Word: aircraft
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Italy's arms exports, totaling $240 million last year, include helicopters for Iran (built under license from the U.S.), frigates for Peru, tanks for Pakistan and counterinsurgency aircraft for Zambia and South Africa. James Bond's favorite pistol, the snub-nosed .25-mm. Beretta, is still sold all over the world. La Spezia's Oto Melara company has tested a high-speed missile-launching hydrofoil designed to protect narrow bodies of water. Italian arms appeal to nonaligned nations since Rome attaches no political strings to sales...
...armaments-manufacturing industries expands. The world's arms supply will swell even more, as thousands of tanks and aircraft become surplus when NATO and the Warsaw Pact introduce a new generation of weapons for their forces. Even South Viet Nam has reportedly begun to dispose of weapons that were left behind by the American troops...
Such competition can be costly. Naive, unsophisticated military men have often purchased equipment ill-suited to their nations' needs. "The arsenals of many developing nations," notes General J.N. Chaudhuri, former chief of staff of India's army, "have tanks too heavy for the local bridges, aircraft without enough pilots and warships that cannot...
Foreign policy and strategy aside, for many nations arms exports have been a useful means of keeping their defense industries alive. The increased volume provided by sales abroad improves production efficiency and helps amortize research and development costs. Without its large export market, for instance, France's Dassault-Breguet aircraft company would probably be unable to produce Mirages at a price that the French air force could afford...
...attempts at arms control have succeeded. The Antarctic is a "weapons-free zone," and NATO and Japan for the past quarter-century have voluntarily refrained from exporting strategic goods to Communist-bloc nations. The U.S. imposes elaborate restrictions on the sale of the shoulder-fired Redeye anti aircraft missile because it could be disastrous if the easy-to-use weapon fell into the hands of terrorists, who could then fire it at civilian airliners...