Arms trade: who sells the world's major weapons, and to whom

What it is

The global arms trade is the cross-border transfer of major conventional weapons: combat aircraft, armoured vehicles, warships, missiles and artillery systems. SIPRI, the authoritative independent tracker, measures flows using a standardised Trend Indicator Value rather than dollar prices, because governments publish contract values inconsistently and many transfers are subsidised or gifted outright. The beat matters to a world-news reader because which government sells to whom creates political alignments, extends or shortens conflict duration, and triggers sanctions chains that ripple through global finance and diplomatic relationships well beyond the original buyer-seller pair.

History

The modern transparency framework emerged after the 1991 Gulf War exposed how Iraqi procurement had gone untracked by any multilateral body. The UN General Assembly established the UN Register of Conventional Arms that same year; SIPRI's Arms Transfers Database, drawing on data back to 1950, became the only independent longitudinal record spanning the Cold War. Through the 2000s, the United States and Russia competed for major clients in the Middle East and South Asia. India was the world's single-largest arms importer for most of the 2010s, drawing heavily on Russian platforms. The Arms Trade Treaty, opened for signature in 2014 and ratified by 115 states as of 2026, created binding export-risk assessments covering human-rights and diversion considerations; Russia, China and the United States have not ratified. The February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine reset the market: NATO members transferred to Ukraine in roughly twelve months what they had planned to produce over five years, collapsing Russia's commercial pipeline and pushing European buyers toward US and domestic suppliers.

Current state

In the 2021-25 period, the United States held 42% of global arms exports, supplying 66 states. France, Russia, Germany and China rounded out the top five, accounting together for 70% of all exports. Global flows rose approximately 10% in 2025 as European demand surged. Ukraine became the world's largest single importer at 9.7% of global flows, against 0.1% in 2016-20. Russia's export share fell from roughly 22% to under 10% as clients diversified and Moscow redirected stocks to its own war economy. Germany overtook China in the exporter rankings, driven by Rheinmetall's 155mm shell ramp from 70,000 to 1.1 million rounds per year, see راينميتال: ألمانيا تجاوزت الولايات المتحدة في إنتاج الذخيرة التقليدية. China's NORINCO posted a 31% revenue drop in 2024 as Pakistan market orders contracted and domestic corruption investigations froze procurement channels, see إيرادات نورينكو من الأسلحة تهبط 31% مع تعثّر صادرات الصين العسكرية. India is diversifying but hedging: the fourth S-400 regimental set began arriving from Russia in June 2026, with Delhi sounding out a fresh tranche even as Washington continues to apply CAATSA pressure, see Russia begins final S-400 deliveries to India, talks more.

Relationships

The beat maps onto four supplier-client arcs with distinct strategic logic. The US-Europe arc is NATO-defined: Lockheed Martin, RTX and Boeing supply F-35s, Patriots and AH-64s to allied governments, with co-production demands rising as European buyers seek industrial return. The Russia-India arc, the oldest live bilateral spanning MiG-21s through T-90s to S-400s, is under active US sanctions pressure but has not broken. The China-Global South arc, led by NORINCO's low-cost armour and the JF-17 fighter co-developed with Pakistan, faces secondary-sanctions risk for buyers and domestic Chinese procurement turbulence. A fourth arc is forming: Germany and European primes are supplying artillery, ammunition and armoured vehicles under EU joint procurement mechanisms, increasingly competing with US suppliers for the same NATO recipient governments.

What to watch

Three signals matter in the second half of 2026. First, whether Russia's commercial export pipeline recovers after Ukraine or atrophies as Algeria, Egypt and Vietnam diversify their suppliers. Second, whether Beijing restructures NORINCO's oversight and pricing to reclaim the Global South client base it held in 2020, or allows Chinese market share to shift permanently toward domestic PLA consumption. Third, whether India signs a second S-400 batch from Russia: that decision reveals how far Delhi is willing to deepen its Moscow dependence under active CAATSA risk, and whether Washington responds with the waiver or the penalty.