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Conflict in Context: Arms Transfers and Third World Rivalries during the Cold War
American Journal of Political Science
Abstract
I investigate the impact of superpower arms transfers on two enduring Third World rivalries. A time-series analysis suggests that Soviet and U.S. supplies to interstate rivals in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf are not parallel in their effects. Soviet transfers to Egypt and Syria exacerbated conflict in the Middle East, while U.S. transfers to Israel show no such propensity. There is also some evidence that U.S. arms supplies to Iran under Shah Pahlevi may have had a dampening effect on the Iran-Iraq rivalry. An action-reaction dynamic is apparent in superpower transfers to both the Middle East and Persian Gulf, although the reactive tendency was more pronounced in the U.S. policy. These results lend credence to a conceptual framework that highlights the congruent security orientations of arms suppliers and recipients.
... Particularly in the case of Major Conventional Weapons (MCW), such as fighter aircraft and bombers, tanks and armoured cars, or submarines and destroyers, only a small minority of countries has ever been able to produce and export them while most states depend on imports to arm their militaries. These imports, in turn, matter for security as they affect whether countries go to war (Kinsella, 1994(Kinsella, , 1998Krause, 2004;Beardsley et al., 2020), experience civil wars (Craft and Smaldone, 2002;Pamp et al., 2018), and how severe these conflicts become (Moore, 2012;Mehrl and Thurner, 2020;Fritz et al., 2022b). Beyond these immediate effects, the scarcity of MCW producers and most countries' need for these weapons also makes them foreign policy tools as producers can attach political strings to the arms they export (Krause, 1991). ...
... Second, we have shown that constellations from the rivalry network affect the arms trade but it is also possible that weapons transfers contribute to the formation and dissolution of rivalries. For instance, two rivals may be more likely to resolve their rivalry if they keep receiving weapons from the same supplier (see Beardsley et al., 2020) while Kinsella (1994) suggests that arms transfers affect conflict severity between rivals. This would imply simultaneous dependencies between the rivalry and the arms trade network, methods for modelling these are fortunately becoming available (see Chen, 2021). ...
... Relatedly,Kinsella (1994) also presents evidence that conflict intensity between rivals is affected by arms imports from third countries. 3 Other forms of security cooperation, such as external military bases or defence cooperation agreements, are also possible but were rare or nonexistent until the Cold War(Harkavy, 2007;Kinne, 2018). ...
States must navigate the structure of the international system in their relations with other states. One crucial component of this structure are rivalries as they indicate latent threat to states. Rivalries should thus influence how states behave within the given system, but also how they seek to shape and restructure it. Focusing on arms transfers, we clarify how the systemic structure implied by rivalries drives states’ efforts to engage in security cooperation with other states. Intuitively, a rivalry with another country should diminish an exporter’s propensity to transfer weapons there. But what is more, we argue that rivalries outside of this focal dyad matter as a potential importer’s enmity towards other countries will reveal information about its security interests to the exporter. Specifically, sharing rivalries with the same set of countries will signal to the exporter that there is a congruence in security interests and thus facilitate security cooperation. This security cooperation should take the form of arms transfers, at least if exporters value buck-passing and fear entrapment. We test our expectations using original data on Major Conventional Weapons transfers in the Interwar years, a period where this condition likely holds, and inferential network analysis models. Sharing rivals increases two countries’ probability to trade arms whereas a rivalry between countries exhibits no effect. This research contributes to our understanding of security cooperation, the arms trade, and networked international relations.
... We thank the panel and discussant for their comments and suggestions. Krause 1991), their effect on regional stability (Kinsella 1994;Kinsella and Tillema 1995), and the economics of transfers (Krause 1992;Pearson 1994) dominated the literature on arms transfers. From the 1990s onward, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the United States as a unipolar power created conditions for increased scrutiny of how arms sales might reward, or even encourage, human rights abuses. ...
... Smith et al. (1985, 243) also argue attaching conditions to weapons transfers can rein in potential bad behavior. Indeed, others explore the use of arms to influence decisionmaking in the recipient state over a broad range of issues (see Kinsella 1998;Sislin 1994;Catrina 1988). For governments concerned about human rights abuses, then, arms exports might provide a mechanism for improving the record of importing states. 1 However, critics contend that, because states can seek alternative suppliers, arms transfers have limited utility as tools of coercion and persuasion (Catrina 1988;Kinsella 1998). ...
... Indeed, others explore the use of arms to influence decisionmaking in the recipient state over a broad range of issues (see Kinsella 1998;Sislin 1994;Catrina 1988). For governments concerned about human rights abuses, then, arms exports might provide a mechanism for improving the record of importing states. 1 However, critics contend that, because states can seek alternative suppliers, arms transfers have limited utility as tools of coercion and persuasion (Catrina 1988;Kinsella 1998). The competitive nature of the international arms market may incline suppliers to take a stance of "if we don't sell them the weapons, someone else will" (Harkavy 1975, 51). ...
