The United Kingdom and the European Union and their post-brexit trade in heavy conventional weapons

Abstract

The United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union in early 2020 brought new changes and challenges concerning also the heavy conventional weapons trade. Both the UK and the EU now have an opportunity to strengthen their position in the global conventional arms trade and revise territorial structures of their defence industries. The author attempts to analyse the positions of the United Kingdom and the European Union in the global heavy conventional arms trade over the past five years and to outline their future prospects after Brexit. The main source of the paper comes from quantitative data available in world databases monitoring conventional arms transfers as well as the UK’s new defence strategy.