Europe became the world's biggest arms importer over the past five years as governments reacted to the threat from Russia and declining confidence in U.S. security commitments, data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute showed on Monday.
European countries more than tripled their arms imports in 2021-25 compared to 2016-2020, to supply Ukraine in its defense against Russian invasion and to rebuild their militaries after decades of underinvestment.
"The significant increase in the flow of arms to European states pushed global arms transfers up by almost 10 percent," said Mathew George, director of the SIPRI Arms Transfers programme.
Europe accounted for 33% of global arms imports, up from 12% in the previous five-year period, the report showed.
Despite the increase in domestic production, European countries continued to increase purchases of American weapons, especially fighter jets and long-range air defense systems.
Arms imports from Middle Eastern states fell by 13%, although Saudi Arabia and Qatar were among the top four individual buyers.
The decline largely reflected large Saudi orders during the previous period that still needed to be integrated, said SIPRI senior researcher Pieter Wezeman.
Even before the recent US and Israeli attacks on Iran, states in the region had placed significant new orders that have not yet been reflected in the figures.
The current conflict is likely to further increase procurement, particularly of anti-missile and air defense systems.
"They will first replace what they have been using, but they will also look at buying more equipment to protect themselves even better than they can do now," Wezeman said.
As for suppliers, the US increased its share of the global arms export market to 42% from 36%, cementing its dominance.
France was the second largest supplier with 9.8% of global exports, while Russia's share fell to 6.8% from 21% after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Europe's combined share of exports was 28% - four times that of Russia and five times that of China. /Telegraph/
