Will there Be an Arms Trade Intelligence Deficit?

Abstract

With the end of the Cold War and superpower rivalry, policymakers will want to know more about more common types of conflict and the transfers of conventional arms needed to fight them. Unfortunately, as interest in arms transfer intelligence increases, the relative amount of money available to track and analyze this trade is likely to remain stable or decline. Improvements in arms trade intelligence are possible, however, if intelligence agencies are willing to risk prioritizing and, arguably, narrowing their focus to those aspects of the trade that have not yet received the attention they deserve. Here key opportunities include defining arms trade intelligence to exclude the proliferation of strategic weapons or the arming of terrorist organizations; substituting unclassified academic analysis for current, less critical classified tasks; and experimenting with market mechanisms to discipline how policymakers task the arms transfer intelligence community.

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References

1. See Richard Haver , “Collection: Prospects and Problems in the Post Cold War World” (Presentation before the Consortium for the Study of Intelligence, Working Group on Intelligence Reform, Washington, DC, 19 Oct. 1993).

2. For a more detailed discussion of these points see Henry Sokolski , “Fighting Proliferation with Intelligence,” Orbis (Spring 1984).

3. Examples of weapons of proliferation concern include nuclear, biological, and chemical munitions and high-leverage conventional systems, such as submarines operating in shallow or confined seas, accurate conventional missiles, and advanced command, control, communication, and intelligence systems. For a detailed discussion of what systems should qualify and why, see Henry Sokolski , “Nonapocalyptic Proliferation: A New Strategic Threat?” Washington Quarterly (Spring 1994).

4. The problem here is less a matter of monitoring and data collection than it is one of analysis. In this regard, the aim should be not to eliminate all duplication of effort but rather to eliminate duplication that undermines any hope of clarity about why distinctions need to be made between terrorism, proliferation, and conventional arms transfers. On the utility of duplication of efforts and necessary competition, see James Q. Wilson, “Thinking about Reorganization” (Presentation before the Consortium for the Study of Intelligence, Working Group on Intelligence Reform, Washington, DC, 10 June 1992).

5. Care must be taken, though, to ensure that the U.N. registry does not introduce bad information, thus making it more difficult to know what is going on.

See also William Harris , “Collection in the Intelligence Process,” in Intelligence Requirements for the 1980's: Clandestine Collection, ed. Roy Godson (Washington, DC: National Strategy Information Center, 1983).

7. For a detailed discussion of this debate, see Randall M. Fort , “Economic Espionage: Problems and Prospects” (Presentation before the Consortium for the Study of Intelligence, Working Group on Intelligence Reform, Washington, DC, 8 Apr. 1993).