contradict Korb's assumptions about what types of states buy weapons. Of the world's top ten importers in 2007-11, five were mature democracies. Four of the remaining states -- Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (with China being the lone outlier) -- are U.S. allies and do not use U.S.-made weapons to wage civil wars. On the contrary, these states' dependence on imports from Washington constrains their ability to resort to such activities.
We never suggested that the United States should sell weapons to a regime such as Bashar al-Assad's in Syria. However, Assad has bought and will continue to buy weapons from suppliers that do not care how those weapons are used. Our policy objective is to ensure that the large importers, such as those listed above, buy products from the United States rather than China, Russia, or even western Europe. If they do so, the United States can prevent competitors from developing and producing top-of-the-line weapons and selling them to smaller, dangerous rogue regimes.
J. THOMAS MORIARTY is a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs.
DANIEL KATZ is a former analyst with the U.S. Department of Defense. The opinions expressed here are his own.
LAWRENCE J. KORB is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. He served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration.
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