International Arms Trade Research Articles

Global arms exports : the formation of a new paradigm

The modern world market for arms and military equipment (WME) is experiencing a whole range of structural and dynamic changes caused by numerous global problems in the development of the world economy, the nature of competition in this market, as well as the formation of a multipolar world order. The purpose of the study was to assess possible changes in the long-term program of research on international trade in arms and military equipment, taking into account the specified triggers. As the research has shown, the political economy of global arms and military equipment exports is undergoing a significant transformation when, with the emergence of new players in the global arms and military equipment market, its qualitative characteristics and development parameters change, unconventionally affecting global demand and supply for weapons. In turn, the dynamics of defense spending have an ambiguous impact on the market under study, which can both crowd out investments in other sectors and affect the economic growth of the country and its position in global arms and military equipment exports. Finally, the global arms and military equipment market is witnessing serious and previously unknown changes in the global architecture of multilateral regulation, which determine the formation of global value chains within the framework of military-political blocs. These transformations lead to a new understanding of international cooperation between countries exporting and importing weapons and military equipment and form a new set of research problems.

Money first? Strategic and economic interests in the international arms trade network, 1920–1936

AbstractArms transfers result from economic and political motives, with the latter often dominating the former. While this is accepted knowledge for the post‐World War II period, it seems not to apply earlier. Much existing research argues that in the interwar years, weapons were traded as purely commercial goods because governments had neither the ability nor willingness to control and direct arms transfers. We reassess this idea and argue that, while formal control was largely absent, governments could steer weapons shipments nonetheless because arms producers depended on them as main customers, sales agents, and financiers of their export business. Anecdotal evidence suggests that governments actively used this influence. To test whether interwar arms transfers were the result of political or commercial interests, we use newly collected, historical data on the small arms trade and inferential network analysis methods. Our results suggest that although economic drivers existed throughout the interwar period, political considerations were especially influential when international relations were hostile at the start and end of the period. This research contributes to our understanding of international economic relations between the world wars and of the drivers of arms transfers across time.

МІЖНАРОДНА ТОРГІВЛЯ ЗБРОЄЮ В КОНТЕКСТІ ТЕХНОЛОГІЧНИХ ІННОВАЦІЙ

Innovative technology development is an integral part of the qualitative changes taking place in the defense industry. Research in the field of defense poses a dilemma for scientists: on the one hand, access to military discourse should remain confidential; on the other hand, research in the social sciences should fully cover the results and make them understandable. The purpose of the study: to highlight the mechanism of international arms trade and the dependence of its characteristics on the level of development of innovative technologies in the defense sector of individual countries. The subject of the study: features and mechanisms of the global arms market functioning depending on the development of technological innovations in the defense industry. Methods used in the study: stimulating reflection, analysis and synthesis, historical, dialectical, systematic, logical. Research hypothesis: it is assumed that innovations in the defense industry lead to changes in the structural characteristics of the global arms market. Summary of the main material: the nine largest exporters in the international arms market are identified, and the latest trends in the global arms market are analyzed. Based on the data on preliminary orders and final negotiations, forecasts of trends in the development of international arms trade in the near future are made. The key breakthrough technologies that will form the basis for the future development of the defense industry and the global arms market are highlighted. Originality and practical significance of the study: an in-depth analysis of the mechanisms of the international arms market functioning was carried out, and possible trends in its development were identified. Conclusions: the peculiarities of the international arms market functioning are as follows: difficulties in controlling commodity transactions and technological exchanges, non-transparency of registration and verification of export-import operations, which results in a limited number of producers and exporters dominating it. Innovative defense technologies have led to the development of a number of new areas of the international arms market. Outsourcing is highlighted as an important trend in the development of the arms market. Prospects for further research: are to highlight the peculiarities of the impact of each of the breakthrough technologies on changes in the global arms market.

The Interwar Period International Trade in Arms: A New Dataset

International weapons transfers send military capabilities, make arms production economically feasible, and construct security relations. They influence buyers’ and sellers’ foreign policies, domestic politics, and military spending behavior. However, data availability has limited their study to the bipolar Cold War and unipolar post-Cold War periods. We thus introduce the Interwar Period International Trade in Arms (IPITA) data, covering dyadic transfers of small arms, light weapons, ammunition, explosives, and major conventional weapons in the years 1920–1939. The IPITA data will offer new avenues to study the drivers, dynamics, and consequences of arms transfers, both in past and future multipolar systems.

