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UNITED NATIONS (IPS) - The 21-month long pandemic ravaged thousands of businesses and industries, but one of the few industries that survived and prospered was the multi-billion-dollar global arms industry led by the US.A new report released December 6 by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) says sales of arms and military services by the industry's 100 largest companies totalled a staggering US$531 billion in 2020 - an increase of 1.3 per cent in real terms compared with the previous year.The arms sales of the top 100 arms companies in 2020 were 17 per cent higher than in 2015 - the first year for which SIPRI included data on Chinese firms. This marked the sixth consecutive year of growth in arms sales by the top 100.Arms sales increased even as the global economy contracted by 3.1 per cent during the first year of the pandemic.According to SIPRI, the US once again hosted the highest number of companies ranked in the top 100.Together, the arms sales of the 41 US companies amounted to US$285 billion - an increase of 1.9 per cent compared with 2019 - and accounted for 54 per cent of the top 100's total arms sales.Since 2018, the top five companies in the ranking have all been based in the US."The [US] industry giants were largely shielded by sustained government demand for military goods and services," said Alexandra Marksteiner, researcher with the SIPRI Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme."In much of the world, military spending grew and some governments even accelerated payments to the arms industry in order to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 crisis."Nevertheless, said SIPRI, operating in the military market did not guarantee immunity to the effects of the pandemic.French arms manufacturer Thales, for example, ascribed a drop in arms sales of 5.8 per cent to lockdown-induced disruptions in the spring of 2020. Some companies also reported supply chain disruptions and delayed deliveries.Meanwhile, even as the more deadly Omicron virus threatens another lockdown, the Associated Press ( AP) reported December 3 of a multi-billion-euro French deal to sell fighter planes and combat helicopters to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) "aiming to boost military cooperation with its top ally in the Persian Gulf amid their shared concerns about Iran".The UAE has agreed to buy 80 upgraded Rafale warplanes in a deal the French Defense Ministry said is worth a whopping 16 billion euros (US$18 billion) and represents the largest-ever French weapons contract for export.The UAE contracts were signed as French President Emmanuel Macron visited the country on the first stop of a two-day visit to the Persian Gulf.Dr Natalie Goldring, a visiting professor of the practice in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, told IPS, "Although these data are for 2020, there is little evidence that the [Joe] Biden administration is changing these patterns. On the campaign trail, for example, candidate Biden said that his Administration would take seriously Saudi Arabia's consistent pattern of human rights abuses."But in reality, said Dr Goldring, the Biden administration continues to ignore these abuses and proposes to transfer weapons that will allow Saudi Arabia to perpetuate its systematic patterns of abuse. The Biden Administration has also labelled proposed arms sales as defensive in nature even when the weapons have both defensive and offensive capabilities."The US and other arms suppliers have an opportunity to learn from the COVID pandemic, re-evaluate priorities, and reallocate resources to human needs. We can't afford business as usual," she declared.