ABSTRACT
Without any doubt the Southeast Asian region, in particular the ASEAN countries, has become the fastest growing arms market in the world. What is true of the ASEAN market is also generally true of the Asia/Pacific countries. For 1985–92, Indonesia was the only ASEAN member whose defence expenditure dropped (by 2.2 per cent). In the rest of the Asia/Pacific region, only Australia (−1.1 per cent), New Zealand (−6.0 per cent) and Vietnam (−0.4 per cent) showed a decline in defence spending over the past five years. 1