Political regimes and self-reliance in the Indian arms industry

ABSTRACT This study assesses the effectiveness of government initiatives and explores the impact of a shift in political regimes in reducing arms imports. We employ an Interrupted Time Series design using the Prais-Winsten Regression to assess the impact of India’s increased focus on achieving self-reliance in arms manufacturing with the change in political regimes in 2014. The time period analyzed is from 2004 to 2022. Our findings suggest that policies associated with the change in political regimes have succeeded in curbing arms imports. This paper offers insights into the broader implications of political regime changes on a nation’s quest for self-reliance in arms manufacturing, making it valuable for defense analysts and scholars specializing in international relations and arms trade.

Sharing rivals, sending weapons: Rivalry and cooperation in the international arms trade, 1920–1939

AbstractStates must navigate the structure of the international system in their relations with other states. One crucial component of this structure are rivalries as they indicate latent threat to states. Rivalries should thus influence how states behave within the given system, but also how they seek to shape and restructure it. Focusing on arms transfers, we clarify how the systemic structure implied by rivalries drives states’ efforts to engage in security cooperation with other states. Intuitively, a rivalry with another country should diminish an exporter’s propensity to transfer weapons there. But what is more, we argue that rivalries outside of this focal dyad matter as a potential importer’s enmity towards other countries will reveal information about its security interests to the exporter. Specifically, sharing rivalries with the same set of countries will signal to the exporter that there is a congruence in security interests and thus facilitate security cooperation. This security cooperation should take the form of arms transfers, at least if exporters value buck-passing and fear entrapment. We test our expectations using original data on Major Conventional Weapons transfers in the Interwar years, a period where this condition likely holds, and inferential network analysis models. Sharing rivals increases two countries’ probability to trade arms whereas a rivalry between countries exhibits no effect. This research contributes to our understanding of security cooperation, the arms trade, and networked international relations.

Dependence matters: Statistical models to identify the drivers of tie formation in economic networks

Networks are ubiquitous in economic research on organizations, trade, and many other areas. However, while economic theory extensively considers networks, no general framework for their empirical modeling has yet emerged. We thus introduce two different statistical models for this purpose – the Exponential Random Graph Model (ERGM) and the Additive and Multiplicative Effects network model (AME). Both model classes can account for network interdependencies between observations, but differ in how they do so. The ERGM allows one to explicitly specify and test the influence of particular network structures, making it a natural choice if one is substantively interested in estimating endogenous network effects. In contrast, AME captures these effects by introducing actor-specific latent variables affecting their propensity to form ties. This makes the latter a good choice if the researcher is interested in capturing the effect of exogenous covariates on tie formation without having a specific theory on the endogenous dependence structures at play. After introducing the two model classes, we showcase them through real-world applications to networks stemming from international arms trade and foreign exchange activity. We further provide full replication materials to facilitate the adoption of these methods in empirical economic research.

The Arms Trade and American Revolutions

Abstract This essay argues that the international arms trade bound the revolutions in British North America, Saint-Domingue, and Spanish America in dependent relationships. Throughout the colonial era, an informal arms control regime made it impossible for Europe’s American subjects to mass-produce war material or buy enough on the open market to equip independence through war. As became clear by late 1776, even the hemisphere’s best-connected colonists could not overcome this obstacle. Only the decisions of France and Spain to secretly arm and then openly support the British North Americans made their revolution a success. But as France and Spain would soon come to realize, US independence fatally undermined the early modern arms control regime that had kept independence a practical impossibility in their own colonies. North American merchants became the indispensable arms dealers to the hemisphere’s later revolutionaries, first in Saint-Domingue and then across mainland Spanish America. Crucially, though, the United States never offered terms remotely as generous as those it had enjoyed during its own independence struggle. Rather than rely on imperial patronage or republican solidarity, Haitians and Spanish Americans had to navigate a cutthroat market to obtain the tools of independence. That comparative disadvantage would haunt their postcolonial histories.

THE LATEST TRENDS AND CHALLENGES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTENATIONAL TRADE IN ARMS AND MILITARY EQUIPMENT

At the present stage of the development of the world economy, a number of fundamental changes are taking place in the international trade in arms and military equipment (AME), which are mainly associated with the increasing global crisis and increased geopolitical tensions in the world. Within the framework of study, we summarized the main trends and problems in the development of the world arms and military equipment market, which are formed as a result of the aggravation of relations between individual countries and groups of countries. In this regard, this article analyzes changes in the mechanisms, dynamics and structure of AME exports. As a separate aspect of analysis, an assessment of the opportunities for strengthening the positions of new player countries in the market is presented. The changes observed in recent years in the commodity and geographic structure of AME imports are revealed. It was found that due to modern military conflicts, the previously established structures of international arms and military equipment trade are becoming more complex and transforming, and disruptions in global supply chains are causing the formation of a new system of relations between arms exporters and importers

Dynamic change of international arms trade network structure and its influence mechanism

