Arms Proliferation Research Articles

Kalashnikov culture: small arms proliferation and irregular warfare

Introduction Chapter 1 - KALASHNIKOV ENCULTURATION Chapter 2 - KALASHNIKOV IN THE CULTURE : THE ROLE OF THE GUN Chapter 3 - KALASHNIKOV TRAFFIC: TRADING ARMS Chapter 4 - KALASHNIKOV COMMERCE: THE AK AS ECONOMIC INSTRUMENT Chapter 5 - PAKISTAN : THE PROTOTYPICAL KALASHNIKOV CULTURE Chapter 6 - PASTORAL WARRIORS : CATTLE RAIDERS OF EAST AFRICA Chapter 7 - GANGSTA WARRIORS Chapter 8 - A TRADITION OF ARMS : YEMEN Chapter 9 - KALASHNIKOV ISLANDS Chapter 10 - KALASHNIKOV COUNTERCULTURE: CONTROL AND DISARMAMENT Chapter 11 - KALASHNIKOV FUTURE Bibliography

Developing indicators for evaluating the national implementation of regional law on arms in Africa

The spread of arms and the resulting armed violence undermine good governance in Africa more than in any other continent. The Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Eastern African states, and the Economic Community of Western Africa States (ECOWAS) are advancing towards a regional approach to tackling the scourge of small arms proliferation and have enacted legally binding instruments in this regard. The main reason for the subregional approach is that Africa is the worst-hit region in the world by unrestrained arms availability. This has devastating consequences that imperil human security and threaten the continent's achievement of development goals.

Connecting the Dots: Nuclear Arms Control and Proliferation After Bush and Putin

Russia and the United States have opportunities for significant accomplishments in nuclear arms control during the denouement of the George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin Presidencies and in the early stages of the new American and Russian administrations. Both states should establish momentum that carries forward toward meaningful post-START and post-SORT strategic nuclear arms reductions. In addition, those reductions should provide a basis for Russian and American leadership in supporting the nuclear nonproliferation regime, including the rollback of North Korea's nascent nuclear capability and the prevention of Iran's nuclear weaponization. The costs of failure in either of these endeavors, let alone both, should be unacceptable to Russian, U.S. and allied NATO leaders.

Regulating Rifles: International Control of the Small Arms Trade

Small arms kill many more people than any other weapon. They are the weapons of choice in the vast majority of contemporary conflicts and are often used in crime and terrorism. In stark contrast to the devastating consequences of small arms proliferation, the international regulatory framework for the trade in small arms, established in 2001, is a weak non-legally binding instrument. To explain this puzzling discrepancy, I develop a theoretical model of government preferences on international regulation. The model offers several innovations over conventional models of trade policy, including the introduction of negative externalities, rather than protection, as the motivation for trade restrictions, and the incorporation of value-based humanitarian concerns. I operationalize the model with respect to small arms and test it empirically through an original survey of national views on the regulation of the small arms trade. The survey - based on interviewing officials from 118 countries - provides strong support for my theoretical predictions. Governments backing small arms exporters, especially those which are state-owned, favor weak international regulation of small arms. Nondemocratic governments, concerned that international controls might impede their access to arms, prefer weak international regulation as well. By contrast, governments facing high rates of gun violence and governments with humanitarian foreign policy concerns support strong regulation. The survey also reveals cross-regional variation. Africa, Latin America, and Europe support the international regulation of small arms; the Middle East as well as East and South Asia are less supportive of regulation. International control of small arms is, in fact, part of a broader phenomenon of international regulation, which the literature has overlooked. Beyond small arms, the theoretical framework developed in the paper can illuminate the political conflict over other internationally regulated goods, such as drugs and antiquities.

Oil, arms proliferation and conflict inthe Niger Delta of Nigeria

One of the biggest security challenges facing African states in the 1990s is the proliferation of small arms and light weapons. This development calls for serious attention from states and regional organisations as it has increased tension, and escalated as well as prolonged intra-state conflicts that have characterised Africa in the post-Cold War era. In Nigeria, the trade in small arms and light weapons has fuelled ethnic clashes in the Niger Delta, especially between the Ijaws and their immediate neighbours, the Itsekiri and Urhobos, as events in Warri have shown in recent times. This relatively novel situation aggravates the security problem in the Niger Delta, as the state struggles to address the perennial conflict in the oil-rich region. Given this background, the paper explores the origin of the present oil violence in the Niger Delta and how it has been intensified through the use of weapons that are primarily smuggled from Guinea-Bissau, Gabon and Cameroon. The paper concludes by making some suggestions as policy options for the resolution of the armed conflict in the Niger Delta, with specific reference to the problems of arms proliferation.

