Structure and Dynamic in Weapons Spread: The Trade and Proliferation of Weapons in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

Understandings of SALW flows to conflict protagonists suffer from a lack of a sense of structure or dynamic. SALW are portrayed as easily available to any and all actors, nefarious or legitimate, the spread of these weapons appears particularly complex but banal, and not so much uncontrolled as uncontrollable. This chapter begins by stepping back. It examines the ways in which the spread of different types of weapons has been portrayed and understood. It discerns the types of structures and dynamics of spread that different images give primacy to, and then examines how those structures are constructed and how they shape the spread of weapons (and are created by them). In so doing it discerns key distinctions in the nature of the spread of different types of weapons, such as the existence and strength of barriers to acquisition by non-state actors.