Bibliographical Information
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Lethal Commerce: The
Global Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons (Not in Print)
Edited by Jeffrey Boutwell, Michael T. Klare, Laura W. Reed
(Cambridge: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1995)
Table of Contents |
Introduction
This volume addresses one of the most important and
least studied international security problems of the post-Cold War era: the
proliferation of small arms and light weapons in trouble spots around the
globe. The vast abundance of light weapons is an endemic ingredient in
conflicts from Bosnia to Cambodia, Somalia to Kashmir. The extensive use of
such weapons as assault rifles, machine guns, land mines, light mortars and
hand grenades has led to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of deaths in a
wide range of ethnic and nationalist conflicts. Many thousands more have died
from disease and starvation induced by these conflicts, or have been forced to
flee their homelands for precarious survival elsewhere. The proliferation of
small arms and light weapons also dangerously complicates the job of UN
peacekeeping forces and humanitarian aid workers in numerous conflict areas
around the world.
From well-publicized cases like Bosnia and Rwanda to
less well-known conflicts such as those in Sri Lanka and Tadzhikistan, light
weapons are the overwhelming cause of both civilian and combat deaths. In
Angola and Cambodia, for example, land mines continue to exact a deadly toll on
civilians, while the AK-47 assault rifle and hand grenades have killed many
thousands in Kashmir and Nagorno Karabakh. Despite the scarcity of hard data
about the exact numbers and transfers of small arms, there is little doubt that
the ubiquitous presence of these weapons can have devastating consequences.
Even a relatively small quantity of light weapons can cause large-scale
destruction and suffering when used to undermine a fragile state or to
terrorize a defenseless population. On the eve of civil violence in Rwanda, for
instance, the Rwandan Army spent a mere $6 million to purchase 70 light
mortars, 10,000 high-explosive mortar shells, 2,000 RPG-7 rocket-propelled
grenades, 450 Egyptian-made AK-47 assault rifles, and three million rounds of
ammunition, all of which were undoubtedly used by government forces and
government-backed militias in mass slayings of civilians.
Increasingly since the end of the Cold War, as
sectarian militias, insurgent groups, and beleaguered governments gird
themselves for armed conflict, the global trade in light weapons has expanded.
Some of the evidence of this is relatively well-publicized: the various
militias in Bosnia, for instance, are reportedly spending $2 billion per year
on imported weapons despite the United Nations' embargo on arms transfers to
the former Yugoslavia. Narcotics traffickers in South and Central America are
known to have amassed large stockpiles of light weapons from black-market
sources in Europe, Israel, and the United States. Other cases, though, have
received less attention in the international press. The various Kurdish
insurgent forces, for example, have acquired a large supply of light weapons
for their struggle with the Turkish Army. In another little-known case, the
Burmese government has purchased an estimated $1 billion in low-tech weaponry
from China to support its military operations against the Karens and other
autonomy-seeking minorities.
The growing worldwide availability of small arms and
light weapons has enormous implications for international security in the
current, post-Cold War era. Without a doubt, this lethal commerce is
contributing to the intensity and duration of the internal and ethnic conflicts
that have erupted over the past few years. Although these conflicts invariably
have deep roots, the global proliferation of light weapons has enabled the
parties involved - including both state and nonstate actors - to sustain
intense combat even in the face of UN embargoes or other efforts at conflict
control. The resulting carnage has overwhelmed the world's humanitarian aid
resources, produced millions of new refugees, and exhausted the UN's
peacemaking capabilities.
Despite the scale and severity of the threat posed by
the proliferation of small arms and light weapons, however, there have been few
attempts to subject these weapons to any form of arms control or limitation.
With the exception of the international campaign against antipersonnel land
mines, which fall within the purview of the United Nations convention on
inhumane and "indiscriminate" weapons, the global trade in small arms and light
weapons not only continues unimpeded, but is supported by a wide array of
governments, private arms companies, intelligence services, black market
traders, narcotics traffickers, and paramilitary organizations. To date, little
scholarly attention has been paid to the trade in light weapons, especially in
comparison to research on the global trade in major weapons systems (such as
fighter aircraft, tanks, and ships). If noticed at all, light weapons have
historically been assumed to follow the same trade patterns as heavy weapons.
Yet this assumption has proved to be increasingly erroneous in the post-Cold
War era, as small arms trafficking has surged despite a depressed market for
major weapons systems.
Consequently, little is known about the relationship
of the proliferation in light weapons to current conflicts. To what extent is
the ready availability of such weapons on the world market a contributing
factor in the outbreak of ethnic, religious, sectarian, and nationalist
conflicts around the world? What are the possibilities for reducing the levels
of violence and speeding the resolution of these conflicts? And how can we
account for the dearth of public and governmental attention to the dangers
posed by the ever-increasing lethality of, and expanding trade in, such
weapons?
