Russian and US Arms Exports - A Very general Overview

This particular post is just a bit of motivation for me.  I am doing a little exploratory work for my dissertation, but I am also working on learning how to use R for statistical analysis/graphing.  This is the result of my afternoon and evening.  The data come from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

These graphs show the total arms exports from both the US and Russia (USSR before 1991).  There are two things that stand out from this simple visualization: 1) arms transfers are a cyclical process at the macro level, and 2) Russian arms exports dropped off much more quickly than the U.S., but are now rebounding along with the U.S.