Where's the arm?

We're in a recession, but there are few businesses doing quite as well as the weapons industry. I'm going to give it a go

by Terry Jones

I've decided to start manufacturing weapons. Nothing too ambitious, just some small arms, a few automatic weapons, and maybe a couple of bombs. You know the sort of thing.

It's not that I'm keen on killing people. I haven't actually killed anyone myself yet. It's all to do with economics.

You see, I can't help but notice that the arms industry is doing extremely well. In fact in these times of economic disaster, it's the one industry that seems to be expanding. According to the government, the UK has become the top global defence exporter, notching up a golden £10bn of new business and snagging a walloping 33% of the market.

In fact the UK is now the second biggest player in the global arms market, with a whizzo $53bn of sales over the past five years, compared with America's $63bn, and Russia's measly $33bn, France's pathetic $17bn, and Germany and Israel trailing at $9bn each.

And, even in these difficult economic times, things look good for the future too. In 2007, global arms buying rose by 6% to £1.3tn. And, according to the Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, the US spent $696bn last year and is set to increase that to $706bn this year.

US operations in Iraq are currently costing $14m per hour. That's $343m per day or $3,973 per second. By the time you finish reading this, the US will have spent another $1m in Iraq and Afghanistan combined! That's an awful lot of gravy to share around, and I wouldn't mind putting my knees under the arms industry's table.

What I admire about the arms industry is that it's willing to put its money where its mouth is, when it comes to promoting its members' interests. And it has a lot of money.

Last summer, for example, the National Rifle Association of America announced that it intended to spend $40m during the 2008 elections. That's quite a lot isn't it? And $15m was earmarked merely to persuade Americans that Barack Obama would be a threat to gun ownership in the US. They wouldn't throw that sort of money around if they didn't think it was going to do some good. And of course it does.

In the 2000 presidential race, the arms industry gave George W Bush five times the donations it gave to Al Gore. And Bush duly showed his thanks by doubling the expenditure on defence from just over $333bn in 2001 to $696bn in 2008.

And since November, the outgoing president has rushed through a whole slew of arms export deals, just to make sure his friends in the arms industry survive any economic downturn.

With friends like that, I know I'm going to feel right at home as an arms manufacturer.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/15/armstrade-weaponstechnology