This volume represents work-in-progress by its
contributors that attempts to assess our current understanding of the global
trade in small anus and light weapons with the aim of identifying fruitful
avenues for further study and possible approaches for controlling this lethal
commerce. Among the authors, a clear point of consensus is the pressing need
for future research on the relationship between light weapons trafficking and
the proliferation of ethnic, sectarian, and national conflicts. Similarly, they
share a strong belief in the need to recast current governmental efforts at
arms control to include small arms and light weapons.
This volume is divided into three sections. Part One
highlights the scope of the problem and the need for an expanded approach to
the entire arms trade. As Aaron Karp notes in his introductory essay, "Violence
around the world is fed not by major arms but by small and light weapons." To
Karp, the prominence of small arms and light weapons marks a revolution that is
only beginning to receive the recognition it deserves. Tackling some difficult
definitional issues, Karp chastises scholars for using outdated and often
inappropriate approaches to this trade that derive from the study of major
conventional weapons.
Michael T. Klare examines a constellation of systemic
forces to explain the recent growth in the global trade in small arms and light
weapons. Klare identifies factors including: the break-up of the Soviet Union
into fifteen multi-ethnic republics (some with severe internal stresses), a
post-Cold War rise in ethnic and religious conflict, the existence of surplus
stocks of small arms deriving from excess production capabilities, and the
growing importance of nonstate actors in the weapons trade, notably insurgent
groups, separatist movements, tribal and religious communities, and criminal
organizations.
As Klare explains, the trade in light weapons occurs
through a variety of international channels, ranging from
government-to-government transfers to clandestine and black-market sales. The
importance of these black-market channels is underscored in R.T. Naylor's
essay, "The Structure and Operation of the Modem Arms Black Market." Naylor
draws upon a broader economic understanding of clandestine commerce to
illuminate the black-market arms trade and its relationship to other illegal
contraband such as narcotics, oil, and precious gems. Naylor also examines the
difficulties of enacting and enforcing strong international controls on the
illegal weapons trade, especially when domestic gun control legislation is so
contentious in countries like the United States.
In Part Two, contributors with markedly different
approaches examine the role played by small arms and light weapons in regional
conflicts in South Asia, Angola, the former Soviet Union, and Colombia. Taken
together, these four essays offer a rare wealth of detail that illuminates the
multifaceted nature of the small arms trade and its relationship to both civil
strife and local cultural norms of violence. In his essay "Light Weapons and
Ethnic Conflict in South Asia," Chris Smith draws upon years of firsthand
investigation to analyze how the proliferation of small arms stemming from the
war in Afghanistan has heightened communal polarization and the level of
violence in the region. Smith chronicles the "arms pipeline" established by the
CIA in Pakistan following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the resulting
flood of light weapons into regional arms markets. In Smiths view, the root
cause of the increased violence in Pakistan, Kashmir, and India is weak
governance: nonetheless, the proliferation of modem weapons has, he argues,
worsened an already volatile situation.
Lucy Mathiak focuses on the impact of external
involvement on the decades-old conflict in Angola, particularly the role of the
United States and South Africa in supporting the FNLA and UNITA rebel groups.
Along with supplying mercenaries and military training, the provision of arms
and ammunition to rebel forces provided the means to sustain the civil conflict
for two decades. In conjunction with direct military intervention by South
African security forces, US-supplied materiel helped prolong the conflict,
increase the number of civilian casualties, and foil various efforts to carry
out a peace settlement. Notwithstanding the peace overtures in late 1994,
Mathiak shows that, even today, Angola remains locked in a violent stalemate
sustained largely by the massive infusion of arms and ammunition to combatants
during the Cold War.
In contrast to Angola, conflict and violence in
Colombia is almost entirely the result of internal dynamics. Daniel
García-Pea Jaramillo's focus on political factors and cultural mores in
Colombia illuminates the multiple sources of civil strife that plague this
heavily armed nation. Similar to Smith's analysis of South Asia,
García-Peña points to the importance of a weak central government
and acute internal divisions. While much international attention focuses on the
violence associated with Colombia's drug trade, this essay documents that, in
fact, many different internal conflicts have given rise to what
García-Peña calls "a culture of violence" and one of the world's
highest homicide rates. Among the sources of this violence are officially
condoned army death squads, drug-related bloodshed, and clashes between
right-wing paramilitary groups and leftist guerrillas. The problems Colombia
faces in tackling the widespread availability of small arms and its culture of
violence illuminate the difficulties to be found in other regions.
