Global arms sales: Where they are rising most and why

Global arms sales grew again last year - for the seventh year in a row. That's according to SIPRI, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Its annual report for 2021 says weapons sales were up despite supply chain challenges amid the pandemic.
Sales by the top 100 companies in the industry reached 592 billion dollars. That's an increase of 1.9% on the previous year.
US companies again dominated the list, with nearly 300 billion dollars of arms sales. But that was a drop of almost 1% on 2020, blamed mainly on inflation.
China meanwhile boosted its arm sales by more than 6% to 109 billion dollars. Four Chinese companies are ranked in the top 10.
And then there's Russia, whose sales rose to 17.8 billion dollars. But that was only up 0.4% on 2020. Of course, that was before it invaded Ukraine. Experts expect the war to add to supply chain woes for the arms industry.