Open thread for night owls: U.S. triples overseas arms sales

At The New York Times, Thom Shanker reports:

Weapons sales by the United States tripled in 2011 to a record high, driven by major arms sales to Persian Gulf allies concerned about Iran's regional ambitions, according to a new study for Congress.

Overseas weapons sales by the United States totaled $66.3 billion last year, or more than three-quarters of the global arms market, valued at $85.3 billion in 2011. Russia was a distant second, with $4.8 billion in deals.

The American weapons sales total was an 'extraordinary increase' over the $21.4 billion in deals for 2010, the study found, and was the largest single-year sales total in the history of United States arms exports. The previous high was in fiscal year 2009, when American weapons sales overseas totaled nearly $31 billion.

And why have they done so well? Marketing plays a big part. Here's what one of the government's official advocates told Andrea Shalal-Esa at Reuters in July:

The government's increased advocacy of weapons makers has helped boost foreign military sales to a record level this year, a top U.S. State Department official said, citing his hope for billions of dollars of additional arms sales to India and other countries in coming years.

"We've really upped our game in terms of advocating on behalf of U.S. companies," Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro told a defense writers group on Friday, adding with a laugh, "I've got the frequent-flyer miles to prove it." [...]

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which brokers government-to-government arms sales, has taken a variety of steps to improve the foreign military sales process and drive down the cost of executing foreign military sales

Doesn't that make you feel warm and fuzzy?

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