Regional Arms Races Research Articles

Canada’s and Russia’s Security and Defence Strategies in the Arctic: A Comparative Analysis

This comparative article reveals how the general focus of Canadian and Russian threat perceptions in the Arctic have shifted from a Cold War fixation on hard defence to accommodate soft security issues over the last three decades. Both countries now pay greater attention to threats and challenges stemming from climate change, security, and safety risks associated with resource development and increasingly accessible sea routes. Although concern about military conflict arising from Arctic disputes continues to frame some media discussions in both countries, most strategic analysts and academics have moved away from this line of argument. Instead, military functions now include assertion of Canadian and Russian sovereignty over their respective internal waters, as well as protection of resources in their exclusive economic zones and on and in extended continental shelves; protection of economic interests in the North, including mineral and bio-resources; prevention of potential terrorist attacks against critical industrial and state infrastructure; and dual-use functions, such as search and rescue operations, surveillance of air and maritime spaces, support to safe navigation, and mitigation of natural and human-made catastrophes. The authors argue that analysts should parse two forms of military modernization in the Arctic: one of capability development related to the global strategic balance, where the Arctic serves as a bastion or a thoroughfare; and a second intended to address emerging non-traditional security challenges. They contend that these modernization programs do not inherently upset the Arctic military balance and need not provoke a regional arms race.

India's Counterforce Temptations: Strategic Dilemmas, Doctrine, and Capabilities

Is India shifting to a nuclear counterforce strategy? Continued aggression by Pakistan against India, enabled by Islamabad's nuclear strategy and India's inability to counter it, has prompted the leadership in Delhi to explore more flexible preemptive counterforce options in an attempt to reestablish deterrence. Increasingly, Indian officials are advancing the logic of counterforce targeting, and they have begun to lay out exceptions to India's long-standing no-first-use policy to potentially allow for the preemptive use of nuclear weapons. Simultaneously, India has been acquiring the components that its military would need to launch counterforce strikes. These include a growing number of accurate and responsive nuclear delivery systems, an array of surveillance platforms, and sophisticated missile defenses. Executing a counterforce strike against Pakistan, however, would be exceptionally difficult. Moreover, Pakistan's response to the mere fear that India might be pursuing a counterforce option could generate a dangerous regional arms race and crisis instability. A cycle of escalation would have significant implications not only for South Asia, but also for the broader nuclear landscape if other regional powers were similarly seduced by the temptations of nuclear counterforce.

Is Russia a revisionist military power in the Arctic?

In contrast with a widespread perception of Russia as an expansionist power in the Arctic, this article argues that Moscow does not seek military superiority in the region. Rather, Moscow's military strategies in the Arctic pursue three major goals: first, to demonstrate and ascertain Russia's sovereignty over its exclusive economic zone and continental shelf in the region; second, to protect its economic interests in the High North; and third, to demonstrate that Russia retains its great power status and still has world-class military capabilities. The Russian military modernization programs are quite modest and aim at upgrading the Russian armed forces in the High North rather than providing them with additional offensive capabilities or provoking a regional arms race. The Russian ambitions in the Arctic may be high, but they are not necessarily implying the intentions and proper capabilities to confront other regional players by military means. On the contrary, Moscow opts for soft rather than hard power strategy in the Arctic.

Northeast Asia’s Aging Population and Regional Security

Fast aging in Northeast Asia has significant implications for the geopolitics and security dynamics of the region. The long-term impact of graying populations and substantial increases in social security spending might limit the regional arms race. By 2030, Japan, South Korea, and China will become too old for military rivalry.

Inertial confinement fusion energy R&D and nuclear proliferation: The need for direct and transparent review

Proliferation concerns have generally been associated with the acquisition of the fissile material needed for nuclear weapons; however, the spread of the knowledge needed to build very light and powerful weapons that can be carried long distances by missiles is also a serious concern. Such knowledge could accelerate and destabilize regional arms races, and lead to the deployment of powerful weapons able to target the US and its allies. Classified weapons-related information has previously spread through the international effort to harness inertial confinement fusion. Success in achieving net fusion gain in the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory could lead to greatly increased R&D in inertial confinement fusion worldwide, along with increased proliferation risks. The authors write that these issues have not yet been adequately addressed and require direct and transparent examination so that means to mitigate risks can be assessed and residual risks can be balanced against potential benefits.

The Security Impact of Oil Nationalization: Alternate Futures Scenarios

This article highlights the security impact of oil nationalization, develops and analyzes four energy security scenarios, and suggests options to reduce the potential negative impact of oil nationalization. In addition to the use of oil as a weapon, nationalization of oil can also lead to competition for scarce resources among states, facilitate the funding of terrorists or insurgents, contribute to destabilizing regional arms races, influence intra-state conflict, and sustain antagonistic political agendas.

Super-Agents and the Problem of Controlling the Dynamics of Regional Arms Races

Sometimes a large agent, called a super-agent, wishes to control the arms expenditures of regional powers over time, but this type of situation is difficult to analyze if the smaller agents are interacting with others. This paper attempts to overcome some of these difficulties and to provide general results that will be useful for comparison with models of more particular cases. It does this by extending the well known Richardson approach to dynamic arms races in new directions. It also produces some counterintuitive results. Among these is that the optimal programme for the super-agent may be to accelerate the expenditure of agents whose final expenditure it wishes to reduce. This has implications for large power policy in the Middle East and elsewhere.