Since the height of the Cold War, major democratic arms suppliers have claimed that they take into consideration the human rights records of existing and potential purchasing states. After the Cold War, supplier policies suggested an increased focus on matters of human rights. But do their records match their rhetoric and their formal policies? We examine the arms transfer patterns of the four major democratic suppliers between 1976 and 2009. We argue that, if practice matches policy, then democratic suppliers should not transfer weapons to states violating human rights. However, because the global interests of these suppliers shift over time, we expect some transfers of major weapon systems to states that violate human rights, but not of the types most implicated in human rights abuses. Thus, we build on the existing arms transfer literature by disaggregating exports based on weapons type. The ordered logits we run for each major democratic supplier from 1976 to 2009 show that the major democratic suppliers generally do not account for human rights violations in the importing state, with the one exception being the United States transfer of land weapon systems. This research is important not only to arms and human rights research, but to foreign policy scholars in general. The patterns of supply and the continued preference of states to provide major conventional weapons to states with poor human rights records reveal important policy priorities for these democratic states.
... Some of my own research, however, does point to differences. In particular, in previous work I have found that where the superpowers' arms-supply relationships did affect regional security in distinct ways -for example, in relations between the Arab states and Israel or between Iraq and Iran -Soviet transfers were associated with increased levels of regional conflict initiation, but American transfers were not (Kinsella 1994(Kinsella , 1995Kinsella and Tillema 1995). Compared to these studies, the empirical results I report in this paper are broader in scope, drawn from several regions in the Third World and covering a somewhat longer time frame. ...
... A preface is in order before turning to Table 2. Although the findings from my previous research have never been free of ambiguities, I have repeatedly turned up evidence American and Russian arms transfers sometimes had different effects on state behavior (Kinsella 1994(Kinsella , 1995Kinsella and Tillema 1995). In particular, where differences are found, Russian transfers tended to be more destabilizing that 24 American transfers, which sometimes actually had a restraining effect. ...
... One of the essential premises of traditional -as opposed to structural -realist theory in international relations is that the actions of status quo powers such as the United States ought to have been more conducive to international stability than those of revolutionary or revisionist powers like the Soviet Union (e.g., Morgenthau 1978, 42-47). Patterns of alignment often matched local states involved in enduring rivalries with the like-minded superpower willing to supply arms to assist in the regional struggle, especially in the Middle East (e.g., Walt 1987;Schweller 1994;Kinsella 1994;Kinsella and Tillema 1995). This may take us part of the way toward understanding some of the incongruous supplier effects exhibited at the regional level of aggregation. ...
DRAFT: 10 March 2002 Controversy surrounds the alleged effects of foreign arms transfers on belligerency: do they precipitate international conflict, as some critics suggest, or do they promote stability by reinforcing deterrence, as others maintain? This paper examines the connection between arms transfers to the Third World and the occurrence of interstate conflict, including militarized disputes, from the end of World War II until the early 1990s. My analysis indicates that, in the aggregate, arms transfers almost uniformly contributed to subsequent instability within security complexes located in various regions of the Third World, but that the effects of American versus Russian arms supplies often appear incongruous. Although a structural realist interpretation fails to account for these findings, a traditional realist perspective – one that emphasizes the different implications of foreign policies oriented to defend or to oppose the international and regional status quo – offers a more promising explanation.
... One of the patterns to emerge from those studies was a tendency for the recipients of Soviet arms to engage in more belligerent behavior and/or incite the same on the part of their rivals, while the reverse tendency seemed to operate among recipients of US arms. The evidence in this regard is not overwhelming, but it is significant in the case of rivalries between Israel and its Arab neighbors and between Iran and Iraq (Kinsella 1994(Kinsella , 1995Kinsella and Tillema 1995). In this section of the paper I return to this question -does the impact of arms transfers on regional conflict depend on their source? ...
... The Soviet Union was openly committed to help promote revolutionary change during the cold war era; the United States affiliated mostly with the existing world order and with conservative local powers (e.g., see Walt 1987 on alignments in the Middle East). These alignment propensities were reflected rather clearly in the superpowers' arms supply policies, giving rise to a pattern we might call "supplier-recipient congruence" (Kinsella 1994). One of the essential premises of most realist theories of international relations is that the actions of status quo powers like the United States ought to have been more conducive to international stability than those of revolutionary or revisionist states like the Soviet Union. ...
