Jeff Abramson, deputy director of the Arms Control Association, recently told Fortune Magazine: “There’s an Obama arms bazaar going on.” And it’s no exaggeration. Obama has personally pushed for large weapons sales such as the $4 billion aircraft deal with Saudi Arabia. And the administration is also rewriting the rules that govern arms exports, which will in effect reduce oversight of weapons sales. In the middle of its extensive story on the defense industry Fortune magazine has a stunning statistic.
“Thanks to a surge in overseas demand, the F-15 and other aging U.S. weapons systems are hotter than they’ve been in years. The Department of Defense last year told Congress of plans to sell up to $103 billion in weapons to overseas buyers, a staggering rise from an average of $13 billion a year between 1995 and 2005, according to Deutsche Bank analyst Myles Walton. Signed agreements have tripled since 2000.” And they called Bush a militarist!
Nearly 50% of our arms sales go to the Middle East, a region now awash with violence and instability.
So why is Obama, who doesn’t seem to embrace the notion that a powerful military is a good thing, selling so many arms around the world? For someone who critiqued the Bush Administration for relying too much on military capabilities and not enough on diplomacy, it is extremely ironic that Obama is leading the charge in the massive expansion of arms sales. Why? It’s hard to not escape the conclusion that this is more about helping the economy than anything else. And that’s a cynical and dangerous approach to arms sales. Ultimately they should be about protecting us and our allies. Once you use it as an employment program, problems emerge. The temptation to make risky sales becomes great–all in the name of job creation. Perhaps this is another imitation of the French–who for years have been willing to sell weapons to just about anyone in the name of “commerce.”