The United States needs to find ways to cut its trade gap by raising exports. Rising exports tend to mean more manufacturing in the US.  Manufacturing increases tend to create jobs.

According to Reuters, weapons shipments to foreign governments are reaching unprecedented levels.  “Sales in the first half reached $27 billion, some 60 percent of the year’s expected total, making it likely the actual 2009 total would top $40 billion.”

The public relations push from the US government is that selective sales of military hardware that ranges from small arms to tanks to fighter planes is a good way to keep our allies abroad strong. That analysis only goes so far.

In a world where large numbers of small wars are replacing big ones, the need for high-tech and high-quality tools of destruction will only rise. The US is unlikely to sell weapons to regimes which it does not favor but it will sell to nations that are not friendly to one and other–Israel and Saudi Arabia for example.

America has long been the arsenal for democracy, a practice that goes back as far as WWI. Taking a more aggressive posture in bidding contests between US-built weapons and those manufactured overseas could take the $40 billion in sales and move its much higher. Sixty billion in annual arms sales a year would do a lot compared to a stimulus package of $787 billion in which only about $80 billion is assigned to the direct creation of jobs.

Being an arms merchant will not end the recession or get the American economy back on track, but pushing US-made military ordinance overseas will help.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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