The rearmament has long since begun

The Russian attack on Ukraine and the uncertainty about the foreign policy course of US President Donald Trump have caused the countries of Europe to arm themselves heavily. Contrary to the global trend, European imports of heavy military equipment such as fighter jets, tanks and submarines increased by a whopping 155 percent in the last two five-year periods, according to a new report by the Stockholm Peace Research Institute Sipri . In contrast, the global volume of such arms imports fell minimally by 0.6 percent.

"The new arms transfer figures clearly reflect the build-up of arms among states in Europe in response to the threat posed by Russia ," explained Sipri program director Mathew George. The fact that the global volume remained relatively unchanged is therefore due to the fact that some major arms importers such as Saudi Arabia, India and China recorded significant declines in imports for various reasons - despite the high level of threat perceived in their regions.

The Sipri data refer to the volume of arms deliveries, not their financial value. Since this volume can fluctuate greatly from year to year depending on the order situation and the peace researchers are interested in long-term trends in their reports, they compare five-year periods rather than individual years, this time the years 2020-2024 with 2015-2019.

Meaningful Figures on the Ukraine War

Two very telling figures show how strongly the war in Ukraine has influenced the arms trade in recent years:

9,627 percent: Ukraine has now become the world's largest arms importer, increasing its share of global arms imports almost a hundredfold from less than 0.1 to 8.8 percent over the past five years. While the country imported only a few heavy weapons from abroad before the Russian invasion in February 2022, it was by far the world's largest arms importer in 2023 and 2024. The largest arms suppliers were the USA (45 percent), Germany (12 percent) and Poland (11 percent).

However, the US government of President Trump recently temporarily suspended military aid to Ukraine. At the same time, Ukraine itself exported 72 percent less military equipment abroad - because it needs the weapons itself.

Minus 64 percent: On the other side of the war front, Russia's share of global arms exports, at 7.8 percent, is only a third of the 21 percent of the same period last year. This means that Russia is selling far fewer weapons abroad because, on the one hand, it needs them for its own war of aggression against Ukraine. On the other hand, trade sanctions are making Russian arms exports more difficult. The USA and its allies are also putting pressure on other countries to stop buying weapons from Russia.

How Europe's arms exports are linked to Trump

However, Europe's jump in imports is not only related to Ukraine, but also to political changes in the USA: Already in his first term in office (2017-2021), US President Trump demanded that European NATO partners drastically increase their defense spending. Many Europeans have complied, as the Sipri figures confirm: The European NATO countries have more than doubled their arms imports overall (plus 105 percent).

Transatlantic relations have nevertheless continued to deteriorate since Trump's renewed election victory at the end of 2024. At the same time, Europe remains heavily dependent on the USA when it comes to arms trade: 64 percent of imports by European NATO countries have come from the USA in the past five years - and there is more to come: According to Sipri, the Europeans have ordered 472 fighter jets and 150 combat helicopters from the United States alone by the end of 2024, the delivery of which is still pending.

top dog USA

But the peace researchers also see signs that Europe wants to free itself from this dependency: "In the face of an increasingly belligerent Russia and strained transatlantic relations during the first Trump presidency, the European NATO states have taken steps to reduce their dependence on arms imports and to strengthen the European arms industry," said Sipri researcher Pieter Wezeman. This will not be easy: "The transatlantic arms supply relationship has deep roots," the expert noted.

For the time being, the USA will remain the absolute top dog in the arms market, if only because of its leading role in the production of combat aircraft: between 2020 and 2024, it exported military equipment to 107 countries, increasing its arms exports by a further 21 percent and increasing its global export share from 35 to 43 percent. Following behind - far behind - are France (9.6 percent), Russia (7.8), China (5.9) and Germany (5.6).

Germany as the fifth largest arms exporter in the world

While other large EU countries such as France, Italy, Spain and Poland were able to increase their share of global exports, in some cases significantly, Germany's share fell by 2.6 percent over the past five years. Just over a third of German arms deliveries went to countries in the Middle East - primarily Egypt and Israel - and to European countries, including primarily Ukraine.

"The figures make it painfully clear how urgently a restrictive German arms export control law is needed, which the traffic light coalition has promised but not delivered," explained Alexander Lurz, disarmament expert at the peace organization Greenpeace. He complained that a large proportion of German weapons are being delivered to the crisis region of the Middle East. "Germany is still the fifth largest arms exporter in the world, with sales going not only to democracies and attacked states, but also to autocracies."