Main Directions of Research in the Arms Trade

Abstract

Research in arms transfers over the past decades has greatly increased our knowledge, but in a somewhat uneven fashion. With the end of the Cold War, arms transfers take place in a new international system. It appears that the most useful research at this stage—and given the limitations on the quantitative information available—should involve factual description of the different stages of arms transfers, the parties, their interests, the legal aspects, and the mechanics of arms transfers; harder information on the economic aspects of arms transfers, including the effects of offsets, of transfer of technology, and of joint development and production; identification of general trends and of characteristics relevant to more general concepts; and elaboration of ways and means to bring arms transfers under better national and international control. Perhaps most important, researchers should show detachment, devoting their efforts more to establishing facts than to presenting opinions.

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References

1. Here the terms “arms trade” and “arms transfers” are used synonymously. In a stricter usage, “arms trade” might be used for arms transfers conducted on essentially commercial terms, whereas “arms transfers” denotes all transfers of conventional arms regardless of the contractual conditions under which they take place. Transfers of weapons of mass destruction—nuclear, chemical, biological—are not covered by either term.

and the U.S. Congressional Research Service, for its Trends in Conventional Arms Transfers to the Third World.

3. The articles in the present volume give a good view of the different facets of research in arms transfers, even though they cannot, of course, review all past research.

4. The political and economic implications of different modes of transfers—for example, sales on commercial terms or military assistance, and straight transfers or transfer of technology—can be quite different.

5. An important study on this subject is Robert E. Harkavy , The Arms Trade and International Systems (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1975).

6. The United Nations General Assembly resolution requesting the study on “ways and means of promoting transparency in international transfers of conventional arms” (United Nations General Assembly Document A/RES/43/75), the original sponsors of which were Colombia and Italy, made specific reference to the “illicit arms trade,” and one chapter of the study (Study on Ways and Means of Promoting Transparency in International Transfers of Conventional Arms, Report of the Secretary-General, United Nations General Assembly Document A/46/301, 9 Sept. 1991), dealt exclusively with this subject, even though it is hardly possible to introduce more transparency into the black market.

Trevor Taylor , “Research Note: British Arms Exports and R&D Costs,” Survival, 22(6):259-262 (1980).

8. A particularly good example of a case study that does pay attention to this process is Ingemar Dörfer , Arms Deal: The Selling of the F-16 (New York: Praeger, 1983).

9. Geoffrey Kemp , “Arms Transfers and the `Back-End' Problem in Developing Countries,” Arms Transfers in the Modern World, ed. Stephanie G. Neuman and Robert E. Harkavy (New York: Praeger, 1979), pp. 264-275.

10.

Lewis W. Snider , “Arms Transfers and Recipient Cooperation with Supplier Policy Preferences,” International Interactions, 5(2-3):241-266 (1978).

11.

11. See Christian Catrina , Arms Transfers and Dependence (New York: Taylor & Francis, 1988), in which these factors are dealt with systematically and previous studies on this subject are discussed.