American Apples Outsell North Korean Oranges Five To One

The skirmish between the two Koreas begs for a glance at the peninsular arms trade.

North Korea’s conventional weapons and missile exports are believed to total $100 million a year, approximately two-thirds of which go unreported anywhere, according to a recent United Nations report. This is pretty miraculous, considering the strict sanctions facing the North.

Weapons are North Korea’s business. Indeed, “arms exports have become one of the country’s principal sources for obtaining foreign exchange,” as the UN’s experts write in the report (pdf).

Who’s buying? Anyone who, for whatever reason, can’t buy American. See the chart below:

Specifics are more tricky. As the UN report dryly notes, North Korea “withholds statistical information concerning its arms exports and few recipient countries report such imports.” (You could say that all statistics pertaining to North Korea are 90 percent guesswork.)

Nevertheless, the sheer scope of its illicit arms trade reveals the hypocrisy of North Korea’s anti-imperialist ranting. To wit:

Pyongyang, November 18 (KCNA) — Ever since the emergence of the present administration the United States has drastically increased military spending, sparked off a new arms race, built military bases in different parts of the world, demonstrated its huge armed forces and staged military exercises there, creating the danger of war…

However, all effective propaganda contains a grain of truth—and so it is with this high-strung hyperbole from North Korea. While Obama has not “drastically increased military spending,” the US has always been a bigger player in the arms trade than North Korea or its patron, China.

The table at the bottom of this post tallies US arms deliveries to South Korea since 1950, the year that marked the start of the Korean War.[visitor]

HELP RESEARCH ARMS DEALERS. ACCESS MORE OF THIS SITE. BANISH THESE BANNERS.

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It shows that annual US arms deliveries to South Korea alone come to several times the value of North Korea’s estimated arms exports to the rest of the world.

That mismatch holds true even before figuring in the cost of the 28,000 or camo-clad Americans stationed in the South (about 1,500 of whom met President Obama at Osan Air Base this time last year, hence the photo above.)

These numbers are surely at the back of Kim Jong-Il’s mind whenever he approves a strike such as today’s.

Year Total arms deliveries

1950-1969

$2,429,000

1970

$1,904,000

1971

$407,000

1972

$370,000

1973

$2,378,000

1974

$13,278,000

1975

$68,504,000

1976

$159,152,000

1977

$169,272,000

1978

$382,250,000

1979

$344,512,000

1980

$291,144,000

1981

$289,868,000

1982

$214,422,000

1983

$297,074,000

1984

$246,463,000

1985

$258,994,000

1986

$336,270,000

1987

$344,134,000

1988

$325,570,000

1989

$315,645,000

1990

$326,655,000

1991

$226,812,000

1992

$308,932,000

1993

$302,845,000

1994

$382,720,000

1995

$452,842,000

1996

$339,844,000

1997

$509,180,000

1998

$883,566,000

1999

$584,733,000

2000

$1,399,110,000

2001

$735,300,000

2002

$533,378,000

2003

$560,079,000

2004

$600,782,000

2005

$590,944,000

2006

$598,579,000

2007

$730,798,000

2008

$797,268,000

2009

$478,550,000

TOTAL

$15,406,958,000

Source: US Department of Defense