An Unstoppable Arms Trade?

At first glance, the international arms trade seems to be one of those problems that will always be with us, like death and taxes. But just as life can be prolonged and tax rates can be reduced, the traffic in weapons can be reined in, given the political will to do so, as I first suggested in two contributions to World Policy Journal-- the first, "Curbing the Arms Trade: From Rhetoric to Restraint" in the spring of 1992, and "Why Sell Arms?" a year later.

Not much has changed in the ensuing years, alas. The will to control weapons transfers has been sorely lacking, as sales of military goods and services have mushroomed to $32 billion for 2008. That is triple the sales level reached during the first year of the George W. Bush administration. This astonishing increase in sales has been driven in part by the newfound buying power of oil-rich U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf, and in part by the availability of a dizzying array of new arms transfer subsidy programs that have been put into place during the Bush years.

Aside from providing a boon to the defense industry, what purpose do these weapons exports serve? If you asked a representative of the arms industry or the Pentagon, the answer would be something like the following: they help bolster friends and intimidate enemies; they serve as sweeteners for agreements allowing U.S. access to overseas military bases; they make it easier for our allies to operate in partnership with American forces; and they help sustain the U.S. defense industrial base by providing additional revenues to key contractors.

The downside of runaway arms sales usually receives less consideration from policymakers: the "boomerang" effect of American weapons and armsmaking technology falling into the hands of adversaries, as happened in Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq; the destabilizing effects of fueling conflicts from the Middle East to the Caucasus to South Asia; the enabling of human rights abuses; and the economic costs of subsidizing and maintaining expensive high-tech weapons systems.

Arms transfers are generally justified by a mix of strategic, political, and economic motives. The roots of current policy go back to the Nixon administration. As the Vietnam War was becoming increasingly unpopular, President Richard Nixon suggested that while the United States should continue to supply arms and military assistance to its major allies, "the objective of any American administration would be to avoid another war like Vietnam anywhere in the world." This resulted in a strategy of arming regional surrogates such as Iran, Indonesia, and Brazil to promote U.S. interests in their respective areas. The OPEC oil embargo of the early 1970s added a strong dose of economic motivation to Nixon's strategic and political concerns, as Persian Gulf nations used their newfound wealth to scoop up top-of-the-line U.S. armaments. The Shah of Iran was a particularly avid buyer, loading up on costly systems like F-14 and F-16 combat aircraft--weapons that fell into the hands of the Khomeini regime when the Shah was overthrown in January 1979.

The Ford administration followed Nixon's lead, even as the problems of increased arms sales began to become apparent in such cases as the war between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus, in which both sides used weapons made in the United States.

Then along came Jimmy Carter, who had the sensible notion that arms sales were by and large a bad thing. In a 1976 campaign speech, he argued that no one should "justify this unsavory business on the cynical ground that by rationing out the means of violence we can somehow control the world's violence." Unfortunately, the fall of the Shah of Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan killed any chances for arms trade controls during Carter's administration. In fact, by the end of his term, Carter was using arms transfers routinely in support of a variety of objectives, from helping to cement the Camp David agreements with a pledge of billions of dollars in military aid to Egypt and Israel, to bartering arms exports for access to military bases and weapons depots for his new Persian Gulf-focused Rapid Deployment Force (RDF), the forerunner of today's U.S. Central Command.

Ronald Reagan's greatest contribution to the annals of the arms trade was his doctrine of providing covert military aid to "freedom fighters" in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, and Nicaragua--a policy that inadvertently helped supply and train the very Islamic fundamentalist groups that later joined forces as part of the Al Qaeda terrorist network.

By 1992, economic motives had returned to the fore as President George H. W. Bush touted sales of F-16 combat aircraft to Taiwan and F-15s fighter jets to Saudi Arabia as evidence that "in these times of economic transition, I want to do everything I can to keep Americans at work." In the case of the F- 16 sale to Taiwan, Bush's domestic economic concerns came at a high price: the sale provoked China to pull out of talks among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council aimed at limiting weapons transfers to regions of conflict. China's reaction was tied to Washington's violation of a 1982 accord that was supposed to establish limits on the level of sophistication of weaponry that the United States could transfer to Taiwan. At the time, this development prompted the head of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Morton Abramowitz, to observe that "for a President who was establishing a new world order to massively violate a written agreement is hardly conducive to world order."

President Clinton did Bush one better when he explicitly included concerns for the defense industrial base in his official arms sales policy directive. In keeping with this approach, his administration signed off on a then-record $28 billion in arms transfers in his first full year in office, mostly to the Middle East and East Asia. One of Clinton's most controversial moves was his lifting of a longstanding ban on the transfer of U.S. combat aircraft to LatinAmerica, caving in to pressure from the Pentagon and the arms industry to allow the sale of F-16 fighter planes to Chile.

All of the above seems to suggest that the arms trade is an intractable problem that is not amenable to public pressure--or presidential commitment. But there have been important successes in recent years that belie this pessimistic view.

At the international level, there have been a number of initiatives aimed at curbing some of the world's most dangerous weapons systems, driven by the energy and influence of non-governmental organizations. The list includes the global treaty against anti-personnel land mines, which was promoted by a coalition that included human rights, humanitarian, religious, and arms control groups; the recent establishment of a global ban on cluster bombs (weapons of indiscriminate effect that can leave behind thousand of unexploded "bomblets" that pose a threat to military personnel and civilians alike); and the continuing efforts at the United Nations and in key regions to place restrictions on the spread of small arms and light weapons, the primary tools used by governments and non-state actors in devastating wars such as the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

A common thread that unites these efforts is the demand that human rights and humanitarian concerns be placed front and center in decisions on what weapons are transferred, and how they are used. In addition, each campaign has made effective arguments suggesting that beyond the humanitarian benefits of curbing these weapons, there are national security and economic benefits as well--promoting stability, removing risks to traditional armed forces and peacekeeping operations, and making the nations of the global South safe for development.

Shamefully, another common thread uniting these recent arms control successes has been the failure of Washington to support them. The United States has failed to endorse the land mines and cluster bomb treaties, and has done far less than it could--and should--to support limits on the spread of small arms and light weapons. A new administration should endorse these three efforts, providing not only its assent but the energy and resources needed to fulfill their promise of a safer world.

A new administration should also support a global arms trade treaty that would codify existing commitments in international law aimed at restraining sales to human rights abusers and conflict regions. This initiative has already been endorsed by the United States' major NATO allies. Participation by Washington could help persuade other major suppliers like Russia and China to endorse the treaty.

Last but not least, a thorough review of the strategic, political, and human consequences of current U.S. arms sales policies is long overdue. Ideally, it should be carried out by a diverse panel of experts that is not weighted towards representatives of the Pentagon and the arms industry, as is all too often the case with bodies of this sort.

The arms trade is an area in which governments are far behind their own citizens in paving the way for more practical and more humane policies. The next administration in Washington should do everything it can to catch up.