Russia to protect Syria from "hot heads"

By Carl 

In scanning the news this morning, I found this headline:

Russia says it will help Syria deter "hot heads"

Now whom could they possibly mean, I wonder...

All kidding (on the square) aside, this is a bit troubling, although part of the problem could be in translation (or not). "Hot heads" is a pretty demeaning term, and about the only action apart from McCain's apparently unreported and foolish venture into Syria taken this weekend was taken, or rather not taken, by the European Union when it allowed the arms embargo with Syria to expire, thus allowing weapons manufacturers in the EU to sell openly to the rebels.

Already, there's been some backlash against Russia swiping its paws at the EU.

I've discussed in the past some of the background between Syria and Russia, but let me sum it up quickly: Syria buys Russian arms, maintains the sole Russian naval base in the Mediterranean (at Tartus), has energy development deals with Russia in both oil and natural gas, and is closely allied with Iran, also a major Russian arms customer, and also a big customer for Russian natural gas.

There. Not too painful, right?

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Without America, war just wouldn't be the same

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Great, so the U.S. continues to dominate the world's weapons market. According to the NYT:

Despite a recession that knocked down global arms sales last year, the United States expanded its role as the world’s leading weapons supplier, increasing its share to more than two-thirds of all foreign armaments deals, according to a new Congressional study.

The United States signed weapons agreements valued at $37.8 billion in 2008, or 68.4 percent of all business in the global arms bazaar, up significantly from American sales of $25.4 billion the year before.

Italy was a distant second, with $3.7 billion in worldwide weapons sales in 2008, while Russia was third with $3.5 billion in arms sales last year — down considerably from the $10.8 billion in weapons deals signed by Moscow in 2007.

The growth in weapons sales by the United States last year was particularly noticeable against worldwide trends. The value of global arms sales in 2008 was $55.2 billion, a drop of 7.6 percent from 2007 and the lowest total for international weapons agreements since 2005.

U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! (No, I'm not American. Yes, I'm being sarcastic.)

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This reminds of the brilliant opening-credits sequence in Lord of War. The YouTube clip can't be embedded, but you can watch it here.

Arming the evildoers

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Brad Plumer has a good post up on America's highly "lucrative" arms business, specifically on how the U.S. arms most of the "countries involved in active conflicts around the world," including its own enemies: "not uncommon for us to end up fighting against the same armies we equip." For example, many of America's "adversaries or potential adversaries" have "fleets of U.S.-built F-16s".

All part of the military-industrial complex. So much for benevolent hegemony.