Data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on international arms transfers to Israel, Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Yemen and Palestine. What does the data on the quantity and origin of transfers show?
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Examining data on arms transfers to the Middle East from 2010 (the end of the Arab Spring) to 2023, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Iraq are, in that order, the states in the region that have received the most arms transfers. However, if we focus on Israel, Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Yemen, and Palestine, which have been at war for the past two years, and attempt a comparative analysis between them, we find that most of the arms transfers over the past 14 years have gone to Israel.
The SIPRI Database
This is the data contained in the Arms Transfers Database of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the independent research institute specializing in research on conflict, arms, arms control and disarmament. These transfers include the acquisition of major conventional weapons (such as aircraft, armored vehicles, artillery, air defense systems, ships, and others) for military use through sales, donations, production licenses, and, under certain conditions, loans or leases.
As stated on its website, SIPRI relies on open primary sources for compiling and updating the database, including the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms (UN Register), national reports on arms exports and imports, defense budget documents and parliamentary records, press releases and annual reports of arms manufacturers, newspapers, television broadcasts, and magazines specializing in military affairs.
In order to enable the comparison of these data, for the different weapons delivered, and in order to be able to identify general trends, SIPRI has developed, as it explains in its published methodological note “a unique system to measure the volume of international transfers of major conventional weapons using a common unit, the trend-indicator value (TIV).” This value (SIPRI TIV) is based on the production cost of a core set of weapons and, if this is not known, the core weapons in question are compared with others, taking into account criteria such as size, performance characteristics, year of production and others. In other words, it should not be confused with economic figures of purchases and sales, as it is intended to represent the transfer of military resources, not the sales values, the financial value, or the economic burdens and benefits of imports/exports.
US and Germany arm Israel
Ahead of the annual update of the database with data for the year 2024, expected to take place on March 10, 2025, iMEdD analyzed the available delivery data over the last 14 years for the six conflict zones in the Middle East: from 2010 to 2023, Israel has received arms worth an estimated 6.3 billion euros SIPRI TIV, with the main suppliers being the USA, Germany and Italy.
With the United States having delivered weapons to Israel with an estimated cumulative value of 4.2 billion SIPRI TIV, Germany to have transferred arms worth a total of 1.9 billion SIPRI TIV and Italy around 282 million SIPRI TIV, the three countries have participated in Israel’s armaments by 66.1%, 29.4% and 4.5% respectively. In this context, the fact that the SIPRI figures refer to total arms transfers, including the above-mentioned donations, is of particular importance: given the fact that, unlike other countries in the region, Israel receives a large part of its equipment in the form of military aid, mainly from the US, the estimated value of these transfers does not imply a proportional cost for Israel.
From 2010 to 2012, Canada also participated in arms transfers to Israel, with aircraft engines –the cumulative value of these transfers amounts to 6 million SIPRI TIV, accounting for just 0.1% of the total.
Since 2010, airplanes have accounted for the largest share of total transfers to Israel
A further analysis of the total transfers to Israel under consideration shows that the largest part of them are aircraft, with an estimated cumulative value of almost 3 billion SIPRI TIV, coming mainly from the USA (2.7 billion SIPRI TIV) and Italy (271 million SIPRI TIV).
These are followed by ship deliveries, with an estimated cumulative value of 1.37 billion, coming mainly from Germany (1.3 billion SIPRI TIV) and secondarily from the USA (40 million SIPRI TIV). Specifically, the significantly larger transfers of equipment from Germany are recorded in 2014 and 2015, when a total of two Dolphin II submarines were delivered to Israel, and in 2022 and 2023, when a total of four German MEKO frigates appear to have been delivered, two per year, following an order in 2015.
Missiles and armored vehicles are also important transfers to Israel, with a cumulative value of around 897 million and 604 million SIPRI TIV respectively. The missiles are also transported from the US and Germany, with the value of these transfers per country estimated at around 643 million and 254 million SIPRI TIV respectively −these transfers include guided bombs and missiles, as well as anti-ship torpedoes and anti-tank missiles.
The deliveries of armored vehicles included in the SIPRI database for the study period are exclusively from the USA. Engines, artillery weapons, air defense systems, sensors and naval weapons are some of the categories of arms that complement the transfers to Israel.
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Air defense systems and missiles in Assad’s Syria
In terms of total arms transfers to the six study recipients over the 14 years of the analysis, Israel is followed by the Assad regime’s Syria, which has received arms with an estimated cumulative value of almost 2.4 billion SIPRI TIV, mainly from Russia (worth 2.1 billion SIPRI TIV) and secondarily from Iran (243 million SIPRI TIV) and China (20 million SIPRI TIV). Air defense systems (worth 1.3 billion SIPRI TIV) and missiles are the main armaments for Syria.
Iran, Lebanon and Yemen follow in the ranking of the countries under study, based on the estimated cumulative value of their arms supplies, estimated at 716 million, 487 million and 430 million SIPRI TIV respectively. In the case of Yemen, which has been in civil war for ten years, this number of transfers does not include equipment to the Houthis and refers to transfers reportedly delivered to the state between 2010 and 2022 –with these transfers decreasing, especially after 2015. The Palestinian Authority appears to have received the significantly fewer transfers, amounting to 9.2 million SIPRI TIV, exclusively for armored vehicles, coming from Russia and Jordan.
Iran arms Houthis – Turkey and UAE arm Syrian rebels
In addition to data on state arms transfers, the database also includes information on conventional arms transfers to non-state actors in the region: for example, the Houthis in Yemen appear to have received SAM and SSM missiles, including anti-ship missiles, from Iran in 2017, 2022, and 2023, with an estimated cumulative value of 39.2 million SIPRI TIV, following orders reportedly made in 2015 and, most importantly, in 2021. Also SSM missiles, with a total value of 30 million SIPRI TIV, appear to have been received by the Lebanese Hezbollah from Syria in 2010, but in this case no information is available for the following years.
At the same time, the Syrian rebels seem to have received, from unknown, undocumented suppliers, missiles with a cumulative value of 2 million SIPRI TIV, as well as armored vehicles from Turkey (1.8 million SIPRI TIV), the UAE (900 thousand SIPRI TIV) and the USA (300 thousand SIPRI TIV). These arms transfers, the cumulative value of which is estimated to be around 5 million SIPRI TIV, appear to have been made in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2017 and 2019.
US arms also in Lebanon on an annual basis
However, a focus on conventional arms transfers to the six zones per year reveals, among other things, a fact that, while valid over time, may surprise many: in addition to billions of dollars in transfers to Israel, the US has also equipped the Lebanese army (mainly with missiles, but also with armored vehicles, artillery, aircraft, and ships), with an estimated cumulative value of transfers over these 14 years of 360.6 million SIPRI TIV and an annual average of 28 million SIPRI TIV.
Thus, the figures show that the US is trying to strengthen the Lebanese army and make it more effective. This would allow the army to regain its monopoly on violence in Lebanon while disarming Hezbollah.
Translation: Evita Lykou
Read all articles and analyses of the Special Report: “Armories of the Middle East” here.
This article was first published on Feb. 22 by the weekend edition of the newspaper “TA NEA”.