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to analyze the dynamic changes of the arms trade network not only from the network structure but also the influence mechanism from the aspects of the economy, politics, security, strategy and transaction costs.Design/methodology/approachThe study employs the Temporal Exponential Random Graph Model and the Separable Temporal Exponential Random Graph Model to analyze the endogenous network structure effect, the attribute effect and the exogenous network effect of 47 major arms trading countries from 2015 to 2020.FindingsThe results show that the international arms trade market is unevenly distributed, and there are great differences in military technology. There is a fixed hierarchical structure in the arms trade, but the rise of emerging countries is expected to break this situation. In international arms trade relations, economic forces dominate, followed by political, security and strategic factors.Practical implicationsEconomic and political factors play an important role in the arms trade. Therefore, countries should strive to improve their economic strength and military technology. Also, countries should increase political mutual trust and gain a foothold in the industrial chain of arms production to enhance their military power.Originality/valueThe contribution of this paper is to analyze the special trade area of arms trade from a dynamic network perspective by incorporating economic, political, security, strategic and transaction cost factors together into the TERGM and STERGM models.

International arms trade and transfers: Rising producers, advanced technology, and adapting regulations

The end of the Cold War era has ushered in a century in which great military powers like the US, China, and Russia continue to dominate the arms trade, yet minor powers are also investing heavily in arms manufacturing and technologies and profiting from lucrative arms transfers. Changes in the arms trade have fostered cooperative international regulatory practices and agreements, but recent conflicts in Yemen, Syria, Libya, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Ukraine highlight the need for strong end-use monitoring, post-shipment verification, and international accountability for dubious trade deals. This study analyzes changes in top arms producers, new complexities in arms regulation due to advancing technologies and artificial intelligence, arms-control policies of international organizations and top arms producers, and the risks of poor regulation.

Noxious government markets: Evidence from the international arms trade

Existing scholarship examines the moral status of markets, identifying some markets as “noxious”—markets deemed morally objectionable due to the background conditions preceding exchange or the resulting consequences. This literature primarily focuses on market exchanges between private parties. We broaden the analysis to include government markets—markets involving exchanges where either the buyer or seller, or both, are government officials. We develop a general theoretical framework to understand the conditions under which government markets are likely to be more or less noxious. We then apply the framework to the international arms trade to demonstrate its usefulness for understanding noxious government markets.

An Instrumental Connection. Economic Diplomacy, International Arms Trade and Overseas Aspirations between Portugal and Sweden, 1640–80

This paper offers an Iberian perspective on Sweden’s ‘Age of Greatness’ by looking at the intersection of international politics and trade involving Portugal and Sweden after Portugal regained its independence from Spain at the end of 1640. Sweden’s exports of timber, naval stores, iron, copper, and weapons to Braganza Portugal are seen in the context of the Portuguese wars for overseas trade and colonial settlement against the Dutch Republic and the struggle for autonomy against Spain in its home turf. By revisiting the accounts of diplomatic actors, this contribution will discuss how Portugal turned to Sweden for diplomatic recognition and new consumption markets and carriers for its export sector. It will also be shown how Sweden stood to gain by adding a new customer to its military export sector and by tapping into Portugal’s colonial goods and salt, while at the same time it entertained the prospect of using the Portuguese offshoots in West Africa and the East Indies to further its ambitions in overseas trade.

La industria de defensa en el mundo: hechos estilizados y tendencias

As in other areas, technological transformations, along with their high speed, have been incorporated into weapons systems throughout the global defense industry. However, it is not possible to know to what extent the new technological leaderships are undermining the foundations of those that existed until now. Along with this, changes in the geo-political and geo-economics spheres are generating a reality in which aspects such as the international arms trade, the emergence of SMEs in the sector or, as far as the EU is concerned, the promotion of defense policy, transform the morphology and relationships between the agents that intervene in this market. What can be the future trends considering the main stylized facts that are observed today?

Explaining destinations and volumes of international arms transfers: A novel network Heckman selection model

What determines the volumes of international weapon transfers? And why do countries establish such arms trading relationships in the first place? We propose an innovative statistical strategy that builds on the gravity approach and combines a Heckman model with a network analysis. This allows us, for the first time, to analyze the impact of network structures on both the extensive and the intensive margins of the international arms trade simultaneously. We argue that the structure of the arms transfer network conveys important information for exporting and importing countries. Therefore, past topological properties of the trade network play a central role in its future evolution. Using data on the trade of major conventional weapons between 1955 and 2018, our estimation results and out-of-sample predictions show that network structures have considerable explanatory power with respect to the creation of trade links. They are far less relevant for the explanation of trade volumes, which are mainly determined by demand factors.

