This essay discusses the rise and fall of the arms industry in Latin America, which stepped into the limelight of international arms market as new “merchants of death” during the height of Middle East conflicts in the early 1980s, taking Brazil and Argentina as major examples. It consists of three sections: arms trade and production in Latin America: the formation and the characteristics of Latin American arms industry; and causes of the decline of arms industry in Brazil and Argentina.
In the early 1980s, Brazil became the fifth largest exporter of arms in the world and first in the Third World surpassing Israel. From the end of 1980s, however, arms industry in Latin America experiences a rapid decline. Today, Brazil is no longer included in the list of major exporters of arms.
For Latin American arms industry, the sharp drop in arms demand particularly in the Middle East meant the loss of their major market. Latin American producers, which was considered as “niche manufacturers” based on intermediate technology, has gradually lost competitiveness against the arms release of major suppliers after the end of Cold War. In this essay, the author also emphasizes the endogenous factors as a major cause of their decline.
Two important factors that contributed to the growth of Brazilian and Argentine arms industry were the long-term military regime and the industrial development policies under the “National Security and Development Doctrine” adhered to by the militaries.
In Brazil and Argentina the influential power of the military has declined to the point where we can refer to it as the “end of militarism.” While democratization in those countries removed the military from the first line of politics, military spending was drastically curtailed as a result of the shrinking budget, and the continuing liberalization of the economy is now shaking the basis of domestic production of arms.
The collaboration among the members of the Organization of American States (OAS) to maintain democratic governments as well as efforts such as Mercosur (the Common Market in the Southern Cone) to unify the regional economies has reduced the hostility among countries in Latin America. Even the developments of nuclear weapons, which were the stronghold of nationalistic hard-liners in the militaries, have been restrained as Brazil and Argentina recently ratified The Tlatelolco Treaty (Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America).
Arms industry in Latin America has now entered an era of survival in which only firms who can increase sales to the private sector can survive. Thus the movement of arms from the region will most likely be liminted in the future.

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