March 2009

Welcome to the March 2009 issue of SIPRI Update: Global Security & Arms Control. This monthly newsletter is your source for the latest developments in international security, arms control, non-proliferation and conflict, including recent SIPRI activities and publications.

In this issue:

• Axel Berkowsky writes on Japan’s security and defence policy
• Reviewing NATO’s nuclear policy
• Recent SIPRI events
• Forthcoming SIPRI events
• SIPRI in the media
• SIPRI fact of the month
• SIPRI’s latest publications
  • The CFE Treaty One Year after its Unilateral Suspension
  • Reporting Transfers of Small Arms and Light Weapons to UNROCA, 2007
  • China’s Expanding Peacekeeping Role
  • Chemical and Biochemical Non-lethal Weapons
  • SIPRI Yearbook 2008
    
    

Axel Berkowsky, University of Milan’s Contemporary Asia Research Centre (CARC)

For a country that has officially renounced armed force as a means of settling international disputes, Japan’s defence and security policy agenda is looking full. This month, Japan’s Security Council decided to deploy two destroyers to the Gulf of Aden—and into harm’s way—contributing to an international anti-piracy mission. The ships are equipped with two patrol helicopters and carry roughly 400 people, including members of the Japanese Navy’s special forces unit along with eight coast guard personnel. Is this introducing a new era in Japan’s defence policy?

Continue reading . . .

With support from the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, SIPRI has produced a report that examines the role that nuclear weapons could and should play in NATO. In 2009 NATO is likely to begin a process of updating the current version of its Strategic Concept, which dates from 1999. The Concept lays out the main parameters of NATO’s nuclear policy and has been described as a core mission statement for the alliance. This process is part of a wider internal NATO review of nuclear deterrence requirements for the 21st century.

The SIPRI report, written by SIPRI Senior Researcher Dr Ian Anthony, describes and analyses the issues that should be the main focus of this wider debate. Can and should nuclear deterrence be tailored to a narrower set of discrete circumstances than was the historically the case? What should be the future of short-range delivery systems for nuclear weapons, including US nuclear weapons based in Europe?

On 5 March the SIPRI report was discussed at a joint European Parliament–NATO Parliamentary Assembly public hearing on transatlantic security relations organized by the European Parliament's Subcommittee on Security and Defence (SEDE), at which Dr Anthony presented the main findings.

For more information, contact Stephanie Blenckner, SIPRI Communications Officer, and read the report here.

SIPRI Senior Researcher Shannon Kile was quoted by Nezavisimaya Gazeta on Iran’s nuclear programme. He was also interviewed by Radio Free Europe on reports of upgrades in the Iranian nuclear programme.

SIPRI Researcher Chin-Hao Huang’s testimony to the US–China Economic and Security Review Commission was reported on by China Daily. He was also interviewed by The Epoch Times in an article on China’s growing Navy force.

The launch of the Russian translation of the SIPRI Yearbook 2007 in Moscow was reported on by Interfax.

The role of Pakistan as an arms importer was commented on by SIPRI Researcher Pieter Wezeman to Swiss Radio Echo as the Swiss Parliament discussed arms exports.

Neue Rheinische Zeitung quoted SIPRI on NATO military expenditure in an article on the 60th birthday of NATO.

SIPRI data was quoted in an article by AFP on South American defence spending; by the main German news programme Tagesschau in an analysis on disarmament; on Swedish Radio in a story on weapon exports; in The Guardian in an article on China’s military spending; and by many others.

One year after Russia’s unilateral suspension of the 1990 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE Treaty), it is time to reassess the condition and prospects of the CFE regime. This Policy Brief gives an overview of the issues that have dogged the CFE process and that led up to the Russian action. It outlines the situation that the parties to the treaty find themselves in now and assesses the prospects for conventional arms control in Europe.

This paper details and analyses UN member states’ reporting of international transfers of small arms and light weapons (SALW) to the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms (UNROCA) for 2007. It complements a similar study that covers the years 2003–2006. It concludes that the level of reporting on international transfers of SALW is now high enough that the UNROCA Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) should reconsider the establishment of a new, eighth UNROCA category of SALW. The paper gives recommendations on how the new category could be established and how it would function.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of China’s first contributions to a UN peacekeeping operation. This Policy Brief examines the dramatic expansion in Chinese involvement in UN peacekeeping activities and makes recommendations to the international community on how to engage with China in order to strengthen its commitment to regional stability, ensure greater convergence between Chinese and other international interests on questions of regional security, and encourage more effective international peacekeeping operations.

Non-lethal weapons are intended to incapacitate personnel or matériel without injuring people. This Policy Paper describes and analyses biological and chemical substances that have the potential to be used as weapons or can improve the efficacy of other, more traditional, weapons. Potential loopholes in the international prohibitions against chemical and biological warfare are presented together with practical, politically feasible and technically useful policy options.

Chemical and biological substances may be used to incapacitate or influence human behaviour and can be used in both wars and other conflict situations, including for peacekeeping and some counterterrorism operations. The possible applications of science and technology for developing such agents are also expanding. This Policy Paper strikes the right balance between scientific detail and reader-friendliness to inform both the specialist and the generalist on this emergent and complex issue.

For information on SIPRI’s other recent and forthcoming books, visit the SIPRI Publications website, books.sipri.org

Other recent publications by SIPRI authors