Global Arms Trade Research Articles

Military and technical cooperation evolution of the Russian Federation in the global economy

The current global market for armaments and military equipment in the second half of the 20th century has went through several transformative stages of its development and has now reached a qualitatively new evolution level. The aim of the study is to analyse the key trends in changing Russia’s positions in the global arms trade, including an assessment of its export and investment potential in defence industry, and opportunities for cooperation with key regional and global partners. It has been shown, that the international competitiveness of the Russian defence industry and the development of its military-technical cooperation with foreign countries continue to be affected by the specific conditions of the industry, in particular: weak susceptibility to major changes in the arms trade; high role of state protectionism; international technology transfer; globalisation of the world economy as a whole. An important role in shaping the current image of the military-technical cooperation is played by the dynamic and constant rearmament of the army, offset services and the partnerships cooperative networks’ formation, on which the flexibility and adaptability of the external economic component of defence industry operations depend. At present, the development of Russia’s armaments and military equipment trade will be mainly driven by the restoration of its lost positions on the global market.

The Dynamics of the Global Arms Trade Network: States’ Stability and Instability

ABSTRACT This study identifies security-related factors affecting the formation of the global arms trade network. This empirical analysis using a quantitative approach includes data from multiple sources (the Global Peace Index, Political Stability Index, Democracy Index, Global Terrorism Index, Fragile State Index, and military expenditure as a percentage of GDP) and multiple states analyzed using the ERGM. Arms trade data related to six attributes of states representing their (in)stability is collected and analyzed for 2012-2018. Our findings are as follows: (1) states with greater internal stability import more arms, which affects the formation of the global arms trade network; (2) states with greater external instability import more arms, which also affects the formation of the global arms trade network. This study makes two academic contributions, as follows. First, we analyze factors that form the global arms trade network from a holistic or systemic perspective. Second, we analyze those factors empirically and statistically from a security perspective.

Merchants of death: Arms imports and terrorism

Do arms imports fuel terrorism? Despite the high human, economic and political toll associated with terrorism, the effect of a country’s arms trade on the propensity to experience terrorist attacks has received scant attention so far. We argue that arms imports affect a country’s institutional landscape, increasing grievances due to corruption, exclusion and human rights violations; these grievances, in turn, incite terrorism. We leverage plausibly exogenous variation in global arms trade patterns as an instrument to provide causal evidence of a significant positive effect of arms imports on terrorist activity for 179 countries between 1992 and 2018. We also show that arms imports indeed increase corruption and political exclusion, which may explain why arms imports ultimately encourage terrorist activity. Finally, the adverse effect of arms imports on terrorism is strongest among countries characterized by low levels of fiscal capacity and high levels of political inequality and authoritarianism.

An Alternative Exploration of Global Political Relations in Southern Africa during the Cold War: Modularity in the Global Arms Trade Network from 1975 to 1988

During the Cold War, two camps used arms to expand their influence in the Third World. In the present study, I used the concept of modularity (Q), developed within network theory, to study communities within the global arms trade network from 1975 to 1988. Using data provided by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, I showed that communities within this network had political ties with South America, Asia and Southern Africa. As part of the study I sorted countries based on their arms trade transactions, and in the process I established that China was positioned with the West in the period under study. Not only did my study show that the arms trade network reflected political alliances during this period, but it also indicated that this network highlighted international relations and the alliances of political organisations. Based on the findings of my study I put forward suggestions for future research.

‚Zone der Nicht-Verantwortlichkeit‘: Der Vertrag über den Waffenhandel und die Lizensierung von Gewalt

The ongoing conflict in Yemen is a site of humanitarian catastrophe, unimaginable atrocity, and human suffering. Since the Saudi-led coalition entered the conflict in March 2015, several months after the entry into force of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), the Yemen conflict has been fuelled by ongoing arms supplies by Western states and corporations. The scale and significance of these arms supply relationships has been the subject of unprecedented, concerted efforts by a legal platform of non-governmental organisations and legal advocates to mobilise the ATT in its broader environment of cognate international and domestic laws, to challenge these arms transfers before the domestic courts of arms-supplying states. In the absence of international oversight mechanisms, the ATT casts national authorities, licensing bodies, and domestic courts in a principal governing role in relation to the global arms trade. Drawing on the transnational legal work to contest and resist arms supply relationships conditioning the violence in Yemen, this essay examines the interpretative and paralegal practices of domestic authorities, constituted by and generative of (inter)national arms control law.

