Before 1991 the USSR gave to their partners abroad huge amounts of weapons, in annual amounts that once exceeded even the 20 billion dollars while real income for the Soviet coffers were much lower, because Most are sold on credit (credit that often never paid) or sometimes even given away to countries and partner organizations.
In 1991, at the end of the Cold War, the Soviet defense industry was 3 times larger than now. It is thought that the proportion of military expenditure in relation to the then Soviet GDP spent 20% which exceeded 4 times the level of western countries. In 1991 this system collapse the hand of the disintegration of the USSR and in the midst of social chaos, political and economic development Russian military industry was the need to build a new system of military exports.
Under these conditions the export of arms to India and China were a real lifesaver for the Russian military industry for since the early '90s two Asian nations were set up in their biggest buyers.
India had been a traditional buyer of Soviet weapons and one of the few who paid with real money. Moreover, China, whose relationship with the West had deteriorated significantly in the late '80s (after the protests in April de 1989 en la Plaza de Tiananmen) requeria la adquisicion de armamento moderno para romper la brecha que existia entre sus fuerzas armadas y las de paises desarrollados en terminos de armas y aun mas aguda en terminos de industria militar.
La mayor popularidad la adquirieron los aviones de guerra y los sistemas de defensa antiaereos pues Rusia podia ofrecer a sus socios extranjeros sistemas muy modernos basados en su experiencia de decenas de an-os en defensa contra los paises mas poderosos de Occidente.
Suxoy ( imagen anterior ) se transformo asi en la marca rusa mas famosa reemplazando al tradicional MiG ( imagen siguiente ) que domino en tiempos sovieticos.
Diversification of markets
the late 90s to 80% of Russian arms exports went to the Chinese and Indian markets. This concentration in 2 markets doubted Russia's ability to export their weapons to other competitive markets and to think of the early fall of their shipments and revenues after that met the needs of Chinese and Indian markets.
However, in the first decade of XXI century Russian arms exports have experienced a steady growth to reach just under 10 billion dollars in annual sales in 2010 and this despite the fact that China stopped buying weapons Russia as countries as Algeria, Venezuela, Vietnam and Syria, previously held junior positions in the market for buyers of Russian arms, obtained a greater role.
Today 90% of exports of Russian arms exports to 10 major buyers from Southeast Asia and the Middle East while the remaining 10% is distributed among 60 countries to choose Russia for its interest in acquiring weapons at a relatively lower.
addition, the penetration of Russian weapons in Western traditional markets such as Kuwait, UAE, Malaysia, Greece and South Korea allowed to break the traditional image of Russia as an anti-Western arms supplier, ie, trading only with countries with West which refused of trading or were only able to purchase cheap weapons.
So, after 20 an-os Russia completely change their model of export, a system that favored a military-political balance in the Third World to a business that is privileged to deliver products more competitive.
The current balance
Currently, the United States and Russia are the largest exporters of weapons in the world and both are distributed 70% of the market leaving Germany in 3rd place. Traditionally, Americans sold 3 times more weapons than the Russians, a higher cost and it is customary to say that too of better quality. In addition, due to military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, are considered to have the plus it has been tested in real war scenarios.
an Over the past 10-years, the Russian arms exports have grown from 3.7 billion dollars in 2000 to 5.8 in 2004, 2.7 in 2007 and almost 10 billion in 2010. In Russia's arms exports dominated aviation, with 40% of the total volume, including air defense systems. The rest is divided between armaments for land and naval forces.
According to the director general of the state-owned Russian arms sales, Rosoboroneksport, Anatoli Isaykin (bottom), in 2010 Russia to orders for arms sales by 34 billion dollars which allows you to view with optimism the future of Russian arms industry, however, this optimism could fall sharply as the quality of Russian war production has begun to provoke the criticism of a number of foreign countries.
The weakest point of the great success of Russian arms production, aircraft and armored vehicles, are the electronic elements that are far behind the main competitor of Russian weapons, the United States. While in 2010 Russia sold a record of almost 10 billion dollars in various foreign weapons experts say that in 2 to 3 more an-os of the export earnings of the war industry will fall as buyers require new technology of which Russia is currently not available.
