‘Europe now world’s biggest arms importer’

Europe became the world’s biggest arms importer over the last five years as governments reacted to Russia’s threat and waning confidence in US security commitments, data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute showed on Monday.

European countries more than trebled their arms imports in 2021-25 versus 2016-2020 to supply Ukraine in its defence against Russian invasion and to rebuild their own militaries after decades of under-investment.

“The sharp increase in arms flows to European states pushed global arms transfers up almost 10 per cent,” Mathew George, Director of the SIPRI Arms Transfers Programme, said.

Europe accounted for 33 per cent of global arms imports, up from 12 per cent in the previous five-year period, the report showed.

Despite boosting domestic production, European countries continued to increase purchases of US weapons, especially combat aircraft and long-range air-defence systems.

Arms imports by Middle Eastern states fell 13 per cent, though Saudi Arabia and Qatar were among the top four individual buyers.

The decline mainly reflected large Saudi orders during the previous period that still needed to be integrated, SIPRI senior researcher Pieter Wezeman said.

Even before the latest US and Israeli attacks on Iran, states in the region had placed significant new orders that have yet to show up in the figures.

The current conflict is likely to lift procurement further, particularly of anti-missile and air-defence systems.

“They will first replace what they have used, but also that they are going to look at buying more equipment to protect themselves even better than they can do now,” Wezeman said.

In terms of suppliers, the US increased its global share of the arms export market to 42 per cent from 36 per cent, cementing its dominance.

France was the second-largest supplier with 9.8 per cent of global exports, while Russia’s share dropped to 6.8 per cent from 21 per cent after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Europe’s combined export share was 28 per cent – four times Russia’s and five times China’s.