Competition in the global arms trade markets and its consequences

Research background: The global arms markets are constantly fiercely competitive. Over the past period, new important trends have emerged in these markets, and the role of some countries is changing. This requires analytical reflection in order to assess the prospects for Russian arms exports. The authors have repeatedly addressed the topic of Russian arms exports and the place of Russia in the global arms and military equipment trade markets. Purpose of the article: The main purpose of the study is to analyze the current state of the global AME markets in individual segments, compare the positions of its main participants and assess the prospects for Russia's presence in these markets in the future. Methods: Generalizations of the research are based on the processing and systematization of data obtained from available information sources. By analyzing the statistics, the authors were able to deduce the trends of the current moment and determine the prospects. Findings & Value added: Analysis of the positions of individual "players" in these markets and the trends identified allowed the authors to make an educated guess about how events might develop in the future. Despite all the changes taking place in the global arms and military equipment markets, Russia has good prospects for maintaining and strengthening its positions in certain areas.

Global Arms Production and Ukraine’s Unpredictable Soviet Inheritance

Abstract Ukraine is very much a part of the global arms trade – both as a producer of components of military hardware, as well as a source of illicit weapons fuelling conflicts worldwide. The latter development has in fact become worse since the outbreak of war in the Donbass in 2014. Part of this connectivity to global markets is bound up in the country’s Soviet inheritance, a vast network of military-industrial facilities that underpinned defence production in the 1950s-1980s. The Soviets were then engaged in a power struggle with the West over geopolitical influence, military superiority and, of course, nuclear parity. A far less understood consequence of this focus on defence was its impact on Soviet politics, particularly the rising prominence of regional economic elites from southeastern Ukraine, who came to be disproportionately represented in the Kremlin under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev. This article examines this inheritance in three parts. The first maps out how changing economic and security priorities after Stalin laid the groundwork for regional elites in Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv, Donetsk, and Kharkiv to cluster in significant ways, fundamentally altering the political landscape of the Soviet Union. The second part examines how that landscape was changed by the dissolution of the union and independence in 1991, in particular, how denuclearization, reforms to the defence sector and privatization altered the relationship of regional economic elites to centres of power in Moscow and Kyiv and made the emergence of the oligarchs possible. The third and final part examine continuities between past and present as it pertains to the current historical moment, specifically lingering infrastructural concerns and conflicts of interest that precipitated a major conflict between the Soviet Union’s two largest successor states.

Filling arms production data gaps: South America as a case in point

In this article I argue that the data collection methods and procedures behind the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s (SIPRI) global arms trade database can also be used to approximate domestic purchases of local production of major conventional arms. The total output of domestic arms industries would then be the sum of what is domestically retained (procured) plus arms exports, if any. The feasibility of this idea is tested by presenting new data on domestic arms production for five South American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Venezuela) between 1960 and 2015. The results show the critical role government purchases play in maintaining domestic arms industries.

Agreeing to arm

This article assesses the impact of a new form of defense cooperation – formal weapons cooperation agreements, or WCAs – on the global arms trade. WCAs are bilateral framework agreements that establish comprehensive guidelines on the development, production, and exchange of conventional arms. Substantively, WCAs regulate such core areas as procurement and contracting, defense-based research and development, and defense industrial cooperation. These agreements have proliferated dramatically since the mid-1990s. They now number nearly 700, with 30–40 new WCAs signed each year. Newly collected data are used to analyze the effect of WCAs on import and export of conventional weapons. To control for interdependencies in the formation of WCAs, and to account for the mutually endogenous relationship between WCAs and weapons flows, WCAs are modeled as an interdependent network that coevolves with the individual-level arms trade activity of states. The analysis shows that, over the 1995–2010 period, WCAs have significantly increased weapons flows.

Global Norms on Arms: The Significance of the Arms Trade Treaty for Global Security in World Politics

AbstractAfter a complex negotiation involving security, trade, human rights law (HRL), international humanitarian law (IHL) and general principles of international relations, on 2 April 2013, 154 states, including the US, voted to adopt the first‐ever comprehensive, legally binding international treaty governing the transfer of arms: the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) came to life. This survey article explores the meaning of the ATT for a key global challenge, controlling the global arms trade and its implications for global security and the legal order. At the time of writing, September 2014, the ATT is almost about to enter into force as almost 50 states ratified it, including some of the largest arms producers and some of the rising arms producers and importers. This signals the embrace of the treaty's momentum in changing long‐established practices of an ungoverned arms trade. The ATT was the result of a long journey and the persistent efforts of committed individuals to fill a much‐needed gap in the international system. The treaty will be a contribution to strengthening human security worldwide if well implemented and helped by the continuous efforts of an engaged civil society.

