Who are the winners and losers in the arms trade?

The first 200 words of this essay...

Essay on world politics.

Title: 4 (B) who are the winners and losers in the arms trade?

The prolific and largely unregulated transfers of arms, particularly small arms and light weapons, has resulted in tremendous human suffering. Tens of millions of people have been killed in wars since 1945. By the end of the 1990s, a large percentage of war-victims were non-combatants and at least half of these were children. The arms trade fuels these wars, wasting life, natural resources and vast sums of money. Despite this, world military expenditure has increased sharply over the last decade; US, Japan, UK, France and China are the top 5 spenders, which equals 62% of world military spending. In particular, several countries like UK and US use military exports as a tool of foreign policy. In this essay, I will examine the profit and cost brought by the arms trade, and try to justify whether there are winners or losers in the arms trade.

First of all, let us look at why there are several countries continuing to support the export of military equipment. Let us take Britain, which continues to rank as one of the world's largest arms exporter