Noxious Government Markets: Evidence From the International Arms Trade

Noxious Government Markets: Evidence From the International Arms Trade

SHAPING OF MILITARY-TECHNICAL COOPERATION STATE POLICY: INTERNATIONAL AND STATE LEGAL ASPECTS

The article examines the international and legal aspects of the shaping and implementation of state policy in the field of military-technical cooperation, particularly in the context of arms and military equipment exports. The urgency of the study of this issue is due to the increasing scale of weapons’ trade and the number of participants in economic relations in the world arms market. Recently, there has been an increase in demand for weapons and ammunition due to rising tensions in international relations and the concentration of a significant number of states in their efforts to gain a much greater role in the world order. Increased competition in the arms market, the willingness of individual states to strengthen military power under any circumstances and the inconsistency of export control systems that exist in different states, have led to an intensification of the activities of unscrupulous arms exporters. As a result, the number of arms sales operations that provide the basis for armed conflict has increased. In this regard, the international community has focused on strengthening controls on the movement of weapons. As for today, the most effective regulatory system for controlling the transfer of weapons has been established within the European Union. Its effectiveness is determined by the binding nature of the treaties for the EU member states. International treaties, in particular the International Arms Trade Treaty, contain recommendations for countries around the world on the rules of conduct in the field of arms trade and do not specify strict measures to control arms exports. In this regard, the countries of the world use their own approaches to establishing rules for the export of weapons, which creates the conditions for the existence of different standards of export control. In these circumstances, there is a significant threat to increase the scale of the activities of unscrupulous arms exporters. Given the imperfection of the international legal regulation of arms exports, the urgency of the efforts of arms exporting states to harmonize their national legislation with international treaties, which define the rules of commercial entities in the arms market. Accordingly, a transparent and clear state policy in the field of arms trade should be considered one of the most important factors in the successful participation of the state in international relations.

Gender-Based Violence and the Arms Trade

This article explains gender-based violence (gbv) and the relationship between gbv and the international arms trade. It examines how governments and activists worked together to ensure that the Arms Trade Treaty included a legally binding provision to prevent gbv, and how this provision has been used—or not used—since the Treaty’s adoption in 2013. It also encourages states, arms producers, lawyers, and activists to work to ensure that human lives and wellbeing are prioritised over profits as an imperative to realising the att’s objective and purpose, and to ensuring respect for the rule of law and international law.

Red flags for arms trade corruption

The international arms trade is highly prone to corruption. Reasons for this include the size and technical complexity of deals, the secrecy and lack of transparency surrounding the trade and the broader military sector, and the crowded nature of the arms trade where exporting nations and companies are often desperate to make sales to maintain their business and technological capabilities. But which arms deals are most likely to be corrupt? This article considers some of the “red flags” for corruption in the arms trade, including those relating to the buyer, those relating to the seller, and those relating to the deal itself, most notably the use of agents or intermediaries, and the role of offsets. The article also argues that corruption in the arms trade is a function of its very close connection with political power in both the buyer and seller countries. Major arms deals are frequently regarded as being of strategic political importance by exporting governments, while opportunities for political finance are often a motivating factor for corruption for both buyers and sellers.

Сетевая динамика «диффузии технологий» в системе международных трансферов вооружений

This article explores the role of technology proliferation within the international arms trade as the major part of political structure of international system. The first part of the article suggests a brief overview of the existing studies of international arms transfer as an integral system in international relations, specifically emphasizing the impact of Krause’s (1992) “diffusion of technology” theoretical concept on the literature of 1990–2000-s. The focus of the review is on the intersection between the studies of specific technological transfers and more generalized empirical research works reveals an interesting scientific puzzle – on the one hand key arms manufacturer states accumulate most of the military R&D thus securing their place on the top of the suppliers’ hierarchy, but on the other hand more and more states acquire capabilities to produce military hardware and they more willingly interact with each other establishing strong horizontal bonds with each other to achieve some political independence and maximize economic efficiency (so-called globalization of arms production). In the second part of the article, the network-based approach is suggested as a solution to the market-hierarchy paradox, with some overview of the latest research of arms transfers via Social Network Analysis (SNA) methodology. The third and the last part of the article provides first empirical investigation of the international military technology transfers using original operationalization approach based on SIPRI Arms Transfer Database information of localized production interstate transfers. Finally, the network graphs are constructed to compare general centrality metrics and locate network communities using the Blondel’s method for community detection. The network topology demonstrates significant interconnections between secondary suppliers within technology transfers sub-network, compared to “regular” transfers sub-network, as well as the existence of a “feedback loop” for the license transfers. Overall the empirical results provide positive evidence for Krause’s “diffusion of technology” concept and also support previous network studies of dissimilarities between USA and USSR dependent sub-network – the asymmetry between them appears to be even more stark on the license transfers data.