When it comes to spending on its military, the United States is such an outlier, that its aggregate amount of monies so allocated to defense spending is more than the next ten highest defense spending countries, combined. Further to the point, the United States, as reported by the Stockholm International Peace Research, “…accounted for nearly 40 percent of military expenditures by countries around the world in 2022.” So then, in recognition that those that rob banks, do so, because that is where the money is at; this thus makes the extensive inventory of United States military armaments an especially desirable target. After all, when it comes to revolutionaries of all types, paramilitary units, international illicit drug dealers, and just about any enterprise that understands the value of having weapons, America has a very wide breadth of what these entities so desire and need.
Let’s face it, when it comes to revolutions, one of the very first tasks, so done, if not the very first, by those contemplating a revolutionary action, is to take control of the most strategically important armories, because those that have the weapons, obviously have an initial huge advantage over those that have lost such. It is then quite disappointing to read, as reported by apnews.com, that “…at least 1,900 United States military firearms were lost or stolen during the 2010s.” Undoubtedly, this is a massive undercount of military firearms so lost or stolen – because with the billions upon billions of dollars so being spent upon our military weapons, we can certainly count on the number of weapons having been lost or stolen, being considerably higher than that. Additionally, America has a really bad habit of leaving behind its weaponry in countries that they have had engagements with, when they decide to hurriedly withdraw their forces, so of. Also, there are those times when America arms a particular side of an insurgency, only to find at a later period of time, that America and that insurgency are no longer on the same side.
The reality of the matter is that armaments cost a whole lot of money and because of their considerable value and vital worth, are going to be in high demand by those that are needing such, in which, therefore, those organizations or personnel that a have an itch for money or actually believe in a particular cause are going to be agreeable to making an underhanded deal, which will thus benefit both parties to it. Further to the point, revolutions and insurrections have a fundamental need for weapons of all sorts, and aren’t going to waste their time with those nations that don’t have the capacity or the caliber of the weaponry that they are so seeking. Additionally, there is only one superpower in the world, of which that superpower, has military bases, all over the world, numbering in the range of 800 or so – and the logistics of getting weaponry and armaments to all of those foreign bases is going to lend itself to all sorts of opportunities for those that are ambitious to make a deal to obtain a subset of those armaments.
In short, when we look at all the video of warfare throughout the world, and are suitably impressed by the massive firepower so displayed by these paramilitary or revolutionary groups – know that, in many a case, what they so have and handle, is proudly made in America.