Turning to Russia and the former Soviet Union, Ksenia
Gonchar and Peter Lock highlight several alarming trends in a region marked by
increasing exports of small arms, swiftly growing domestic arms markets, and
political instability and civil strife. As they document, Russian arms
manufacturers are actively promoting their wares in international markets as
newly privatized companies struggle to save jobs, raise cash, and compensate
for a decline in government arms purchases. The growth in arms exports from
Russia - still the major producer of arms in the region - to those neighboring
countries it terms the "near abroad" has important ramifications for tensions
in the region, as illustrated by the continuing conflicts in Georgia, Armenia,
Azerbaijan, and elsewhere in the Transcaucasus region and Central Asia. A
growing trade in black market arms is also symptomatic of an ominous rise in
domestic violence and organized crime, especially within Russia.
Part Three of this volume offers a preliminary
assessment of various avenues for controlling the trade in small arms and light
weapons. Jo Husbands argues that, rather than trying to control broad
categories of weapons, more effective mechanisms could be those tied directly
to specific types of conflicts. According to Husbands, different kinds of
controls - such as arms embargoes and negotiated provisions for disarmament
could be applied at different stages in the process of a conflict. In
particular, Husbands suggests that the disarmament provisions included in peace
accords can be crucial to preventing the breakdown of peaceful settlements and
further bloodshed.
In the concluding essay, Edward Laurance states that
"policy makers need to be constantly shown, case after case, how accumulations
and misuse of light weapons can have serious negative consequences." Laurance
addresses the fact that policy makers tend to ignore or diminish the dangers of
the global trade in small arms, and he reviews the prospect of making this
lethal commerce more "transparent," for example by expanding the United
Nations' Register of Conventional Arms to include light weapons. Despite the
limited success of the UN Register thus far, Laurance contends that greater
transparency is a needed first step in order to establish new norms against the
light weapons trade.
As all these contributors attest, stopping the flow
of arms will not address the root causes of violence - a prospect that would
require the redress of long-standing grievances and the elimination of gross
social, economic, and political injustices. But all would undoubtedly agree
that it will be very difficult for the world community to reduce the level of
global violence so long as potential belligerents - including nonstate actors
can arm themselves with ease. Hence, efforts to alleviate ethnic and sectarian
warfare must be accompanied by efforts to curb the trade in small arms and
light weapons.
Controlling the light weapons traffic will not be
easy. At present, there are no international controls on the trade in such
munitions, and most governments view them as legitimate trade items. However,
as policy makers and ordinary citizens become more aware of the dangers arising
from unregulated weapons sales (whether at home or abroad), it should be easier
to adopt new national and multilateral restraints on such trafficking. A very
significant precedent for such efforts was set in 1993 when the US Congress
voted a three-year ban on the export of antipersonnel land mines. Although the
United States is not the leading supplier of such munitions, US action in this
regard demonstrated the possibility of establishing such restraints, and put
pressure on other suppliers to curb their own sales of land mines. Indeed, an
international coalition of human rights groups and humanitarian organizations,
including the International Red Cross, has been established to promote a
permanent, international ban on land mine production and sales.
The enormous scale and high stakes of this lethal
commerce provide the needed pressure and incentive for conceited international
action. The lessons of Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda, and Haiti are clear.
Ultimately, a new international control regime is needed to regulate the trade
in light and medium weapons: a regime of a scope comparable to existing regimes
for the control of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction. Success
need not be measured in terms of full compliance with such a regime, but rather
by the significant reduction in the flow of arms and ammunition to areas of
conflict that could ensue. In so doing, potential belligerent parties will find
it more difficult to stockpile sufficient arms that allow them to pursue
military, rather than political, outcomes to their respective grievances.
- The Editors
Table of Contents
Introduction (available online)
Jeffrey Boutwell, Michael T. Klare, and Laura W. Reed
Part I: The New Prominence of Small Arms and Light
Weapons
Small Arms – The New Major Weapons
Aaron Karp
The Global Trade in Light Weapons and the International System in the Post-Cold
War Era
Michael T. Klare
The Structure and Operation of the Modern Arms Black
Market
R.T. Naylor
Part II: Small Arms and Regional Conflicts
Light Weapons and Ethnic Conflict in South Asia
Chris Smith
Light Weapons and Internal Conflict in Angola
Lucy Mathiak
Light Weapons and Internal Conflict in Columbia
Daniel García-Peña Jaramillo
Small Arms and Light Weapons: Russia and the Former Soviet Union
Ksenia Gonchar and Peter Lock
Part III: Controlling the Global Trade in Small Arms
Controlling Transfers of Light Arms: Linkages to Conflict Processes and
Conflict Resolution Strategies
Jo L. Husbands
Addressing the Negative Consequences of Light Weapons Trafficking:
Opportunities for Transparency
Edward J. Laurance
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