UK arms exports: 70 per cent rise in the last four years?
With the ongoing unrest in North Africa and the Middle East causing international concern, Britain’s role in the arms trade has come under closer than normal scrutiny.
David Cameron has defended the industry as a driver of growth, whilst campaigners have pointed towards the Libyan example as a warning to unchecked arms sales. Today’s headline in the Guardian would therefore be encouraging or demoralising to each group respectively: “UK arms exports up 70 per cent since 2006.”
But is the trend as strong as this suggests?
The Guardian cites figures published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in support of its claim.
However the most recent publication by SIPRI regarding arms exports, a fact sheet from this month outlining trends in international arms transfers, did not make any reference to this particular statistic or to export orders. In fact, it reports that the volume of British arms exports actually decreased by eleven per cent between the periods 2001-2005 and 2006-2010.
Furthermore the underlying SIPRI arms transfer database shows that in 2006, the trend indicator values of arms exports from the UK was $855 million, rising to $1054 million in 2010. This represents an increase of only 23 per cent.
So where does the 70 per cent figure come from? We went straight to SIPRI to ask just this.
Additional data on UK trends sent to us by the Institute clarify that whereas the volume of British exports decreased in the periods 2001-2005 and 2006-2010, the volume of UK arms export orders actually increased, by 67 per cent.
This is another measure of activity in the arms trade. Whereas the actual delivery of arms to buyers is the more commonly-cited indicator of the strength of the munitions trade, export orders measures the volume of contracts signed.
Whilst the Guardian explains this later in its article, it is not at all clear from the headline that the 70 per cent refers to orders rather than actual arms transfers. Given the wide divergence in the two measures, this is particularly important.
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