(Credit: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute)
By Mallory Black
WASHINGTON—The United States isn’t the only country limiting weapons and defense exports to the Russian Federation amid its increasing military escalation in Ukraine — Germany and the United Kingdom have also stopped arms sales to Russia.
Elsewhere, as Egypt continues its violent transition to democracy, the U.S. has resumed military aid to the country, a reverse of its initial position on halting arms exports to Egypt. In October 2013, U.S. officials placed a cap on military and financial aid to Egypt until the country showed progress of its transition to democracy.
Last week the State Department announced the release of 10 Apache helicopters and $650 million of $1.5 billion it had previously promised to Egypt, which will go to fund contracts related to counter-terrorrism efforts.
Challenged with a geo-political struggle, the U.S. has chosen to use economics, or arms exports, to manage tensions in Russia and Egypt, in an overall move to further the country’s national security strategy.
“The exports are not only important for the [public relations] value, but they often serve an integrative function,” said John Feffer, co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies. “Arms exports help to integrate our alliances with partners into our overall military functioning [in other countries].”
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the U.S. leads the world’s military expenditures and exports at 37 percent in 2013, followed by China with 11 percent of all military expenditures. Combined, these two states made up nearly half of last year’s arms expenditures, according to SIPRI.
Russia rounds out the top three with five percent of the world’s military expenditures, it says.
Feffer, a former international affairs representative in Eastern Europe and East Asia for the American Friends Service Committee, said U.S. military and arms exports act as carrots for the country’s allies and support national security on a multiple levels.
“With Russia, obviously [the U.S.] is very upset with Russia’s role in Ukraine, as though the arms exports have become a stick – if you don’t do what we say you’re going to do, [the U.S.] are going to withdraw our carrot, and the carrot essentially becomes a stick,” Feffer said.
In January, the U.S. updated its arms exports policy to reflect national security interests abroad, such as protecting the vulnerable from perpetrators of human rights abuses, in a global effort to slow arms sales and exports to countries suspected of using weapons against civilians. The U.S. is one of 155 nations who voted on April 2, 2013, in the UN General Assembly for the adoption of an international Arms Trade Treaty, which would curb weapons sales to countries who commit crimes against humanity, war crimes or use them to facilitate or commit genocide.
So far, 118 countries have signed the treaty, including the U.S., according to Amnesty International, but 43 of the 155 who voted for it have not signed the treaty or taken any action to implement it into their own weapons exports policies. The U.S. added a distinction to the nation’s arms policy with regard to weapons sales and exports to countries suspected of committing human rights abuses.
Both Russia and China abstained from voting on the arms treaty.
Feffer said although the U.S. may be trying to send a message to Russia with the halt on arms exports, he doesn’t believe it has enough leverage to force Russia to change its arms exports policy.
“With the issue of Ukraine, the U.S. doesn’t have a lot of levers it can use with Russia,” Feffer said. “There is an economic investment and some ongoing diplomatic initiatives, but arms exports was one of the few levers the United States could use.”
Feffer said the Obama administration has invested “a great deal of energy and hope” into what he describes as ‘reset relations’ with Russia, after the Russo-Georgian war in 2008.
“[The administration] hoped there would be a new kind of partnership with Russia that would include arms reduction and cooperation around Iran and the Middle East, but that all has been complicated, and it was complicated before Ukraine,” Feffer said.
He added that he doesn’t think the U.S. move to halt on arms exports will be effective in the end.
“Russia has rebuilt its own military. It has its own indigenous manufacturing capabilities. It is the leading exporter itself in the world,” Feffer said. “They are capable of overtaking the United States in arms exports in the next 10 years.”