Strategic Ambiguity and Arms Proliferation

A big power is facing a small power that may have developed WMDs. The small power can create strategic ambiguity by not allowing arms inspections. We study the impact of strategic ambiguity on arms proliferation and the probability of conflict. Creating strategic ambiguity is a substitute for actually acquiring new weapons: ambiguity reduces the incentive for the small power to invest in a weapons program, which reduces the risk of arms proliferation. Therefore, strategic ambiguity tends to benefit the big power. On the other hand, strategic ambiguity may hurt the small power because it does not always protect it from an attack. Cheap-talk messages can be used to trigger inspections when they are most valuable to the big power. To preserve incentive compatibility, the “tough” messages which make inspections more likely must imply a greater risk of arms proliferation.

How to Spend $50 Billion to Make the World a Better Place

Edited by BjA¸rn Lomborg, this abridged version of the highly acclaimed Global Crises, Global Solutions provides a serious yet accessible springboard for debate and discussion on the world's most serious problems, and what we can do to solve them. In a world fraught with problems and challenges, we need to gauge how to achieve the greatest good with our money. This unique book provides a rich set of dialogs examining ten of the most serious challenges facing the world today: climate change, the spread of communicable diseases, conflicts and arms proliferation, access to education, financial instability, governance and corruption, malnutrition and hunger, migration, sanitation and access to clean water, and subsidies and trade barriers. Each problem is introduced by a world-renowned expert who defines the scale of the issue and examines a range of policy options.

Peace for Kashmir: A Worldview, Psychological Intervention

This paper reviews the current situation in Kashmir, the historical roots of the conflict and considers the possibilities for peace in the region. Given the nuclear arms proliferation in the region, war can have devastating outcomes not just for the people in the region but also for the people and the ecology of our planet. It is imperative that a peaceful solution to the crisis in the region is sought. Further, the situation in Kashmir must be resolved from a human rights perspective and the people of Kashmir must be assisted in achieving peace and safety in their own homeland. It is noted that counselors and psychologists can play a role in bringing about peace using worldview research, and Carl Rogers’ model of conflict resolution.

Arms Control, Proliferation and Terrorism: The Bush Administration's Post-September 11 Security Strategy

The current Bush Administration considers ‘outlaw regimes’ and their terrorist clients acquiring weapons of mass destruction (WMD) the gravest danger to international security. Thus, arms control, proliferation and terrorism are inextricably linked. The administration also believes that arms control and non-proliferation, as traditionally practiced, do not provide effective tools for preventing WMD spread. As evidenced in Iraq, Washington subscribes to an interventionist policy of rolling back WMD programs it considers threatening. This article examines the logic that underpins US arms control and proliferation thinking and considers the implications of US policy for relations with other states deemed to be proliferation risks.

Response

David Kopel and I obviously view small arms proliferation from different perspectives, and his article distorts my previous commentary for the SAIS Review.

Privatization of Security, Arms Proliferation and the Process of State Collapse in Africa

Most so–called ‘collapsed states’ in Africa are extreme cases of the complex and contradictory processes of state–making and unmaking which are unfolding in the continent. Beneath the veneer of sovereignty, virtually all these nations started their independent existence in the 1960s as shell states. Since then, they have either followed the path of self–destruction (state collapse) or have sought to fill the shell with institutional content (state–making). Private military intervention is one of the key external factors undermining the state–building project. Whether in its traditional ‘soldier of fortune’ form, or in its current corporate cloak, the privatization of security injects an inflammatory element into the governance process in weak states. Since independence, the populations of Africa have been subjected to structural violence that has highlighted force and de–emphasized human security as the cornerstone of governance. Civil society reactions to this have become more pronounced since the end of the Cold War, and have led to negative reconfiguration in weak states that are least equipped to manage the new challenges. The privatization of security impedes efforts to fashion accountable governance, and entrenches the culture of violence. Private military companies, their partner arms brokers and local warlords are the principal actors in illegitimate resource appropriation — a major cause of ongoing asymmetric warfare in Africa — and the proliferation of weapons — an incendiary element in these wars.

UNDER THE GUN

Children on the African continent have suffered immensely from the proliferation and misuse of small arms, including death, injury, displacement, separation from families, loss of access to health, humanitarian and educational services, and lack of economic opportunities. Further, over 300,000 children serve as child soldiers, relying on small arms as their tools of war. The international community has worked to establish protections for children for over 50 years, yet children continue to suffer. The recent UN Special Session on Children adopted ‘A world fit for children’, which, in combination with the Programme of Action agreed upon at the July 2001 UN Conference on Small Arms, begins to address a comprehensive approach to eliminating the negative impacts of small arms proliferation on children in conflict.

La dimensión transestatal de la seguridad: el papel de la movilización social contra la proliferación de la delincuencia armada en el Cono Sur

Based upon the definition of security community and its application to the Common Market of the South, Mercosur, the author examines the subregion's capacity for responding to current threats to its security, emerging primarily from dynamics that transcend the state and musí thus be counteracted by collective efforts involving both the state and civil society.The article explores the historical record of Mercosur with the goal of illustrating that integration processes are not exempt from security problems; in fact, the subregión is threatened by arms proliferation and common violence. As a result, civil society has adopted a diverse series of actions that constitute an important example of collective action and that,as in the case of the threats mentioned, may become transnationalized, successfully reproducing themselves in other parts of the región.

