The Global Times feature also mentioned:
"The US has sold Patriot missile systems to Japan, South Korea, India, Saudi Arabia, Poland and China's Taiwan island.
"Regionally, Patriots are present in Northeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. These countries and regions cannot catch up with US military technology and inevitably have to rely on the US for missile defense.
"The US has been accused of trying to redraw the political map by using high-tech weapons to make purchasing countries more dependent on the US for their national defense." [16]
There have been reports that nations like Saudi Arabia and even Japan are considering the purchase of longer-range U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-ballistic missiles.
Citing the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, news sources in the Persian Gulf recently revealed that the U.S. emerged as the largest supplier of weapons to the region over the preceding five years. The U.S. "accounted for 54 percent of the Gulf region's total volume of imports, followed by France, which accounted for 21 percent." [17]
The Global Times analysis added:
"In the Middle East, the US uses arms as a means to influence regional security trends. The Middle East has always been a major US arms export zone. This year the US and Saudi Arabia signed arms deals worth up to $60 billion, said to be the largest US arms contract in history.
"The US is also mulling sales of advanced weapons and equipment to Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf countries."
On October 21 Washington announced a $60 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia for advanced jet fighters, helicopters, missiles and other weaponry and equipment. It includes the sale of 84 new F-15 jet fighters and the upgrading of 70 more as well as 178 military helicopters and advanced missiles, bombs, radar and other equipment.
Earlier in the year reports surfaced of American plans to sell Patriot and other interceptor missiles to Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
This September the Financial Times reported that planned American arms sales to the Persian Gulf will amount to $123 billion: A $67.8 billion package for Saudi Arabia, $35.6 billion for the United Arab Emirates, $12.3 billion for Oman and $7.1 billion for Kuwait.
A major expansion of U.S. arms sales to the nations of Southeast Asia will follow suit and just as NATO expansion has opened almost all of Europe to American weapons manufacturers, so the new U.S. Africa Command will allow the Pentagon and affiliated arms merchants to further penetrate an entire continent.
Subjugated and occupied lands like Iraq and Afghanistan are captive markets for U.S. arms firms.
SIPRI states that in boosting arms exports from $6,795 billion in 2008 to $6,795 billion in 2009 and in so doing securing 30 percent of the world market, the U.S. sold weapons to 70 nations and NATO, with the Asia-Pacific region accounting for 39 percent of the sales, the Middle East for 36 percent and Europe for 18 percent. Revealingly, "Combat aircraft and associated weapons and components accounted for 48 per cent of the volume of US deliveries of major conventional weapons during this period." [18]
An integral aspect of supplying weapons to over a third of the world's nations is to ensure military interoperability for joint actions, including war, and to bring the receiving countries more firmly and inextricably into Washington's political orbit.
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