| SIPRI Update: Global Security & Arms Control | January 2008 |
Welcome to the first issue of SIPRI Update: Global Security & Arms Control. This monthly newsletter will be your source for the latest developments in international security, arms control, non-proliferation and regional conflict, including recent activities and publications at SIPRI.
In this issue:
| 2008: A call to arms control | Back to top |
Bates Gill, SIPRI Director
The year before us promises the beginnings of the first serious discussions of arms control and disarmament in more than a decade.
This fortuitous opportunity emerges from a broadening consensus around the world—both among women and men on the street and among elites—to implement more serious and effective arms control and disarmament measures. At least three convergent trends stand out to explain this new, more ringing call to arms control.
Growing threats, growing awareness To begin, there is intensifying awareness and concern around the world with how to balance the obvious upsides of globalization with its increasingly apparent downsides. Regarding arms control, this plays out as an increasing need to balance the benefits of greater and more diffuse flows of people, goods, technologies and knowledge—including flows related to nuclear weapons—with a greater ability to monitor and prevent their misuse toward illicit and violent ends.
| SIPRI ranked as a top 30 global ‘Go-to think tank’ | Back to top |
SIPRI is ranked as one of the top 30 think tanks in The Global ‘Go-To Think Tanks’: The Leading Public Policy Research Organizations in the World, a report by the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
The report, which identified 5080 think tanks worldwide, ranked the top institutions by surveying the opinions of the directors and researchers of think tanks themselves. This ‘peer review’ placed SIPRI among the top 17 think tanks in Europe and, of the 69 think tanks in Sweden, ranked SIPRI first.
| Upcoming SIPRI events | Back to top |
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25 January |
Paul Heinbecker, Director of the Centre for Global Relations, Wilfrid Laurier University Professor Heinbecker, formerly Canada’s ambassador to Germany and to the United Nations, will lecture on ‘Responsibility to protect: still a good idea?’. For more on this event, contact the organizer, Evamaria Loose-Weintraub |
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21 February |
Sergio Duarte, UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Ambassador Duarte will speak at an event jointly organized by SIPRI and the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics. Contact the organizer, Evamaria Loose-Weintraub, for more information. |
| Recent SIPRI events | Back to top |
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15–17 January |
Confidence-building measures: successful cases and implications for the Taiwan Strait This international conference, organized by the New Taiwanese Culture Foundation in cooperation with SIPRI, assessed the prospects for peaceful resolution of the confrontation in the Taiwan Strait through the implementation of cross-Strait confidence-building measures. |
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13–14 December |
The EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports This seminar, organized jointly by SIPRI, the Government of Serbia and the Portuguese Presidency of the European Union, was the latest in a series of events aimed at highlighting the importance of the Code of Conduct in promoting peace, security and stability. The seminar brought together officials from ministries involved in the export licensing process in South East Europe, EU member states and the EU Council Secretariat. For more on SIPRI’s work on export controls, see the website of the SIPRI Non-proliferation and Export Control Project |
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9–11 December |
Islam and Arab nationalism Ekaterina Stepanova, Leader of the SIPRI Armed Conflicts and Conflict Management Project, spoke on ‘Religious extremism and radical nationalism as ideologies of asymmetrical armed violence: national and transnational dimensions’ at this seminar co-organized by the Swedish Institute in Alexandria (SwedAlex) and the Center for Arab Unity Studies (CAUS). CAUS and SwedAlex are SIPRI’s partners in translating the SIPRI Yearbook into Arabic. Read more below |
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26–27 November |
United Nations Arms Embargoes: Their Impact on Arms Flows and Target Behaviour This joint SIPRI–Uppsala University report was launched at a series of events in New York.
Read more about these events and the media coverage |
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| SIPRI in the media | Back to top |
SIPRI Researcher Shannon Kile spoke to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Chicago Tribune on Iran’s nuclear programme.
SIPRI Researcher Vitaly Fedchenko commented on the capture of nuclear materials in Slovakia and the questions raised about borderless travel in the Christian Science Monitor.
In Nature, SIPRI Director Bates Gill discussed the prospects of non-proliferation issues following the US presidential elections.
