Why have Russia’s Arms Exports Collapsed?

this video is brought to you by brilliant since World War II the world has been split into two blocks those countries that use American weapons and those countries that use Soviet or Russian weapons the two countries have been by Far and Away the biggest arms exporters for most of modern history but while America is still selling just as many weapons as ever in the last couple of years Russia's arms exports have declined sharply with little Prospect of recovery so in this video we're going to look at why no one's buying Russian arms anymore why the Russian Army's lackluster performance in Ukraine hasn't helped things and why this is all bad news for Putin [Music] before we start if you haven't already please consider subscribing and ringing the bell to stay in the loop and be notified when we release new videos now to understand quite how catastrophic this decline in arms exports is for Russia you need to understand quite how big a player Russia was in the exports business for most of modern history arms exports have been dominated by just two countries America and Russia or before 1990 the Soviet Union the numbers vary but basically every year since 1960 the two countries have accounted for at least 50 percent and usually more than 75 percent of all arms exports with France the UK and more recently China accounting for the remainder historically Russia's main customers have been former Soviet States India and China while the US's main customers have been other NATO members Saudi Arabia and Japan more recently an increasing fraction of U.S arms sales have gone to allies in the Asia Pacific like Australia South Korea and Taiwan These Arms exports have been great for Russia not just because they provide Russia with a valuable source of foreign currency accounting for something like three percent of all exports but also because commercial arms relationships are really effective forms of soft power this is because if a country buys Russian arms then it will also rely on Russian companies for spare parts and maintenance which means that it can't really afford to upset the Kremlin unless it wants to completely revamp its military by transitioning to American weapons which costs lots of money this is one of the reasons why India for example has been so reluctant to criticize Russia over Ukraine India has been one of Russia's main customers for years and it's estimated that between 1780 percent of India's military equipment is of Russian or Soviet origin if India took a more hawkish stance against Russia or Ukraine then Russia could either stop selling India arms in which case it wouldn't be able to upgrade its military without an expensive conversion to American systems or even refuse to sell spare parts or perform maintenance on India's russian-made systems which would steadily erode India's military abilities obviously India doesn't want this not least because India China relations are on the rise at the moment and there's now a non-zero chance of a full-fledged border conflict anyway while U.S and Soviet arms sales were pretty even during the Cold War since the collapse of the Soviet Union the U.S has usually outsold Russia however there was a point in the early 2010s when it looked like Russia might overtake the US thanks to increased demand from India China and Syria in 2013 for example Russia actually momentarily overtook the U.S with 7.9 billion dollars worth of sales to the US's 7.6 billion dollars however in the past few years Russia's arms exports have begun to decline steeply in 2018 for example Russia sold 7.2 billion dollars worth of arms internationally in 2019 this has declined to 5.6 billion dollars by 2020 it'd Fallen to 3.9 billion dollars in 2021 it hit a new low of 2.86 billion dollars unsurprisingly Russia's arms exports declined further in 2022 to just 2.82 billion dollars largely because the Kremlin couldn't afford to sell weapons it needed to the so-called special military operation in Ukraine this means that Russia is now behind not just the us but also France who exported just over 3 billion dollars worth of arms in 2022 to make matters worse in 2022 Russia sold arms to just 12 countries for context in the early 2010s at the peak of Russia's arms boom Russia was selling to more than 30 countries in any one year now it's tempting to blame this precipitous drop on the pandemic and Ukraine but this doesn't really add up countries don't only buy arms during conflicts arms deals are usually multi-year contracts that require constant expenditure which is why America's military sales didn't really decline during the pandemic in the way that Russia's did the U.S sold 10.8 billion dollars worth of arms in 2019. 9.4 billion dollars in 2020 and then 11 billion dollars in 2021 similarly while the war in Ukraine might have temporarily reduced Russia's available stockpiles it was also an opportunity to showcase its military hardware to potential customers again it's worth comparing with the US here America's High Mars system have proven so effective in Ukraine that they've seen a sharp spike in orders since the War Began Australia Taiwan and Poland have all announced their intention to buy more and Germany has announced a joint project with Lockheed to create a German version of the system instead Russia's lackluster military performance in Ukraine has had the opposite effect and actually deterred potential customers Serbian prime minister Alexander verucic for example explicitly acknowledged this in November when he told Serbian media that Russia's retreat in Curson demonstrated that Serbia needs to quote create its own future and take care of its military sense while Armenia which has complained both about Russia failing to fulfill weapons deliveries and about Russia not helping Armenia defend against azerbaijan's recent aggression is now buying arms from India instead of Russia however it's not just the Russian Army's lackluster performance in Ukraine that's undermining its arms exports after all Russia's arms sales were declining in 2019 well before Russia's full-on Invasion the other big reason Russia's arms sales have been declining is China and India while they were developing countries without domestic military sectors both India and China relied heavily on Soviet and Russian Imports however as the two countries economies have grown their domestic military capacity has grown as well and both countries have started trying to wean themselves off Russian Tech both because they don't want to be dependent on Russia and because they think they can make better systems themselves this is why Russian exports to India has fallen from nearly 4 billion dollars in 2013 to 1.3 billion dollars today and Russian exports to China have fallen from nearly two billion dollars in 2018 to just over 700 billion dollars today not only are India and China reducing their Russian Imports they're also replacing Russia as the supplier of choice for developing countries China's arms exports have risen from basically nothing in the 90s to over 2 billion dollars today and as we mentioned a second ago India is replacing Russia in Armenia obviously this is bad news for Russia not only does it mean less revenue for Russian arms manufacturers and the Kremlin but it massively erodes Russia's soft power arms exports were one of the few areas where Russia really looked like a superpower and the developing world's dependence on Russia and Soviet Tech afforded the Kremlin enormous leverage unfortunately for Putin if arms exports continue to decline further which looks likely this will only accelerate Russia's geopolitical Retreat what do the world's best politicians have in common they're willing to learn something new every day and if you think that sounds too hard or too time consuming or even just too overwhelming for you to do then you haven't tried brilliant.org brilliant.org is the best way to learn maths and computer science in a fun and interactive way that's 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Channel: TLDR News EU

Views: 914,073

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Id: lKS1Q1L9acQ

Length: 9min 6sec (546 seconds)

Published: Thu May 11 2023

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[u/Chilkoot]

Uh... can't export what you don't have?

[u/Alternative-Weekend1]

Could be they need all that stuff themselfes now...

[u/Schnittertm]

What would you rather buy, 100 Uragan MLRS or 10 HIMARS MLRS?

Myself? I take the one that is actually able to hit its targets consistently, which would be the latter choice. It's just much more bang (quite litterally on the receiving end) for the buck.

[u/loslednprg]

Proven sh!t

[u/hgfjhgfmhgf]

Only India does

[u/Minodrin]

Russian/soviet weaponry works just fine when the Ukrainans use it. Can't be a quality issue. Maybe it's a sales or branding issue...

[u/AxderH]

Well would you buy T-72 after all the turret toss videos.

[u/EquivalentTry6297]

Hahahahaha