How does selling or giving weapons to other countries help make war?

Question

and help create tensions leading to the need for more weapons orders from weapon manufacturers, leading to pressures to use those weapons to justify having them, which creates more tensions, requiring that we sell more weapons to other countries to help make them feel safer, which actually forces others to get their own weapons, creating tensions that force us to use our weapons, which requires more orders for newer weapons, etc....?

Answer 1

I think you have hit the nail on the head here.

It is a shameful fact that Britain for example is one of the world's leading arms exporters and has over the last few decades bolstered some pretty dire regimes, including that of Saddam Hussein for the first 12 years of his rule (1979-1990). The government did this despite his well-known track record on human rights, his prosecution of a civil war against the Kurds within Iraqi borders and a war against Iran, for most of that time.

Selling weapons not only encourages other countries to make war, it diverts resources in the vendor country away from more peaceful (and ultimately more profitable) forms of production. Advocates of the arms industry claim that it helps to create jobs, but in fact other industries create more jobs than weapons production.

In Britain arms sales to foreign countries are underwritten by the government, the weapons often being exported on credit. If the deal falls through, the weapons makers are compensated from the public purse.

When Saddam's troops marched into Kuwait in 1990 the UK government called off £1 billion (yes, that's £1,000,000,000) worth of military trade with his government. The taxpayer picked up the tab.

Look at the recent row over the export of fighter planes to the Saudis - a deal worth around £20bn - and what is a democracy like the UK doing backing a repressive regime like Saudi Arabia anyway?

The sooner the arms trade is stopped, the better IMO.

Answer 2

When an imbalance of power exists one party will always be more willing to negotiate for peace. This is without admitting they have less power of distruction. When both parties are more or less evenly weapon-ed, they both believe they can be the victor in a battle and are less willing to negotiate a peace.

Answer 3

Somebody who purchases a weapon pay a nice amount, they don't pay the hard earned money to keep the weapon as a relic, they have to use it man!!!! . Eventually they find some reason to do so..

Answer 4

It works both ways - providing arms to a weaker nation makes attacking that nation more costly thus making an attack less likely.

Answer 5

It gives countries power and they use that to their advantage to exploit other countries.

Answer 6

Exactly.