State Responsibility for Aiding or Assisting International Crimes in the Context of the Arms Trade Treaty

Legal regulation of the arms trade has been slow to evolve despite the promotion after World War I of the idea that, for the sake of peace, arms exports should be limited and despite the condemnation on moral grounds of private arms traders who helped to rouse conflict. Article 26 of the United Nations Charter tasked the Security Council with initiating plans for the establishment of a system to regulate armaments in order to promote peace and security and to restrict the diversion of the world’s resources to military expenditure. The extent of this “diversion” of resources is reflected in the estimate that the total value of the global arms trade in 2013 was at least $85 billion. The United Nations’ efforts, which included the public Register of Conventional Arms and a program of action relating to the illicit trade in small arms, culminated in the adoption of the long-awaited Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) on April 2, 2013, which enters into force on December 24, 2014.

The global arms trade network 1950–2007

Using SIPRI data on all international transfers of major conventional weapons 1950–2007, we study the relationship between differences in polity and arms trade. To study whether states tend to trade arms within their political vicinity we estimate gravity models of the likelihood of trade at the bilateral level and study the evolution of the global network over time. We find a stable negative relationship between differences in polity and the likelihood of arms trade for the duration of the Cold War, but not in recent years. In line with these results, the global arms trade network changes drastically over the sample period in several respects: it grows more dense, clustered and decentralized over time. The differences between the NATO and Warsaw Pact sub-networks that we find corroborate the common perception that the Warsaw Pact was more strongly centralized around the USSR than NATO around the UK, the US and France.

Contestação de normas e ameaça à paz e à segurança regional e internacional: a facilidade excessiva de acesso a armas

A facilidade de acesso a armas, pelos governos e atores não governamentais afins, exacerba os conflitos, destrói os acordos de paz frágeis e facilita a perpetração de violações dos direitos humanos e crimes hediondos contra a humanidade. Agravando isso, o comércio de armas está fora do alcance do direito internacional, ou seja, não existe um tratado global internacional juridicamente vinculativo que regulamente todos os aspectos da transferência de armas. A prática de transferência de armas para atores não estatais sem critérios em relação aos usuários finais é uma característica recorrente do comércio mundial de armas e, geralmente, tem consequências deletérias. Estas são percebidas nos conflitos prolongados no Afeganistão, na República Democrática do Congo, no Sudão, no Chifre da África, no Oriente Médio e mais recentemente na Síria e na Líbia, entre muitos outros. O presente artigo analisa uma tentativa contestada na construção de normas internacionais para conter uma prática internacional de longa data - a da transferência de armas para atores não estatais - e suas implicações para a segurança internacional, direito internacional e formulação de políticas a nível multilateral. No entanto, diferente dos construtivistas, examina uma norma que, apesar de difundida em diferentes contextos regionais, não conseguiu encontrar validade jurídica como uma realidade normativa internacional.

Brazil's porous jungle borders

The authority of the Brazilian government is being challenged in sparsely populated parts of the Amazon rainforest by gangs involved in the global drugs and arms trade. Although the Amazon was deemed a priority in the 2008 Brazilian National Defence Strategy, the army has been incapable of stopping trafficking through the region. Indeed, it has been handicapped by historical views of the dangers to Brazilian security, and seems only recently to have become aware of the true extent of the problem.

The Arms Trade: No Cause for a Treaty

The United States has a very developed arms export regime that controls U.S. sales to foreign states as well as U.S. companies’ sales to foreign states. Furthermore, the U.S. actively promotes the development of similar regimes in other states through a voluntary agreement designed to improve practices as well as regional agreements. Despite the existence of regional arms control agreements, several states, scholars, and NGOs have pushed for an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). Such a treaty, proponents argue, could help reduce the amount of exported arms used to commit human rights abuses and other violations of international law. Yet, at the same time, one might doubt the strong necessity for a grand UN Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty (planned for 2012) and an accompanying treaty that might do little to address the most severe problems of arms transfer. Control Arms Campaign, a strong proponent of the ATT, completed a study chronicling the movement of arms in ways that evade domestic and regional arms control policies. It is unclear whether the proposed ATT would address many of the common evasion practices. Another strong concern is the “re-export” or “retransfer” of arms to a third party even after a legal sale (under domestic and/or international law) is made to a main party. This paper will explore the extent to which current arms trade treaties, as well as the proposed ATT, address the most prevalent challenges in controlling the arms trade. Part II will briefly review the existing state of the global arms trade and then examine current international, regional, and state practices on arms control of conventional weaponry. Part III will analyze the developments toward an Arms Trade Treaty, hypothesize the form such a treaty might take, and assess the likely impact of an ATT on the arms trade. I will suggest that, while the ideal is noble, the proposed ATT does not appear to go much further than existing agreements in curbing the multi-billion dollar arms trade. While the ATT may bring more structure and mandatory reporting to such existing regimes as the Wassenaar Arrangement, the ATT would likely be joined mostly by those states that already have robust arms control regimes. There do not appear to be great incentives to states that currently remain indifferent to the negative consequences of arms flow to corrupt leaders, criminals, and terrorists. Ultimately, an ATT would not appear to have the ability to overhaul the existing practices in arms export throughout the world. Furthermore, although one could certainly approach the potential treaty by analyzing the political realities of ratification – e.g. substantial domestic opposition within the U.S. to ratification – such analysis is outside the scope of this paper. Rather, this paper will limit itself to analysis of the merits of the ATT and how it would affect the arms trade even without substantial ratification issues in such major arms exporters as the U.S., Russia, and China.

