The 2019 Arms Sales Risk Index

Caroline Dorminey andA. Trevor ThrallThe 2019 Arms Sales Risk Index, designed to help policy makers assess the potential negative consequences of international arms sales, is now online at Catohere. It represents an expanded and improved version of the original risk index published in  Risky Business: The Role of Arms Sales in U.S. Foreign Policy,  published in 2018 by A. Trevor Thrall and Caroline Dorminey.The United States has long been the world ’s leading arms exporter. In 2018 the Trump administration notified Congress of $78 billion in major conventional weapons sales, giving the United States 31% of the global arms market. Between 2002 and 2018 the United States notified Congress of over $560 billion in sales of major conventional wea pons to 167 different nations.Though arms sales can play an important role in American foreign policy, the risks involved with sending billions of dollars of deadly weapons to all sorts of places are significant. The Arms Export Control Act of 1976 requires the executive branch to produce a risk assessment to ensure that the risks do not outweigh the potential benefits of selling major conventional weapons. Unfortunately, however, recent history strongly suggests that the risk assessment process is broken.Over the past decade American weapons have wound up in the hands of the Islamic State and other terrorist groups, on the black market in Yemen and elsewhere, have been used by oppressive governments to kill their own people, and have...

Source: Cato-at-liberty - September 11, 2019 Category: American Health Authors: Caroline Dorminey, A. Trevor Thrall Source Type: blogs