The economic effects of international trade in armaments in the major western industrialized and developing countries†

We have used the Michigan Model of World Production and Trade to assess the impact of exports and imports of armaments (based on 1980 data) on sectoral trade and employment and other economic variables in the major Western trading countries. If the United States were to place a unilateral embargo on its arms exports and imports, we calculate that it would experience a comparatively small amount of employment displacement in the aggregate and that most of this displacement would occur in the transport equipment and electric machinery sectors. If all the major Western countries were to place a multilateral embargo on their arms trade, the sectoral effects on the United States would be similarly small. But the sectoral effects in several other industrialized and developing countries measured as a percentage of sectoral employment, would be larger, indicating potential short‐run adjustment problems in labor markets in some cases.     

On the Road to the 2015 NPT Review Conference

The second session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2015 Review Conference (RevCon) of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) highlighted two issues in particular—progress toward a Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction–Free Zone and the Joint Statement on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons—that may not only greatly affect the health and vitality of the NPT and the 2015 RevCon, but possibly also have implications for the international nonproliferation regime as a whole. Dr. William Potter, director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, interviewed Ambassador Cornel Feruta, chairman of the 2013 PrepCom, to discuss these and other issues related to the meeting and the future of the treaty and its review process.     

Meeting the growing safeguards burden

ABSTRACT

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) faces challenges in fulfilling its safeguards mandate as a result of an expanding safeguards burden and a relatively static budget. This dilemma has been exacerbated by the additional burdens of implementing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in Iran, but would not go away if implementation of the JCPOA were to end. There are three main areas of opportunity for the Agency: (1) budgetary expansion tied to changes in staffing policies, (2) changes in safeguards approaches, and (3) technological innovation. Barriers and limitations are associated with each approach, and advancing any of them will face a difficult political environment in Vienna.