Mercenaries: An African Security Dilemma

This powerful book critiques mercenary involvement in post-Cold War African conflicts. The contributors investigate the links between the rise in internal conflicts and the proliferation of mercenary activities in the 1990s; the distinction in the methods adopted by Cold War mercenaries and their contemporary counterparts; the convoluted network between private armies; business interests and sustained poverty in Africa's poorest countries; and the connection between mercenary activities and arms proliferation. Countries discussed include Sierra Leone, Zaire, Angola, Uganda and Congo.

China and the Middle East: The Quest for Influence

Introduction - P R Kumaraswamy China and Israel - P R Kumaraswamy Normalization and After Chinese-Palestinian Relations - William W Haddad and Mary Foeldi-Hardy China and Iraq - John Calabrese A Stake in Stability Sino-Turkish Relations - Mehmet Ogutcu Preparing for the Next Century Sino-Pakistan Relations and the Middle East - Samina Yasmeen China's Middle East Strategy - Barry Rubin Chinese Arms Exports to Iran - Bates Gill Chinese Policies on Arms Control and Proliferation in the Middle East - Gerald Steinberg China and Proliferation - Ashok Kapur Implications for India China's Economic Relations with the Middle East - Yitzhak Shichor New Dimensions The Middle Kingdom Meets the Middle East - David Dewitt Challenges and Opportunities

To agree or not to agree: leadership, bargaining, and arms control

Why were the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union able to negotiate a series of arms control agreements despite the deep and important differences in their interests during the Cold War? Lisa A. Baglione considers a variety of explanations for the successes--and failures--of these negotiations drawn from international relations theories. Focusing on the goals and strategies of individual leaders--and their ability to make these the goals and strategies of their nation--the author develops a nuanced understanding that better explains the outcome of these negotiations. Baglione then tests her explanation in a consideration of negotiations surrounding the banning of above-ground nuclear tests, the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks of the 1970s, the negotiations for the limitation of intermediate-range nuclear forces in the 1980s, and the last negotiations between the Americans and the disintegrating Soviet Union in 1990 and 1991. How these great rivals were able to negotiate significant arms control agreements not only will shed light on international relations during an important period of history but will help us understand how such agreements might develop in the post-Cold War period, when arms proliferation has become a serious problem. This book will appeal to scholars of international relations and arms control as well as those interested in bargaining and international negotiations and contemporary military history. Lisa A. Baglione is Assistant Professor of Political Science, St. Joseph's University.

South Africa in Southern Africa: reconfiguring the region

Introduction - shedding the past, shaping the future, David Simon. Part 1 Population and mobility: obscuring history? contemporary patterns of regional migration to South Africa, Sally Peberdy gender, labour markets and migration in and from Botswana, Kavita Datta the sexual and economic politics of (re)integration - HIV/AIDS and the question of stability in southern Africa, Doug Webb. Part 2 Transcending the past - the politics of dis- and re-engagement: in the wake of war - military transitions in southern Africa, Susan Willett small arms proliferation - a major challenge for post-apartheid South and southern Africa, Alex Vines South Africa's foreign policy - from isolation to respectability?, Greg Mills nature has the power to heal old wounds - war, peace and changing patterns of conservation in southern Africa, Eddie Koch. Part 3 Changing geographies of production and economic integration: the changing role of sugar as a vehicle for economic development within southern Africa, Steve Atkins and Alan Terry lessons unlearned -South Africa's one-way relationship with Zimbabwe, Colin Stoneman desert enclave to regional gateway? Walvis Bay's reintegration into Namibia, David Simon powering the region - South Africa and the southern Africa power pool, Tore Horvei SADC, COMESA, SACU -contradictory formats for regional integration in southern Africa?, James Sidaway prospects for the region, David Simon.

Medicine and nuclear war: from Hiroshima to mutual assured destruction to abolition 2000.

To determine how physicians might participate in the prevention of nuclear war in the post-Cold War era, we review, from a medical perspective, the history of the nuclear weapons era since Hiroshima and the status of today's nuclear arsenals and dangers. In the 1950s, physicians were active partners in governmental civil defense planning. Since 1962, physicians have stressed prevention of nuclear war as the only effective medical intervention. Public advocacy by physicians helped end both atmospheric nuclear testing in the 1960s and superpower plans for fighting a nuclear war in the 1980s. Today's dangers include nuclear arms proliferation, an increasing risk of nuclear terrorism, and the 35000 warheads that remain in superpower-nuclear arsenals, many still on hair-trigger alert. Physicians have recently joined with military and political leaders and over 1000 citizens' organizations in calling for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. Global medical collaboration in support of a verifiable and enforceable Nuclear Weapons Convention would be a major contribution to safeguarding health in the 21st century.

Chinese Policies on Arms Control and Proliferation in the Middle East

Chinese Policies on Arms Control and Proliferation in the Middle East

Small arms proliferation and conflict in South Africa

(1998). Small arms proliferation and conflict in South Africa. South African Journal of International Affairs: Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 103-109.