United States of America
Despite legislation that asserts a principle of not selling when it might risk escalation or breakout of war, we show that the US has sold weapons to a clear majority of wars
Explore the graphics below to see how the likelihood of arms sales increases or decreases with different factors.
What factors might affect arms exports from United States of America?
War
No significant difference was found between arms exports to countries at war or during peacetime.
Money
Arms sales from United States of America are:
- More frequent as the military expenditure of the recipient increases 1
- More frequent as the total military acquisition of the recipient from all other suppliers increases
- More frequent as the GDP (per-capita) of the recipient increases 2
Relationships
Arms sales from United States of America are:
- More frequent if the recipient is already a recent customer 3
- More frequent if the recipient is a member of NATO
Other
Arms sales from United States of America are:
- More frequent if the recipient was a participant in the Somalia conflict
Conflicts
Direct conflict participation
United States of America directly participated in the following conflicts:
Weapons supplies to conflict participants
United States of America supplied Major Conventional Weapons to active participants in the following conflicts:
United States of America was an Other Significant Supplier to active participants in the following conflicts:
Top arms recipients
The greatest recipients of Major Conventional Weapons from United States of America by value* between 1990 and 2018 are as follows:
*The SIPRI Trend Indicator Value (TIV) is a relative measure of arms transfer value, normalized for inflation and currency.
Full results
All metrics were investigated using regression analysis. The full results are reproduced here.
Footnotes
- 1Measured in constant 2018 millions of USD
- 2Both total GDP and GDP per-capita were analysed, with similar results. In each analysis whichever had higher significance is specified although the differences were minor.
- 3Transfers above 5,000 TIV in the last five years. The SIPRI TIV unit is a measurement of the value of arms which is independent of currency and inflation.