... Given my ignorance on this score, I decided to stay with ordinary least squares regression when conducting my examination of arms-transfer dependence and conflict. 4 My previous studies uncovered similar differences in the impact of U.S. and Soviet arms upon some, but not all, enduring rivalries (Kinsella, 1994(Kinsella, , 1995Kinsella and Tillema, 1995). Enduring rivalries represent narrowly defined, persistently hostile communities of two or a few neighboring states. ...
Abstract There are two parts to this paper. The first part examines the impact of arms transfers on the conflictual behavior of third world recipients. I conceptualize conflict as a multiplicative function of total arms imports and the extent to which the recipient is dependent on relatively few arms suppliers. My hypothesis that arms imports encouraged belligerence but that arms-transfer dependence diminished this effect is not widely supported by my time series analyses: only twelve of 86 countries analyzed exhibit this dual pattern. The second part of the paper examines the impact of arms transfers on the aggregate level of military conflict within regional security complexes in the third world. Here I look at both the total amount of arms flows into the region and those arms flows originating with the United States and Soviet Union specifically. Structural hypotheses, which predict the impact of arms transfers based on the characteristics of the regional security complexes, do not receive support from my empirical analysis. Hypotheses that predict regional outcomes based on the source of weapons transfers — US or Soviet — fare better. The empirical patterns are consistent with the notion that Soviet arms transfers, representing a flow of military resources and implied political support from a revisionist power, were more destabilizing than arms transfers from the United States, a status quo oriented power. 1 ARMS TRANSFERS, DEPENDENCE, AND REGIONAL STABILITY:
... Some argue arms transfers increase military conflict, as increased capabilities on the part of the receiver embolden more assertive foreign policies and increase the domestic audience's expectations (Craft 1999;Craft and Smaldone 2002;Intriligator and Brito 1984;Kinsella 1994Kinsella , 1995Kinsella , 2014Kinsella and Tillema 1995;Mayer 1986;Schrodt 1983). Sylvan (1976) noted that not only do arms transfers predict increased conflict and decreased cooperation, but that there is a statistically significant two year lag in the time between receiving assistance and initiating conflict. ...
... Some argue arms transfers increase military conflict, as increased capabilities on the part of the receiver embolden more assertive foreign policies and increase the domestic audience's expectations (Craft 1999;Craft and Smaldone 2002;Intriligator and Brito 1984;Kinsella 1994Kinsella , 1995Kinsella , 2014Kinsella and Tillema 1995;Mayer 1986;Schrodt 1983). Sylvan (1976) noted that not only do arms transfers predict increased conflict and decreased cooperation, but that there is a statistically significant two year lag in the time between receiving assistance and initiating conflict. ...
This research examines the effect of cruise missile possession on state behavior. Specifically, it seeks to determine if countries who possess cruise missiles are more likely to initiate a military threat, display, or use of force than countries who do not possess cruise missiles. Traditional International Relations theory suggests that, all else being equal, a state with an asymmetrical military advantage should enjoy concessions from target states, decreasing the likelihood of armed conflict. Accordingly, coercion theory warns the use of armed force to change adversarial behavior should be exercised sparingly. However, this dissertation finds that states possessing cruise missile initiate armed force at twice the rate of states who do not possess cruise missiles and are significantly more likely overall to initiate a militarized interstate dispute or crisis. These conclusions suggest these weapons provide a qualitatively unique capability that makes armed force an attractive coercive option at lower levels of conflict. As more states seek to fill defense gaps and counter major power military capabilities, cruise missiles continue to proliferate, lending urgency to an understanding of their effects on conflict initiation short of war. Using a mixed method approach, this research provides a systematic empirical analysis, using an original dataset of cruise missile possession created specifically for this project, to measure changes in state behavior. Additionally, I present two explanatory case studies, to illustrate coercive cruise missile use, focusing on the 1982 Falkland Conflict and the use of cruise missiles as a coercive tool by the United States in the 1990s. This research may have profound implications for both international relations scholars and policy makers. The results demonstrate that cruise missiles increase the likelihood of using military threats, displays, and uses of force regardless of regime type. More research may be needed to understand the impact of technology on coercive strategy, while policy makers may choose to call for more robust controls on the spread of cruise missile technology. Advisor: Ross A. Miller
... In addition to increasing regional tensions, small and major conventional arms transfers may enable conflicts to break out or last longer 6 And on the other hand, conventional weapons lack much of the stigma that may attach to nuclear weapons increasingly over time as the non-proliferation regime deepens and takes hold as an international norm (Sagan 2000). (Craft 1999;Craft and Smaldone 2002;Kinsella 1994;Maniruzzaman 1992). The price of such policies may therefore be to instigate conflict, violence, and instability in vulnerable regions. ...