NATO Nuclear Forces and the New Nuclear Threats

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's nuclear forces were central to deterrence and defence during the Cold War. Their future role is far less clear in the dramatically changed security environment since its end. Despite concerns about the long-term evolution of Russia and China, the major threats to national and international security today stem not from confrontations between great powers, but from proliferation and terrorism.Proliferation concerns include Iran's suspicious and extensive weapons of mass destruction programs, especially its nuclear and missile activities. The discovery of the large enrichment facility at Natanz as well as other clandestine activities revealed two decades of Iranian noncompliance with its international obligations. North Korea's nuclear test and its diplomatic brinkmanship highlight the increasing dangers of its longstanding nuclear and missile programs and the difficulties of disarming the regime.The growing reality of cooperation among proliferant states is troubling. The weapons of mass destruction and missile cooperation between North Korea, Pakistan, and Iran have been examined in the open literature. The question is whether that cooperation was limited to these and a few other states, or provides a blueprint for the future. Clearly, there are a growing number of states that now possess or are developing WMD- and missile-related technological capabilities and expertise. Will these capabilities be shared, and under, what, if any, constraints? Will they wind up in black markets? All of these activities undermine regional stability and threaten US and NATO security, and could lead to proliferation cascades and regional arms races. There is a second tier of states that might consider nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction in the future, including Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Japan, and Indonesia.The potentially catastrophic nexus between rogue regime behaviour and terrorist tactics is also a grave concern. The active pursuit of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction materials and technologies by terrorists and so-called rogue states has been abetted both by other proliferant states and by nonstate networks such as the A. Q. Khan operation. The risks to national and international security are compounded as peaceful pursuits of nuclear energy increase the traffic in nuclear materials and technology.In response, the United States and NATO member states have advocated collaborative efforts to combat terrorism and to strengthen the nonproliferation regime while ensuring access to the advantages of nuclear energy. Multilateral counterterrorism initiatives include the global initiative to combat nuclear terrorism. Efforts to strengthen and enforce nonproliferation norms are being reinvigorated through multilateral programs such as the proliferation security initiative and through efforts to gain universal adherence to the additional protocol to International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards agreements. The United States is currently pursuing a nuclear energy partnership that would both encourage growth of domestic nuclear energy use and promote international arrangements to restrict access to fuel cycle technologies by additional states.International non- and counterproliferation, along with counterterrorism, efforts such as these are critical. However, they are not enough by themselves to protect US and NATO security interests, or to resolve problems. The complex geopolitics ofthe emerging security environment, where issues of WMD proliferation and nuclear weapon policy intersect, demands a clear and credible security strategy that addresses US and NATO security objectives in multiple areas. These include ensuring confidence in the safety, security, reliability, and sustainability of the US nuclear-weapon stockpile and its supporting infrastructure; dealing responsibly with all weapon-usable materials, both nationally and globally; and meeting all international security commitments. …

DETERMINING THE DEFENCE INDUSTRIAL BASE

This paper models the determination of the defence industrial base – the number of different military systems a country decides to maintain. High R&D costs means that few countries can afford to produce major weapons systems and the producers also import systems. Non‐producers rely on imports and we assume their demand is driven by regional arms races. Military capability is determined by the number of systems and the quantity and quality of each. We examine how the defence industrial base is influenced by military expenditures, R&D costs, export controls, the nature of regional arms races and a variety of other factors.

Conflict in the Southern Cone: The Argentine Military and the Boundary Dispute with Chile, 1870-1902

Conflict in the Southern Cone: The Argentine Military and the Boundary Dispute with Chile, 1870-1902

An alternative to geopolitics

The security agenda for the Asia—Pacific has been overshadowed in recent years by a prolonged financial and growth crisis in the region, which has brought severe hardship to the more vulnerable sectors of society, especially in Indonesia. These developments have also generated unprecedented criticism of, and even self‐criticism by, the main advocates of neoliberal medicinal solutions, including U.S. Treasury officials and high officers in the IMF and World Bank. One positive result is greater receptivity among the governments of the region to a more people‐oriented approach to economic policy. Also critical for the formulation of any future regional security policy was India's decision to conduct nuclear weapons tests in April 1998, with Pakistan quickly following suit. These explosions triggered angry reactions from many governments, especially from the U.S., which has demanded a nonproliferation regime from non‐nuclear states while refusing nuclear disarmament for itself and other nuclear‐armed states. The Indo‐Pak nuclear explosions raised the danger of an Asian nuclear confrontation and a regional arms race, especially if India's weapons are being developed, as some allege, with China in mind more than Pakistan. Such heightened regional concerns arose when the Asia—Pacific governments were struggling to apply their scarce resources to the dual challenge of addressing citizen needs while also restoring economic normalcy in the aftermath of the dramatic declines of the last several years. Against such a background, we must consider two major issues: first, the new geopolitical threat that challenges prospects for real security in the Asia—Pacific region, and second, a possible alternative security framework.

