Switzerland as an arms exporter surprised me. I just wouldn't assume they would be in the business of producing arms let alone selling them. Unless this includes the exportation of arms to allied nations (UN Members)?
Switzerland is heavily militarized. Mandatory service, soldiers bring their guns home with them, tunnels and facilities underground all over the place. They are militantly neutral.
I think some of the posters misunderstand one thing: the European countries have a heavy cross-border consolidation of the arms industry. So the exports you see from, say, Spain, the Netherlands and Switzerland are the share of production that is statistically allocated to them. For example, Switzlerland is the home of a company that produces very advanced armored personnel carriers. The owner of this company is a German firm. The machine gun and anti-aircraft manufacturer Örlikon is also Swiss. And so on. The clients are mostly Middle Eastern and South-East Asian.
Neutral doesn't mean pacifist. In fact, in practice it often means you need to be armed to the teeth, because if anyone attacks you, you've got no allies coming to your aid. It also means you don't have treaties with allies to supply you with all those weapons. The result? You make them yourself. And if you're doing that, you may as well make a few extra and make a buck off it all. So that's what Switzerland does.
I think being a UN member hardly makes countries allies since nearly every country is a member, including ones that are outright enemies e.g. South and North Korea or Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Switzerland does not have any formal allies, or enemies for that matter. I guess it's as ander217 said and they can just supply all sides of a conflict. I did some research and found an article that said their biggest clients in 2019 were, in descending order, Denmark, Germany, Romania, Bangladesh, and the USA. So the first three can hardly be seen as threats to global peace, but Bangladesh and some of their other clients including Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are more problematic and known for massive human rights violations.
If that's the case, then it seems like sales of rifles, knives, armor, etc would be inconsequential in the grand scheme of things since the Joint Strike Fighters are selling for over 100 million dollars per plane. How many rifles equals a tank or a plane
Remember that just because you export something doesn't mean that you produce it. Just like unofficial diplomatic communications go through intermediary countries, I imagine that companies in so called "neutral" countries still purchase arms from major manufacturers and send them in small quantities to less than desirable peoples. That was very very common in the pre 9/11 world.
These figures probably do not account for the black market and other illegal transactions. Or maybe thousands of old automatic rifles with ammunition are not as valuable as a couple of high-tech fighter jets. I'm not an expert, so I don't know the prices of these things.
You see the hypocrisy at work in this list. All those countries that thumb their noses at the US for it's violence making a a lot of money with weapons.
Does that excuse the US public from believing they need to be armed with high-powered rifles? Also, the US sells more weapons than every other name on this list put together. Americans first need to get their own house in order, as you point out.
You only show your complete ignorance by calling them "high power rifles." Define a "high power rifle." And what US citizens own is none of your business. In fact, it's almost like you want more Americans to die considering what happens in gun free US cities.
In other news, the majority of the US' clients are countries that are trying to defend themselves, like Taiwan and Israel, or Europe. In fact, they throw a hissy fit when the US decides to stop throwing weapons at them. Interesting how Russia and the PRC get no flack for their clients, which consist mainly of terrorist Islamist states, Communist shitholes, African tinpot dictators....
Israel dealing with weapons?? Such peaceful people, always suffering, oppressed by their gigantic tough neighbours...I'm quite surprised by this news...
What a dumb strawman argument. Nobody ever said Israel was a hippie commune without any weapons. They've been fighting for their survival since day one. Of course they have weapons.
Israel has been in a state of war, that the Arab League declared, since the day after the Israeli declaration of independence from the Ottoman Empire and the British Mandate of Palestine. Though peace treaties were brokered with Egypt and Jordan, there has never been a sovereign Palestinian state that Israel recognized in order to establish relations with, and Israel is still technically in a state of war with some of the other countries that attacked them in '48. The last time Israel took any significant amount of land from anyone was in 1967, and this land was taken from Jordan, Syria, and Egypt, whom Israel was at war with at the time. Yasser Arafat did not declare Palestinian independence until 1988.
It actually has a lot to do with that. The biggest weapons sellers are all countries that produce the most weapons for their own use, and then sell off surplus or older supply to other countries. You're never going to see Costa Rica on this list.
Remember, Israel gave, or rather sold, Uzis to the world. From the Wikipedia article: "The Uzi has been exported to over 90 countries. Over its service lifetime, it has been manufactured by Israel Military Industries, FN Herstal, and other manufacturers. From the 1960s through the 1980s, more Uzi submachine guns were sold to more military, law enforcement and security markets than any other submachine gun ever made."
I'm surprised Austria (home of Glock) didn't make the list, although admittedly Glock firearms are not all manufactured in Austria.
I thought of Austria with Glock and Steyr. Also Belgium, which as you mention, has FN. But assuming the small arms don't add up as much as the larger weapon systems sold by other countries.
This quiz is quite eye opening. Western countries make massive profits selling weapons to be used in third world conflicts. Sort of a modern day colonialism.
who's the one consuming propaganda here? The NATO countries combined earn more than double Russia and China combined. A majority of the top 15 countries are NATO members. OP's point, based on the numbers, is totally valid.
The commenter who is convinced that NATO is somehow a bad thing is the one consuming propaganda. That should be obvious. And it should be obvious whose interests it's in to try and poison people against NATO.
fun fact about canadry: he once called Pol Pot's Cambodia, Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao's China, Kim Il Sung's North Korea, and the Derg's Ethiopia the "coolest countries ever."
Excellent comeback. You're right, I'm about 65-70 million short of matching these guys' total body count. How could I hope to compete with those numbers.
South Korea has a very large arms industry partially owned and funded by the government, and quite a few of their vehicles and planes have been succesfully exported to other countries.
I'm a little surprised Brazil isn't on the list, given that some of these numbers are kind of small. There aren't too many producers of military aircraft in the world and they seem like high-ticket items. Not enough, I suppose.
Stork builds parts for fighter jets.
DAF generally produces trucks, and also sells trucks to the military.
In other news, the majority of the US' clients are countries that are trying to defend themselves, like Taiwan and Israel, or Europe. In fact, they throw a hissy fit when the US decides to stop throwing weapons at them. Interesting how Russia and the PRC get no flack for their clients, which consist mainly of terrorist Islamist states, Communist shitholes, African tinpot dictators....
Are you upset? You seem upset. :)
I'm surprised Austria (home of Glock) didn't make the list, although admittedly Glock firearms are not all manufactured in Austria.
Also NATO Countries: I can earn money from war? Nice! I mean noooooooooo so bad stooop! (but give me money pls)
Thanks for shoring up my point, comrade.