US Arms Manufacturing and Exports

[ghost]

"US Arms Manufacturing and Export" "The Arms Business: USA Inc." "Trading in Conflict"

Data here: https://www.sipri.org/databases

I'd like to look at US Arms manufacturing over time-- and compare that to exports, maybe some analysis of how it compares to overall GDP, the rest of the world, etc. Is it true that "the business of the US government is manufacturing arms at home and selling them abroad"?

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[mercye]

This is such an interesting question. It will be cool to see what you find/what the trends are. Good job on finding this data!!

I feel like pie charts lend themselves to the question of how much of all exports are arms, or what percentage of GDP arms account for. I am excited to see what you do with this/how you decide to visualize the data.

[gcgruen]

I'm curious what you'll find. Some thoughts on directions: Couple of years ago there was kind of a scandal for finding German manufactured weapons in countries where Germany is not allowed to send weapons to. Maybe there's a similar embargo for US weapon producers? Then a timeline could show how exports to these countries have dropped upon that embargo and thereby providing context for the timeline.

Another thought: I feel we have seen a lot of comparisons to GDP, that's why I would argue for comparing it to something else (as well) -- for example spending on peace (in terms of development aid) or spendings on education!