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HomepageThe SIPRI global trend-indicator value of international transfers of major conventional weapons in 1995 was $22 797 million in constant (1990) US dollars. The revised estimate for the trend-indicator value for 1994 is $22 842 million - roughly $1 billion more than the estimate provided in the SIPRI Yearbook 1995. (It is usual for the figures for the most recent years to be revised as new and better data become available.)
In the period 1991-95 the precipitous decline in the volume of arms transfers recorded for the period 1987-90 appears to have been arrested and there is some evidence of a slight upward trend in deliveries.
The data available now permit a first tentative evaluation of broad patterns in the post-cold war arms trade, and the chapter examines in greater detail the patterns of arms transfers for selected suppliers and recipients across the 10-year period 1986-95. At the broadest level, these data tend to reinforce some accepted propositions about the trade in major conventional weapons. First, it is concentrated among a small number of suppliers and a relatively small number of recipients. The identity of the suppliers conforms closely to the group of major powers as identified by other indicators such as size of GDP and representation on the UN Security Council. Second, the pattern of arms transfers is heavily dominated by the nature of security arrangements between supplier and recipient. Third, bilateral relationships seem to be durable in the sense that equipment dependencies remain for a considerable period after a change in political alignment.
The data suggest there is much continuity in these very broad patterns of supply, but some elements of discontinuity also appear on closer examination.
The countries previously supplied by the Soviet Union and its allies have found it difficult to find alternative sources of major conventional weapons. By contrast, there is evidence that within the group of states that traditionally relied on the Western allies for major conventional weapons, the USA has consolidated its dominance at the expense of West European suppliers.
There is also some support for the suggestion that the importance of motivations other than security assistance is growing. The capacity to pay in hard currency is probably given more weight by suppliers in their decision making compared with such factors as political alignment, access to bases and other facilities considered to have strategic importance and that were weighted more heavily during the cold war. Countries such as Kuwait, Taiwan and the countries of South-East Asia have the capacity to pay in hard currency for major systems.