Kalashnikov Manufacturer Faces Bankruptcy (full article…)

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), one of the world’s foremost think tanks on arms control and disarmament, world military expenditure increased by 45 percent, in real terms, and has been rising every year during the last 10-year period.

In 2008, it reached 1.46 trillion dollars, representing 2.4 percent of world gross domestic product (GDP). Its level is now higher than during the latest Cold War peak in the 1980s. (more…)

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. (more…)

Worldwide spending on weapons has reached record levels amounting to well over $1tn last year, a leading research organisation reported today.

Global military expenditure has risen by 45% over the past decade to $1.46tn, according to the latest annual Yearbook on Armaments, Disarmament, and International Security published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri). (more…)

Israel is believed to be using controversial white phosphorus shells to screen its assault on the heavily populated Gaza Strip yesterday. The weapon, used by British and US forces in Iraq, can cause horrific burns but is not illegal if used as a smokescreen. (more…)

The U.S. Defense Department on Wednesday said it had approved the sale to Iraq of weapons valued at up to $6 billion, including 400 Stryker wheeled vehicles, military radios, training aircraft, 20 coastal patrol boats and 140 M1A1 Abrams tanks. (more…)

I have been trying to avoid writing this review, not because of the book’s subject matter (this is not a profound book any sense of the word) but because it has been done so many times before and has by now become quite dated in the ephemeral world of controversy. But I finally read the book more than two years after downloading the original working paper of the same title from the Kennedy School of Government’s website—and at least a year since the book itself was published. I had put off reading the expanded argument because I was already familiar with both the working paper and the version published in the London Review of Books—plus, I was aware that Mearsheimer and Walt had based their arguments entirely on secondary research and I am already very familiar with the topic.

First, let me just address a minor issues: John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (henceforth M/W) must be congratulated for their attempts at initiating a serious debate about this absurdly sensitive issue (at least in the United States). Considering their argument is neither new to anyone familiar with the subject, the book’s only real contribution is its success at reaching a wide audience. Had similar arguments been published by less reknowned academics and pundits (which they have been), “the Lobby” would surely have buried them in a mountain of obsolescence, ignored and forgotten without concern (which they have). But M/W cannot be dismissed as ideologues and so, the likes of Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz and other apologists for Israeli/U.S. crimes immediately went on the offensive by attempting to undermine the credibility and authority of the authors when faced with hard facts from a wide array of scholars. (more…)