Europe is now the world’s biggest arms importer, think-tank says

STOCKHOLM - Europe became the

world’s biggest arms importer over the last five years,

as governments reacted to Russia’s threat and confidence in American security commitments waned, data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) showed on March 9.

European countries more than trebled their arms imports from 2021 to 2025, compared with the 2016 to 2020 period, to

supply Ukraine in its defence against the 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,” said Dr Mathew George, director of the SIPRI Arms Transfers Programme.

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.

Middle East

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

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

Even before the

US and Israeli attack 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... They are going to look at buying more equipment to protect themselves even better than they can do now,” Mr 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. REUTERS