Robert McLaughlin/Shutterstock.com

Arms Sales Are Down for the First Time in Decades

Top 100 arms manufacturers worldwide saw a 5 percent decline in sales in 2011.

The world's largest weapons manufacturers just saw the first decline in sales since the mid-1990s. Collectively, the top 100 arms manufacturers in the world saw $410 billion in sales in 2011, a five percent decline from the year before.

"Austerity policies and proposed and actual decreases in military expenditure as well as postponements in weapons programme procurement affected overall arms sales in North America and Western Europe," reported the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), a think tank that just released a report on global arms sales.

Read the full article at The Atlantic Wire.

(Image via Robert McLaughlin/Shutterstock.com)