U.S., Russia dominate arms transfers to developing countries

WASHINGTON, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- The United States and Russia dominated government-to-government arms transfer agreements with developing countries from 2011 to 2014.

According to the U.S. Congressional Research Service, arms transfer agreements with developing nations constituted 75.5 percent of all such agreements globally from 2011 to 2014, and 86.0 percent of agreements in 2014.

The United States and Russia collectively made 63.1 percent of all arms transfer agreements with developing nations, which were worth about $156.4 billion in current dollars.

In 2014, the United States ranked first in arms transfer agreements with developing nations with $29.8 billion or 48.2 percent of these agreements. Russia was second with $10.1 billion, or 16.3 percent of such agreements.

Russia, however, was first in the value of arms deliveries to developing nations, amounting to $8.4 billion, while the United States was second with more than $7.6 billion, or 27.2 percent.

"In worldwide arms transfer agreements in 2014 -- to both developed and developing nations -- the United States dominated, ranking first with $36.2 billion in such agreements or 50.4 percent of all such agreements. CRS said in its report. "Russia ranked second in worldwide arms transfer agreements in 2014 with $10.2 billion in such global agreements or 14.2 percent. The value of all arms transfer agreements worldwide in 2014 was $71.8 billion."

The report added that South Korea, Brazil and Iraq were major signatories of government-to-government arms transfer agreements in 2014.

The report was written to provide Congress with official, unclassified, quantitative data on conventional arms transfers to developing nations for use in its policy oversight.

CRS said agreement and delivery data in the report for the United States are government-to-government Foreign Military Sales program transactions.