According to a recent statement of General Aleksandr Postnikov (previous image), Army Commander of Russian weapons factories developed by Russian weapons for ground forces are lagging behind their counterparts from NATO and even China. Under this principle explains the recent acquisition in France, landing craft and helicopter carrier Mistral . It was also decided to acquire the Italian armored vehicles IVECO (picture below) instead of vehicles and also Russian Tigr sniper rifles for British and Austrian origin while testing with their Russian analogues.
purpose we mention the story with the drones in whose development the Russian Defense Ministry spending 5 000 million rubles (176 million dollars) and finally ended up buying in Israel.
However, not everything seems so bleak since the last time the Russians have made concrete efforts to sell arms not only based on price advantages but also in maintenance and warranties. In the past, Russia lost many opportunities to export for lack of after sales services and spare parts supply. In this sense, the United States looked a lot more advantageous although their weapons were far more expensive. Now the Russians can not only show advantages in price, on average half of their American equivalents, but are also improving their reputation in terms of maintenance. Besides the
Russian warships are selling better and more expensive technology. For a long time its warplanes constituted about 2 / 3 of its military exports, but today constitute about half the warships.
Exports to China
Before the main buyer of Russian weapons was China, which took between 30 and 40% of Russian exports, but today the Chinese have begun to produce most kinds of weapons previously bought from Russia as airplanes, ships, armored ground for it between 2008 and 2010 China has signed no big deal to buy Russian weapons. Moreover, according to the Russians, the Chinese have acted dishonestly in the past an-os copying models Russian military technology and then producing their own versions without paying for the technology used and, even more, looking to export these copies. The Russians are trying to develop license agreements with them but have found positive response from Beijing.
Moreover, the Chinese claim that their generals are very upset with the fact that Russia sold its military technology to potential military enemies China and India, which for the Russians is pointless since they sell arms to India for several decades. Russia fears that the Chinese refuse to buy Russian military technology because they can simply plagiarize what they need. Possibly these are also part of the subterfuge of Chinese seeking thereby achieve more favorable conditions for the purchase of Russian weapons.
However, it is likely that the interest of the Chinese and Russian weapons has its days numbered as it is expected that in the months to Europe to lift the embargo on arms sales to China, which was introduced in 1989 following the events Tiananmen Square. Not only this would help support the euro for the entry of huge amounts of money from China but it definitely would put the tombstone on the arms trade between Russia and China.
The priority for the Chinese in Europe will buy weapons for ground forces, which constitute the main part of the Chinese army, for them a matter of principle never bought in Russia for arming their shooters, artillerymen and tankers with Russian military technology to the Chinese would have been the end of recklessness because the total would end dependence on Moscow spare parts, repairs, etc. The Chinese army aviation and production are barricaded with Russia because Beijing had no other choice because there are many vendors of tanks and self-propelled artillery pieces, however, there are few countries which built fighter planes and big ships. Unable to buy from the Americans or Europeans Chinese were forced to go to the Russian market.
Exports to India
Russia is today the largest exporter of arms to India, a country that is now the largest buyer of weapons in world having acquired between 2006-2010 to 9% of all imports of weapons in the world. Russia delivers 82% of its arms exports to India. The Indians basically acquire aircraft, comprising 71% of their purchases.
And as China will soon be free from the restraints to buy arms in Europe, recently learned that the Americans are preparing to lift sanctions against India's main industries. Now this is more serious than what happens to China because India, unlike Beijing, hitherto the main customer for Russian weaponry. If U.S. sanctions lifted most of the purchases of the Indians will fall into American hands. Russia begins
to acquire weapons in the West
All those shadows that begin to haunt the Russian arms industry also seem to come from within the country first, because the same Western producers are very interested in selling to the Russians, who for almost a whole century considered their enemy, their own weapons and, second, because Russia considers that only 10% of its weapons is global and is planning to spend over 600 billion dollars in the next 10 years to replace an "obsolete military equipment times of the Cold War.
and Russia are heading to the West in search of renewed military equipment since the Russian military industry is capable of producing superior weapons, something that has publicly admitted his own defense minister, and also because the capabilities of the Russian military industry were completely overloaded and will not be able to supply some components for a long time due to excess orders from abroad.
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