Russia rules the world's arms
bazaar By Ehsan Ahrari
At a time when US-Russia ties are
undergoing palpable tensions, the United States
dropped behind Russia and France last year in
sales of arms to the developing world. The US
share dropped from 35.4% to 20.5% between 2004 and
2005.
In monetary terms, the value of
these deals fell from US$9.4 billion to about $6.2
billion. By contrast, Russia last year made $7
billion selling weaponry to Asia, Africa and Latin
America, an increase from $5.4 billion the year
before. Russia's top customers
are
China, India and Iran.
Those are some of
the findings of the latest report issued by the
Congressional Research Service (CRS). [1] The fact
that China is also a major military supplier of
Iran, and Russia and China are major opponents of
the US resolve to use its "diplomacy through
sanctions" approach, promises to raise tensions
among these three powers.
The CRS, a
non-partisan arm of the US Congress, periodically
issues major reports of issues of strategic
concerns to the United States. Global arms
transfers almost invariably stay close to the top
of that list.
Even though US-China
relations remain highly complicated as they swing
from friendly to competitive, especially over
North Korea, trade, Iran, oil and Central Asia,
the Pentagon is wary that China continues to
receive most of its cutting-edge military
technology from Russia. That enables China to save
a lot of time in developing indigenous technology
of its own.
In addition to fulfilling its
long-term sales agreement with China for Su-27
fighter jets, destroyers and submarines, Russia
also agreed last year to sell China 30 Il-76TD
military transport aircraft and eight aerial
refueling tankers for more than $1 billion, the
document said. New arms deals between Moscow and
Beijing also include sales of various military
aircraft engines worth more than $1.2 billion.
The chief source of China's evolving
military power is not necessarily its consistent
acquisition of Russia's top military platforms.
Rather, it is China's focus on evolving permanent
patterns that would guarantee its emergence as a
world-class military power.
For instance,
it is revamping its top educational institutions
along the lines of America's Ivy League and other
educational institutions, whose technological
knowledge is constantly being fed into, ensuring
that China will remain on top of the hierarchy of
the world's military powers. China learned that
lesson in 1978, when its visionary Deng Xiaoping
insisted on his now-famous "four modernizations"
program. An important aspect of that trend was
keeping a steady linkage between economic
development and advancements in technology, and
then utilizing those advancements to strengthen
its military arm.
The Pentagon was only
too aware of that linkage when it filed its 2006
Annual Report to Congress, in which it quoted from
its other major document - the Quadrennial Defense
Review 2006 - which stated, "China has the
greatest potential to compete militarily with the
United States and field disruptive military
technologies that could over time offset
traditional US military advantages."
There
is little doubt that Beijing remains highly
focused on narrowing the gap between the military
power of the People's Liberation Army and the US
military. As ambitious as that goal remains,
Chinese strategic thinkers know they are well on
their way to attaining that objective within a
matter of decades. Of course, the Pentagon is
equally determined on maintaining the gap, or even
widening it.
That is one reason it watches
with rapt attention all extant and new trends in
China's arms buildup and its new capabilities,
especially in the realm of developing
counter-network operations. These capabilities
refer to operational maneuvers aimed at countering
network-centric warfare in which no country's
military comes even close to the armed forces of
the US.
The US is also concerned over
China's arms sales, which in 2005 totaled $2.1
billion. The report pointed out that Iran and
North Korea were reportedly among clients
receiving Chinese missile technology. The document
therefore warned that "China can present an
obstacle to efforts to stem proliferation of
advanced missile systems".
It is within
this counter-network warfare that Iran is emerging
as a major source of concern to the US. After all,
it played a crucial role in the emergence of the
Hezbollah in Lebanon as a respectable fighting
force. It was largely the transfer of Iran's
military technology and its asymmetric
capabilities to Hezbollah that made it difficult
for the high-tech-oriented Israeli military to
"eradicate" the fighting capabilities of that
organization during the 34-day war in July-August.
During that war, America's war planners
also watched the performance of Russia's military
technology in the hands of its adversaries. For
instance, Hezbollah's use of Russia's RPG-29s made
a name for themselves for making a high kill ratio
of Israel's heavily armored Merkava tanks. Those
rocket-propelled grenades were transferred to
Hezbollah presumably through Syria.
It was
not so much the poor performance of the Israeli
military as the impressive showing of Hezbollah
fighters through the use of Iranian weapons and
operational tactics as well as Russia's weapons
that worried the administration of US President
George W Bush. In this context, the 2006 CRS
report makes some interesting observations
regarding Russia's sale of weapons to developing
countries. Russia's two leading clients were China
and India. In addition, it continues to seek
expansion of its trade in the Middle East, North
Africa and Southeast Asia.
The CRS report
also notes that to expand its arms market, the
Russian government "has adopted more flexible
payment agreements for its prospective customers
in the developing world, including a willingness
in specific cases to forgive outstanding debts
owed to it by a prospective client in order to
secure new arms purchases".
Considering
the US-Iran conflict related to the latter's
refusal to abandon uranium-enrichment activities,
the CRS report's observations about Russia-Iran
arms sales are also quite interesting. Russia has
made an agreement to sell 29 TPR-M1 (SA-15
Gauntlet) surface-to-air defense systems for more
than $700 million. Russia has also agreed to
"upgrade Iran's Su-24 and MiG-29 aircraft, as well
as their T-72 main battle tanks".
At a
time when America's strategic dominance in the
Middle East faces precarious challenges in Iraq,
it remains highly concerned about Iran's growing
military capabilities as a result of the transfer
of nuclear and missile technology from Russia and
China.
One of the major expectations of
the Bush administration is that Iran's neighbors
in the Persian Gulf will read this latest
arms-transfer report closely and start to share
America's threat perception related to Iran's
military preparedness. Only then are they expected
to start committing themselves to policies of
containing Iran in the near future, something that
the Bush administration has been urging them to
do.
Note 1. Some other
features of the report include:
As of September, a total of US$6.64 billion
had been appropriated for FY2002-FY2007 by the US
Department of Defense for coalition support
payments to Pakistan and other cooperating
nations. Pentagon documents indicate that
disbursements to Islamabad accounted for the great
majority of the funds: about $3.6 billion for
operations from January 2002 through August 2005,
an amount roughly equal to one-quarter of
Pakistan's total military expenditures during that
period.
North Korea illegally shipped 40 ballistic
missiles to other countries in recent years, the
New York Times reported, citing unnamed US
officials familiar with the Congressional Research
Service report.
Ehsan Ahrari is
the CEO of Strategic Paradigms, an Alexandria,
Virginia-based defense consultancy. He can be
reached at eahrari@cox.net or
stratparadigms@yahoo.com. His columns appear
regularly in Asia Times Online. His website:
www.ehsanahrari.com.
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