Rapid Fire 2011-12-08: US, German Foreign Military Sales

* The US DSCA managed [PDF] $28.3 billion in Foreign Military Sales cases in FY 2011, and another $6.5 billion were made through Direct Commercial Sales, etc. Top 10 buyers were Afghanistan ($5.4 billion), Taiwan ($4.9 billion), India ($4.5 billion), Australia ($3.9 billion), Saudi Arabia ($3.5 billion), Iraq ($2.0 billion), the United Arab Emirates ($1.5 billion), Israel ($1.4 billion), Japan ($0.5 billion), and Sweden ($0.5 billion). Afghanistan is basically US donations, so it shouldn’t really count, but it’s an eye-opening figure. * Another interesting turn of events in Afghanistan: the country has vast mineral resources (including copper and gold) that the US DOD and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) have helped map. The Afghan Mining minister has just opened a tender process to tap these deposits. * Meanwhile a German government report [PDF in German] points to record weapons exports of 2.1 billion euros (about $2.8B) in 2010. Sales to EU/NATO countries amount to 77% of the total with more than half for submarine sales to Portugal and Greece alone. But with these countries threatened with being U-booted out of the Euro, Germany will probably have to look elsewhere in the future. This might be easier said than done. German parliamentarians […]