Figures from the SIPRI Military Expenditure Database informed articles in Jane’s Military Communications , the India Post and The Guardian , among many others.
| SIPRI fact of the month | Back to top |
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Saudi Arabia was the 4th largest recipient of arms for the period 1997–2001 but fell to 16th place for the period 2002–2006. |
During the third week of January 2008 the French and US presidents both visited Saudi Arabia to discuss significant arms deals, with the Russian President due to arrive in Riyadh in mid-February. In September 2007 Saudi Arabia agreed to buy 72 Typhoon combat aircraft from the UK. If the planned arms deals with these four countries—the four largest arms suppliers—go ahead, then Saudi Arabia could return to the group of major recipients of arms. According to SIPRI data, Saudi Arabia was the 4th largest recipient of arms for the period 1997–2001 but fell to 16th place for the period 2002–2006. For the period 1997–2006, the USA accounted for around 60 per cent of arms transfers, the UK for 20 per cent and France for 15 per cent. Information on all transfers of major conventional weapons since 1950 can be obtained from the SIPRI Arms Transfers Database. |
| SIPRI’s latest publications | Back to top |
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Reforming Nuclear Export Controls The Future of the Nuclear Suppliers Group SIPRI Research Report no. 22 Ian Anthony, Christer Ahlström and Vitaly Fedchenko Published by Oxford University Press for Stockholm International Peace Research Institute December 2007 ISBN 978-0-19-929085-7 hardback £35/$70 ISBN 978-0-19-929086-4 paperback £12.99/$24.95 Buy from the OUP website (UK or USA) or download from books.sipri.org |
The diversion to military programmes of materials and technologies originally obtained from foreign suppliers for peaceful purposes has played a prominent role in the known cases of nuclear proliferation. All of these cases represent export control failures. The need to strengthen nuclear export controls has been identified by the G8 as well as by the European Union. This study examines the structure and activities of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), a group of 45 states committed to applying effective controls on exports of an agreed set of items as part of a wider effort to prevent nuclear weapon proliferation. Looking to the future, the report analyses the place of the NSG within the overall effort to prevent nuclear proliferation.
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United Nations Arms Embargoes Their Impact on Arms Flows and Target Behaviour A Report by SIPRI and the Uppsala University Special Program on the Implementation of Targeted Sanctions November 2007 ISBN 978-91-85114-56-6 paperback Download from books.sipri.org |
This report is the first analysis of the 27 UN arms embargoes imposed since the end of the cold war. UN arms embargoes have been criticized as having a limited impact on reducing arms flows to their targets or improving target behaviour. This report reassesses UN embargoes and their effect on arms flows and target behaviour. In particular, it considers the effect of the Interlaken (1999–2001), Bonn–Berlin (2000–2001) and Stockholm (2001–2003) processes, which offered a range of proposals for developing the focus and implementation of UN arms embargoes.
This report proposes a typology of peace and security goals that arms embargoes might help to achieve. Recommendations for strengthening the implementation of arms embargoes are addressed to the UN Security Council in particular, but are of potential interest to all UN member states, UN agencies, regional organizations, non-governmental organizations, researchers and the concerned general public.
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The Arabic version of SIPRI Yearbook 2007: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security , translated and published by the Centre for Arab Unity Studies (CAUS), Beirut, with the sponsorship of the Swedish Institute in Alexandria, is now available to buy from CAUS (US$20). Read more in Arabic or in English. |
For information on SIPRI’s other recent and forthcoming books, visit the SIPRI Publications website, books.sipri.org
Other recent publications by SIPRI researchers
Bates Gill and Chin-hao Huang, ‘Las relaciones entre China y África: implicaciones para Europa’ [Relations between China and Africa: implications for Europe], Vanguardia Dossier, Jan. 2008. Read this article (in Spanish; requires subscription)
Benjamin C. Garrett and John Hart, Historical Dictionary of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Warfare (Scarecrow Press: Lanham, Md., 2007). Buy this book (from Scarecrow Press)
Vitaly Fedchencko, ‘Weapons of mass analysis: advances in nuclear forensics’, Jane’s Intelligence Review, Nov. 2007, pp. 49–51. Read this article (requires subscription)