The role and capabilities of major weapon systems transferred between 1950 and 2010: Empirical examinations of an arms transfer data set

Arms transfers provide exporters an avenue to provide security to other states while gaining economic benefits. Arms transfers provide importers an avenue to gain security without having to rely on alliances. Past research uses aggregate measures of the monetary or security value of major weapon system transfers without accounting for strategic differences in possible use in interstate and civil conflict. This article presents a data set on interstate transfers of major weapon systems between 1950 and 2010 building upon Stockholm Peach Research Institute’s Arms Trade Register with several improvements. First, it disaggregates land weapons and air weapons into categories reflecting their strategic capabilities. Second, model level characteristics (e.g. age, speed, and range) are drawn from Jane’s Defence sources. Additionally, the data set covers a larger range of time and states than previous data sets categorizing arms. To demonstrate the usefulness, this article first presents summary statistics of the data set and then replicates an earlier test to show that the effect of human rights and regime types on United States transfers differs across the categories of arms compared to alternative measures of arms transfers.     

Analysis of the effect of bore centerline on projectile exit conditions in small arms

Most finite element models of small arms focus on an idealized barrel, typically one with a perfectly straight bore centerline. Using five different experimentally measured bore centerlines, this investigation analyzes the effect centerline nonlinearity has on projectile exit conditions. This includes the effect of rotating a centerline through several orientations. Modeled using Abaqus/Explicit, this dynamic analysis simulates a single firing cycle for each centerline. Projectile jump is calculated for each model as a measure of the effects of warped centerlines. The warped centerlines have a small effect on barrel dynamics.     

Arms export controls and emerging domestic producers†

The possibility of domestic production raises a difficulty for arms export control measures, since embargoes, by raising the effective price of imports, increase the incentive for domestic production. We address this issue by developing a partial equilibrium model of the international arms market We compare three arms export regimes involving the exporters of high‐technology arms, with a particular focus on the effect of emerging domestic production: laissez‐faire trade, the uncoordinated regulation of exports and a producer cartel consisting of coordinated regulation. The main conclusion is that the possibility of domestic production significantly changes the nature of these stylized export regimes.     

Arms trade,arms control,and security: Collective action issues

This article puts forth collection action as a unifying theme for the conference essays on arms trade, control, and production. For each of these topics, collective action failures are related to group size and group composition considerations. Other issues are also examined including the manner in which individual contributions determine the overall level of the associated collective good ‐ the so‐called aggregation technology of public supply. Based on alternative aggregation technologies, the game‐theoretic underpinnings of these arms issues are explored.     

SPARRING ON THE SUBCONTINENT

South Asian Security and International Nuclear Order: Creating a Robust Indo-Pakistani Nuclear Arms Control Regime, by Mario Esteban Carranza. Ashgate, 2009. 208 pages, $99.95.     

US–Russia relations and the future of arms control: how the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty could restore engagement on nuclear issues

ABSTRACT

Relations between the United States and Russia are in a prolonged downward spiral. Under these circumstances, cooperation on nuclear issues—once a reliable area of engagement even in difficult political environments—has all but completely halted. There are urgent reasons to find a way out of this situation, particularly the expiration of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in 2021. However, seemingly intractable disagreements about noncompliance with the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty and US ballistic-missile defense, compounded by the Ukraine crisis, the conflict in Syria, and the accusations of Russian interference in the US election of 2016, threaten the future of arms control. Against this backdrop, policy makers and practitioners should identify ways to re-engage on nuclear issues now so they can be ready to implement them as soon as feasible. This article considers how the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) could serve as a platform for US–Russia cooperation on nuclear issues when circumstances permit. Taking into account the challenges posed by ongoing US non-ratification, it identifies a menu of CTBT-related activities short of ratification that the two countries could undertake together. It explores how joint work on this issue would advance shared US and Russian interests while helping to create the circumstances necessary for further arms-control work.     

The end of the “INF Treaty” and the US-China military balance

ABSTRACT

Whereas much of the debate about the demise of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty has focused on the European context and Russia’s alleged treaty violations, Asia looms large in the minds of proponents of the United States’s immediate withdrawal from the treaty. For many proponents, the fast-changing military balance in Asia and China's conventionally armed missiles constitute a sufficient cause for withdrawal. What does the end of the INF Treaty bode for the US-China military balance? This article argues that, although there are some near-term benefits for the US position in the conventional military balance with China, the advantages offered by prohibited missiles are minor and can be readily substituted by extant capabilities that are compliant with the treaty. Given the negative implications of the end of the INF Treaty for the future of arms control, the costs and benefits of withdrawing from the treaty require further examination; the military balance in Asia is an unpersuasive rationale for withdrawing from an important part of the arms-control architecture.     

ASSESSING RUSSIAN ATTITUDES TOWARD PHASED,DEEP NUCLEAR REDUCTIONS

As the United States and Russia contemplate the next stage of nuclear arms reductions beyond the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, another issue enters the agenda—that of the impact of possible deep reductions on the shape of the global nuclear balance. As the gap between the US/Russian arsenals and the arsenals of “second-tier” nuclear weapon states narrows, the familiar shape of the global balance, which remains, to a large extent, bipolar, is likely to change. The article explores the Russian approach to the relationship between further US-Russian reductions and the prospect of “nuclear multipolarity,” and assesses the relative weight of this issue in Russian arms control policy as well as the views on the two specific regional balances—the one in Europe (including UK and French nuclear weapons) and in Asia (the possible dynamic of the Russian-Chinese nuclear balance).     

NUCLEAR STABILITY AT LOW NUMBERS

Chinese writings on the workings of nuclear stability, deterrence, and coercion are thin and politicized. Nevertheless, it is possible to glean, from direct and inferential evidence, rather pessimistic conclusions regarding Chinese views of nuclear stability at low numbers. While China has been living with low numbers in its own arsenal for decades, today it views missile defense and advanced conventional weapons as the primary threat to nuclear stability. More generally, China views nuclear stability as wedded to political amity. Because none of these would be directly addressed through further US and Russian arsenal reductions, China is unlikely to view such reductions as particularly stabilizing. While there is little in Chinese writing to suggest lower US and Russian numbers would encourage a “race to parity,” there are grounds to worry about China becoming more assertive as it gains confidence in Beijing's own increasingly secure second-strike forces.     

Efficient distributions of arms‐control inspection effort

A rule that constrains decision‐makers is enforced by an inspector who is supplied with a fixed level of inspection resources—inspection personnel, equipment, or time. How should the inspector distribute its inspection resources over several independent inspectees? What minimum level of resources is required to deter all violations? Optimal enforcement problems occur in many contexts; the motivating application for this study is the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency in support of the Treaty on the Non‐Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Using game‐theoretic models, the resource level adequate for deterrence is characterized in a two‐inspectee problem with inspections that are imperfect in the sense that violations can be missed. Detection functions, or probabilities of detecting a violation, are assumed to be increasing in inspection resources, permitting optimal allocations over inspectees to be described both in general and in special cases. When detection functions are convex, inspection effort should be concentrated on one inspectee chosen at random, but when they are concave it should be spread deterministicly over the inspectees. Our analysis provides guidance for the design of arms‐control verification operations, and implies that a priori constraints on the distribution of inspection effort can result in significant inefficiencies. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2004.