July 4, 2014: The Cold War is returning in more ways than one. For example, the U.S. and Russia again dominate the arms exporting business and the two of them account for nearly sixty percent of weapons exports. While both nations compete for some of the same customers, each nation has areas where they do much of their business without serious competition. India and China account for half the Russian exports. The Arab Gulf States account for 45 percent of American export business.

At the moment Russia is more vulnerable as 38 percent of all their arms exports go to one customer; India. That would not be so bad except for the fact that India has been growing more and more dissatisfied with Russian exports and the Russian way of doing business. Moreover Russia used to export a lot more to China but China has simply been copying Russian designs (often without any acknowledgement or licensing fees) and making more and more of its new weapons in China. Russia protests, China blows smoke and not only does Russia lose more export sales but finds Chinese copies of its weapons being offered to the same customers Russia sells to. The Chinese offer lower prices.