In almost every year for 70 years, the two largest arms exporters in the world were the United States and Russia.
According to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), this feature of the global armaments trade has changed in recent years. While the United States remains the world's #1 arms exporter, Russia has ceased to be #2, ceding the position to France in 2021-2022, and Germany in 2023.
Which country will be the 2nd largest arms exporter in the world in 2024, according to data published by SIPRI?
SIPRI typically updates annual arms export figures each March with an accompanying report (the most recent report was published Mar 2024, the previous years' in Mar 2023).
For convenience, below is a table of SIPRI data for the top ten arms exporters in 2023, as well as the three largest recipients of their arms exports:
SIPRI's arms export figures are available on their database. The above table, for example, was taken by using their Import/Export top list function with the period set to 2023-2023 and show X suppliers/recipients set to 3.
1,000
3.00For those interested, Perun put out another video on SIPRI arms data. I did not realize that South Korea had taken in so many orders from Poland since the invasion of Ukraine.
This question was inspired by Perun's YouTube video on Russian SIPRI data. Relevant to this question is Perun's discussion of how other suppliers are filling the void left by Russia.