About eight hundred combat planes and helicopters: Europe doubles its armament imports. In the last five years it has been observed that in the countries of the Old Continent, taken as a whole, the incoming flow has recorded a +94%. It emerges from the annual report of the Ispri (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute), which investigated global trade flows in the defense sector for the period 2019-2023.

The record growth in arms exports, however, belongs above all to Italy which recorded +86% in 2019-2023, followed by France which recorded +47%. Rome therefore rises to sixth place in the world ranking among exporting countries: its market share is 4.3% (previously it was 2.2%) and its main customers include Qatar, Egypt and Kuwait.

The main arms exporting states are confirmed to be the USA, France, Russia, China and Germany. Generally speaking, Washington increased exports by 17%, while Moscow's exports fell by -53% also due to the economic sanctions imposed by the West due to the Russian military invasion in Ukraine.

The countries that increased imports the most were Japan (+155%) and the Philippines (+105%). In fact, there is an ever-increasing flow of armaments directed towards the East: overall +37% in the last five years. They are mainly destined for Asian and Oceanic Nations (India, Pakistan, Japan, Australia, South Korea, China), so much so that the Indo-Pacific remains the area with the highest volume of imports.