From Market Watch:U.S. wars in Middle East lift the world's top military contractors.
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Global spending on military armaments and services hit a record in 2008, driven by the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and helped by sharp increases in Chinese and Russian defense budgets.
For 2008, countries around the world spent $1.5 trillion on weapons, vehicles and intelligence and reconnaissance services, according to a Monday report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, or Sipri. The amount represented a 4% increase from 2007.
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My Comment: The Russian military buildup, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the civil war in Pakistan, African wars, Latin American insurrections, the Mexican Drug Cartel wars, the arms buildup that will now occur in Asia because of the Chinese military buildup and the North Korean missile and nuclear tests .... sigh .... 2009 is going to be a banner year for the arms trade.