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Arms Transfer Limitations and Third World Security

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Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN 0-19-829124-8
260 pp.
1988

Is the arms trade totally uncontrolled? What are the main obstacles to limitations on arms transfers? What can be learned from past attempts at arms transfer controls? This book assesses past efforts, current proposals and future possibilities to limit the transfer of weapons and military technology to Third World countries.

The arms trade is now a focus of international concern, as well as a key issue in the domestic politics of many arms supplier and recipient states. Not only are the implications of arms transfers vital to matters of security and the prudent use of limited resources, but the current arms market also generates clashes between short-term commercial and political gains and longer-term foreign policy goals. The most striking example of these forces at work is the case of arms transfers to Iraq and Iran during the 1980s.

Arms transfer limitation measures are extremely difficult to undertake, partly because national interests—instead of regional or global concerns—steer the willingness to restrain or not to restrain the arms trade. The contributors to this study conclude that attempts at multilateral arms transfer limitations are more likely to be successful if initiated by recipient rather than supplier countries, and they argue convincingly that, in order to pave the way for effective limitation measures, there is an urgent need for confidence-building measures that will modify attitudes towards such concepts as security.

Arms Transfer Limitations and Third World Security completes SIPRI's trilogy on the facts and implications of Third World buildups of major conventional weapons. It is a companion to the two SIPRI volumes Arms Production in the Third World (1986) and Arms Transfers to the Third World, 1971–85 (OUP, 1987).

Table of contents

Introduction

Thomas Ohlson

 

Part I. Controversies

1. Third World arms control and world system conflicts

Björn Hettne

2. Third World arms control in a hegemonistic world

K. Subrahmanyam

3. Third World arms control: A Third World responsibility

Nicole Ball

4. Third World arms control, military technology and alternative security

Chris Smith

 

Part II. Supplier control

5. US policy on arms transfer to the Third World

Michael T. Klare

6. Soviet arms transfer restraint

Joachim Krause

7. The Conventional Arms Transfers Talks: An experiment in mutual arms trade restraint

Jo L. Husbands and Anne Hessing Cahn

8. Problems and prospects of arms transfer limitations among second-tier suppliers: The cases of France, the United Kingdom and the Federal Republic of Germany

Frederic S. Pearson

9. Arms transfer limitations: The case of Sweden

Björn Hagelin

 

Part III. Recipient control

10. Regional arms control in the South American context

Augusto Varas

11. Problems and prospects for arms control in South-East Asia

Muthiah Alagappa and Noordin Sopiee

12. Third World arms control: Role of the non-aligned movement

S. D. Muni

 

Part IV. Integrating approaches

13. Arms transfer control and proposals to link disarmament to development

Jacques Fontanel and Jean-François Guilhaudis

14. The nuclear non-proliferation regime as a model for conventional armament restraint

John Simpson

 

Assessment

Thomas Ohlson

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