The Limits of Defense and Security Cooperation in Southeast Asia

Interest in regional security arrangements is burgeoning in the Asia-Pacific. Discussions about cooperative security either as an alternative or supplement to national defense reflect the concern that some form of cooperative security would provide greater stability than a reliance upon transitory balances of power; and reflect the belief that there should be a less costly and more stabilizing option superior to an exclusive dependence on individual national military buildups that could degenerate into a regional arms race. For Southeast Asia, the institutional solution to the security dilemma is located in ASEAN. In this article, I assess the barriers to a fuller security community in Southeast Asia; the current military situation in Southeast Asia, paying particular attention to the concurrent weapons modernization programs in most of the ASEAN countries; and focus on the role of China as a destabilizing power in the ASEAN region. More generally, I argue that ASEAN is a security community, that there is a set of ASEAN norms which promise greater security cooperation, and that there are real limits to security multilateralism in Southeast Asia.

The Limits of Defense and Security Cooperation in Southeast Asia

Interest in regional security arrangements is burgeoning in the Asia-Pacific. Discussions about cooperative security either as an alternative or supplement to national defense reflect the concern that some form of cooperative security would provide greater stability than a reliance upon transitory balances of power; and reflect the belief that there should be a less costly and more stabilizing option superior to an exclusive dependence on individual national military buildups that could degenerate into a regional arms race. For Southeast Asia, the institutional solution to the security dilemma is located in ASEAN. In this article, I assess the barriers to a fuller security community in Southeast Asia; the current military situation in Southeast Asia, paying particular attention to the concurrent weapons modernization programs in most of the ASEAN countries; and focus on the role of China as a destabilizing power in the ASEAN region. More generally, I argue that ASEAN is a security community, that there is a set of ASEAN norms which promise greater security cooperation, and that there are real limits to security multilateralism in Southeast Asia.

The arms trade and the stability of regional arms races

Abstract Arms sales to countries involved in regional conflicts raise a range of pressing policy issues. This paper models the interaction between two potentially hostile countries who spend their national income on arms imports and consumption goods. Their welfare depends on consumption and military security. Military security is a function of relative arms stocks and depends on the relative advantages of aggressive and defensive strategies. We examine the dynamic game for noncooperative and regional arms control regimes. An innovation of the paper is the inclusion of the price of arms which proves to have a major effect on the stability of arms races.

Economic aspects of disarmament: Arms race and arms control issues

Both the arms race and arms control and disarmament must be understood in order to study the economic aspects of disarmament. The end of the East‐West arms race by no means implies that the arms race has come to an end, as all of the regional arms races continue and others could develop in several areas of tension and conflict, including the successor states to the former Soviet Union and the nations of east central Europe. Arms control is by no means restricted to the East‐West arms race but can also apply to regional arms races. While there are potentially major gains from disarmament, particularly over the long term, in the short term disarmament can lead to the unemployment of labor, capital, and other resources. Policies to deal with the economic aspects of disarmament should focus on maximizing its real benefits and minimizing its real costs.

ASEAN's arms procurements: Challenge of the security Dilemma in the post Cold War Era

Abstract The ASEAN nations confront the classic security dilemma of seeking to ensure their individual national securities (largely through arms purchases), yet creating a regional environment of decreased relative security for each party. Perceptions of a diminished U.S. military role in Asia, coupled with rising fears of Asian regional powers (Japan, China, India, Vietnam), led ASEAN countries to invest heavily in modernization of their armed forces. This spiraling effect could conceivably generate a regional arms race, or, conversely, through regional cooperation, could lead to the development of a fairly impressive collective defense capability. However, the ASEAN states have rejected military alliance. Nevertheless, proposals have been made for ASEAN maritime cooperation. In this manner, ASEAN would be able to act collectively as a “military power,” even though it would be devoid of a formal regional military structure.

Conflict Resolution, Ethnonationalism and the Middle East Impasse

The intractable Middle East conflict is examined from the prism of `ethnic' conflict resolution. The resolution of conflicts between states and ethnonationalist movements (placed under fourteen different headings) is distinguished into `denial' solutions and `acceptance' solutions - policies that accept the other side as a people apart and as an interlocuteur valable. Denial policies are by definition non-negotiable. They need to be enforced. As a result, they are unlikely to resolve conflicts that are basically ethnic, such as the one of the Middle East, particularly under present circumstances of world-wide ethnic assertiveness. Only acceptance solutions may lead to a process of conflict resolution through negotiations between the two main parties concerned, in this case the State of Israel and the PLO. To the extent that states and ethnonationalist movements are implacably irredentist, they cannot present the other side to a conflict with other than non-negotiable denial policies. Ten problems are identified as instrumental for the Middle East impasse and suggestions are made as to how they can be settled. They are the objective (zero-sum) conflict of interest, conflict attitudes, the domestic factor, the positive functions of the conflict, ethnonationalism, the asymmetry between state and revolutionary movement, the role of the superpowers, the religious-cultural dimension, regional expansionism and the regional arms race.