Record / E-2026-0026
SIPRI records four states as major arms suppliers to the principals in the Iran war
In a topical backgrounder published March 18, 2026, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reported that the United States accounted for 68 percent of Israel's major arms imports in 2021 to 2025, followed by Germany at 31 percent and Italy at 1.3 percent, and that Russia is the only state to have supplied major arms to Iran in the past decade. SIPRI also reported that Iran accounted for 0.2 percent of regional arms imports in 2021 to 2025 and less than 0.05 percent of global arms imports, and that about 94 percent of arms imported by states in the region came from the United States, at 54 percent, or from European suppliers, with China at 0.3 percent. Counting suppliers of major arms to both principals gives four states.
Context
This entry exists because a widely repeated claim that 17 countries were trading missiles or drones in this conflict has no named, linkable source enumerating them, and the most authoritative accessible source points the other way. The limits of that source must be stated with it: SIPRI's Arms Transfers Database counts major conventional arms only, was last updated March 9, 2026 with data through 2025, and generally does not count man-portable air defence systems, loitering munitions, or components. It therefore refutes a large supplier count for major arms without being a complete enumeration of everything moved during the war, and several reported 2026 transfers remain outside it. Separately reported transfers that rest on single anonymous-sourced accounts are not recorded as facts by this site.
Sources
The document identifier is the citation. The URL is a resolution mechanism, and the archived copy is what the citation resolves to when the live link dies.
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The role of imported arms in the Iran war: a question and answer with Zain Hussain and Pieter Wezeman, SIPRI
SIPRI Topical Backgrounder, March 18, 2026