title: Understanding US foreign military sales globally since 2008: an analysis of a new dataset
abstract: This paper introduces a new and unique dataset of all United States Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme notifications from 2008 to September 2025. The dataset covers purchasing countries, specific equipment involved (and quantities when available), financial values, contractors associated with each notification, and associated equipment and services bundled with the main equipment sold. We introduce the main instruments used by the US to transfer military equipment abroad and provide an overv