The US increased its arms exports by more than 50% in 2023, compared to 2022, while also damaging Russia’s own defense trade, Politico reported.
The outlet cited State Department figures obtained before their official release on Monday.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 led to major military purchases that helped US defense industries earn $81 billion in new global sales last year, per the outlet.
The largest transactions involved three deals totaling over $30 billion, according to the outlet. These were for attack and transport helicopters as well as long-range missile launchers for Germany and Poland, it said.
The deals came as NATO is racing to fill up its stockpiles with cutting-edge weaponry in preparation for a showdown with Moscow, it added.
In a fact sheet citing the numbers, the Department of State specified that arms exports rose to $80.9 billion in 2023, a 55.9% increase from $51.9 billion in 2022.
This represented the US’ “highest annual total of sales and assistance provided to our allies and partners,” it said.
The sum, plus the $157.5 billion sold in military equipment through private US companies to foreign governments in 2023, adds up to $238.5 billion — an all-time record, according to Reuters.
Arms transfers and defense trade are “important US foreign policy tools with potential long-term implications for regional and global security,” the State Department said.
Mira Resnick, who runs the State Department’s Office of Regional Security and Arms Transfers, went further, telling Politico that this surge in sales is evidence that Russia’s defense industry is “failing and continues to fail.”
“We see that because Russia’s defense industry is denied the resources that come from exports, that helps to contribute to Russian strategic failure on the battlefield,” she said.
Resnick cited a $1.8 billion arms deal that the US struck with India last year, and “real tough decisions” in Global South countries about abandoning Russian equipment.
According to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Russia’s share of global arms exports was already falling before its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, from 22% between 2013 and 2017, to 16% between 2018 and 2022.
Since the early 2010s, Russian arms exports have declined in part due to China and India’s efforts to ramp up their own domestic arms production, along with earlier Western sanctions packages meant to dissuade third countries from buying Russian weapons. This is according to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and subsequent Western sanctions have exacerbated that downward trend by putting a burden on Russia’s defense production capacity, damaging Russian arms’ reputation, and making it more difficult for the Kremlin’s clients to make payments, the CSIS report said.
In March 2023, the Indian military said that Russia failed to supply weapons it had been contracted to deliver because it was embroiled in the war in Ukraine.
