Arms Export

Synonyms

Arms; Arms industry; Arms trade; Weapons export

Definition

“Arms export” means the sale of arms made by producing countries to buying countries.

Introduction

In the centuries that saw the ancient civilizations and the great peoples (Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, Romans) flourish, the birth of the warrior figure and subsequently the formation of the organized army led to the first phase of strong investment by the rulers in military spending.

In the following centuries, the invention of ever more lethal weapons led to an advancement in the art of war. In the transition from the Middle Ages to the First World War, the war was transformed from a siege war to a war of attrition. The two industrial revolutions led the companies of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to a standardized production that until recently was mostly handmade.

The two great world wars saw a development hitherto unthinkable of the armaments production system. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and...