US arms sales hit record levels

Overseas weapons sales by the United States totaled $66.3 billion last year, or more than three-quarters of the global arms market, valued at $85.3 billion in 2011, according to a new congressional report.

The country sold $66bn worth of arms last year, up from $21.4bn in 2010. The previous record had been $31bn in 2009; global arms sales declined slightly after that because of the economic crisis.

America's largest customer was Saudi Arabia, which purchased more than $33bn worth of weapons from the US, including dozens of F-15 fighter jets, missiles, and other materiel.

The United Arab Emirates and Oman also both spent billions, purchases driven in part by fears over Iran's regional ambitions. The Obama administration has touted these deals as a major stimulus for the US economy, saying the Saudi arms sales alone would generate some 75,000 new jobs.

The US also arranged several multi-billion dollar deals with Asian nations, including an agreement with China to sell transport planes worth more than $4bn.

All told, the US sold 78 per cent of the world's arms in 2011. Russia was a distant second, with $4.8bn in arms sales.

A worldwide economic decline had suppressed arms sales over recent years. But increasing tensions with Iran drove a set of Persian Gulf nations - Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman - to purchase American weapons at record levels.

These Gulf states do not share a border with Iran, and their arms purchases focused on expensive warplanes and complex missile defense systems.

The report was prepared by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, a division of the Library of Congress. The annual study, delivered to Congress on Friday, is considered the most detailed collection of unclassified arms sales data available to the public.

A policy goal of the United States has been to work with Arab allies in the Persian Gulf to knit together a regional missile defense system to protect cities, oil refineries, pipelines and military bases from an Iranian attack.

The effort has included deploying radars to increase the range of early warning coverage across the Persian Gulf, as well as introducing command, control and communications systems that could exchange that information with new batteries of missile interceptors sold to the individual nations.

The missile shield in the Persian Gulf is being built on a country-by-country basis - with these costly arms sales negotiated bilaterally between the United States and individual nations.