Putting the Arms Trade Treaty Into Context: Perspectives on the Global Arms Trade, Existing Arms Trade Initiatives, and the Role of the United States

Putting the Arms Trade Treaty Into Context: Perspectives on the Global Arms Trade, Existing Arms Trade Initiatives, and the Role of the United States

Rulers, Guns, and Money: The Global Arms Trade in the Age of Imperialism

Rulers, Guns, and Money: The Global Arms Trade in the Age of Imperialism

Rulers, guns, and money: the global arms trade in the age of imperialism

List of Tables Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Aresenals of Autocracy 2. Hand-Me-Down Guns: The Balkans and Ethiopia 3. Arms Trade Colonialism: Ethiopia and Djibouti 4. Austro-German Hegemony in Eastern Europe 5. A Tale of Two Arms Races 6. The Dreadnought Races 7. Gunning for Krupp Abbreviations Notes Index

A call for publishers to declare their conflicts of interest

We welcome the recent attention to the issue of the ethics and transparency of publishers in your journal (JRSM 2007;100:113 and 114-115).1-3 While recent attention in this regard has appropriately focused on the prominent case of Reed Elsevier's involvement in the global arms trade, there are many wider issues involved. Other examples of questionable publishing ethics which have been identified include the unhealthy involvement of some publishers with the pharmaceutical industry,4 and the documented protobacco bias of articles published by the journal Indoor and Built Environment. In this case, the journal's parent association, the International Society of the Built Environment, had been assisted by the tobacco industry.5 In addition, as your editorial suggests,1 impact factors—at worst an unscientific and non-transparent method to capture markets and advertisers—may also fall in this category. We welcome additions from readers to this dataset. There are many candidates. For example, do any multinational food companies sponsor and subtly influence nutrition journals? Might any military agent covertly sponsor a peace journal? These examples, real and hypothetical, support the case that publishers should periodically declare their own conflicts of interest. Your editorial goes very close to declaring (like the BMJ: http://resources.bmj.com/bmj/about-bmj/declaration-of-competing-interests) that your journal has no such conflicts of interest to hide. As with the JRSM (‘flourishing by entirely reputable means’), journals with nothing to hide need not fear making such a declaration. Perhaps an indicator of publisher transparency could even be woven into journal impact factors! A way to think of these problems is in terms of public and private goods. The failure of socialist economies to achieve a semblance of utopia lies, in part, on an insufficient appreciation of private goods and the human need for rewards in exchange for risk, inventiveness and hard work. But globally, the pendulum to private goods has swung too far. Public goods are vital for well-being and for sustainability, and it is folly to think that they can be largely or even fully replaced by private goods, even if supplied in copious quantities. Indeed, many public goods, such as freedom of speech, clean air and an absence of nuclear weapons, have no plausible private substitute at all. We recognise that private goods, such as advertising and fees for journal offprints, are a legitimate mechanism to offset the many costs of publishing. Equally clearly, the public good of the scientific discourse, unencumbered as far as possible by unseen influence, is essential if our civilization is to flourish. Long ago, gentlemen observed codes of conduct which were as much unspoken as stated. Professionalism once meant that certain norms would (almost) unquestionably be observed. The erosion of these standards, combined with a supposedly greater sophistication of the audience, has in recent times forced authors and reviewers to declare real and perceived conflicts of interest. We welcome this. But publishers are clearly also contaminated by these same powerful global forces. It is time for all publishers to declare their own conflicts of interest, both real and reasonably perceived as such.

The black market in small arms: Examining a social network

In recent years, researchers have increasingly turned their attention to the proliferation of small arms, a transnational trade amounting to over $7 billion in value during 2002. Small arms are difficult to track and are not the stuff of military parades, but they are immensely destructive. As much as $1 billion worth enters the black market annually. I argue that the illicit trade in small arms should be understood not as a market but as a network, one that shares some important properties with networked forms of organization studied by sociologists. I then employ quantitative methods developed for the study of social networks in an effort to show the basic structure of illegal small arms transfers to Africa. The analysis draws from my Illicit Arms Transfers dataset still in development, so the results make use of the most rudimentary information being collected. They are suggestive, however, and the analytical approach promises to shed considerable light on a corner of the global arms trade that is of great interest to the research and activist communities, and of great consequence to those in war-torn regions of the world.