... However, SIPRI data is standard for researchers wishing to illustrate worldwide trends in conventional arms transfers over time. For post-Cold War examples of research using SIPRI data, see: Durch (2000); Golde and Tishler (2004); Harkavy (1994); Kinsella (1994); Sanchez-Andres (2004); Sanjian (1991Sanjian ( , 1998; Wulf (1993). 10 There are a number of important differences between the pre-and post-1960 arms market. ...
Paper prepared for the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Montreal, Canada, 17-20 March 2011. We thank Anna Nickless for research assistance.
... Arms imports can encourage more conflictual foreign policies or protract existing hostilities, intensify combat engagements, and are related to the outbreak of new conflicts (see e.g., Kinsella, 1994Kinsella, , 1998Blanton, 1999;Craft and Smaldone, 2002;Pamp et al., 2018b;Mehrl and Thurner, 2020). Not surprisingly, in the recently launched Agenda for Disarmament, United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres highlights a direct relation between disarmament and attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which explicitly aim at reducing illicit arm flows (Guterres, 2018;SIPRI, 2019). ...
Do states circumvent embargoes by supplying weapons across borders to sanctioned countries? We report evidence that arms imports systematically increase in the neighborhood of conflict states under an embargo. Using several alternative research-design specifications, we contend that this pattern is consistent with arms exporters shifting the arms trade to neighbors of conflict states under sanctions, where it is easier to move arms clandestinely across the border. Despite the lack of direct evidence of clandestine cross-border trafficking , this research contributes to the development of more sophisticated screening tools to identify potential non-compliers with arms embargoes for direct follow-up investigations.
... Cognitive processing of knowledge involves learning models which reflect the way an individual recognizes, receives, processes, and retrieves new information, data, and skills. Thus, cognitive processing varies from one person to another (Kinsella, 1994), and governs the way in which an individual transforms, integrates, and reconstructs information through experience. For example, some people prefer to learn through mathematical (abstract) information, while others prefer to learn through structural language. ...
This study analyzed cognitive representations of knowledge from the chemistry of matter unit in a ninth-grade science textbook—the only authorized textbook in Saudi Arabia. It examined textual and visual information from two lessons in order to identify the textbook’s introduction of concepts, linguistic context, integration of concepts, and the overall type of knowledge relayed to students. Results showed that Lesson 1 included more analogies than Lesson 2, while Lesson 2 included more relations than Lesson 1. Overall, scientific concepts were more often introduced through historical examples and context in Lesson 1 than in Lesson 2. In both lessons, concepts were integrated explicitly more often than implicitly. Finally, conceptual knowledge was presented more commonly than procedural knowledge in both lessons. I argue that enhancing certain aspects of cognitive representation—such as the use of analogies, linguistic context, relations among cognitive representations, and theological evidence in science textbooks—may reduce misconceptions and improve students’ abilities to learn scientific concepts, especially abstract concepts.
... Factually, aid related to military expenditures, food, transportation and supplies increased the level of conflict and violence in Chechnya, Tajikistan, and Somalia, too (e.g. Kinsella 1994, Anderson 1999. ...
The effectiveness of aid, among many factors, depends upon the prevailing law and order situation in the recipient economy. Despite having relatively large aid inflows, the economy of Pakistan has not performed well, and aid effectiveness is often subject to debate. This study analyses the role of conflict in explaining the economic growth process and aid effectiveness in the case of Pakistan. We have constructed a conflict index to gauge the role of conflict on Pakistan economy. By using Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) technique and fully modified OLS, the results establish a negative association between aid and economic growth in Pakistan. Moreover, by constructing the aid-conflict interactive term it has been established that aid provision in the presence of conflict remains ineffective. Furthermore, results have highlighted that aid made its way to finance arms imports in Pakistan. This study suggests that Pakistan may not be able to avail gains from aid unless it gets rid of conflicts.
... Factually, aid related to military expenditures, food, transportation and supplies increased the level of conflict and violence in Chechnya, Tajikistan, and Somalia, too (e.g. Kinsella 1994, Anderson 1999. ...
The effectiveness of aid, among many factors, depends upon the prevailing law and order situation in the recipient economy. Despite having relatively large aid inflows, the economy of Pakistan has not performed well, and aid effectiveness is often subject of debate. This study analyses the role of conflict in explaining economic growth process and aid effectiveness in the case of Pakistan. We have constructed a conflict index to gauge the role of conflict on Pakistan economy. By using Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) technique and fully modified OLS, the results establish a negative association between aid and economic growth in Pakistan. Moreover, by constructing the aid-conflict interactive term it has been established that aid provision in the presence of conflict remains ineffective. Furthermore, results have highlighted that aid made its way to finance arms imports in Pakistan. This study suggests that Pakistan may not be able to avail gains from aid unless it gets rid of conflicts.
... While extensive literature examines the supply and demand motivations for arms transfers (e.g. Blanton 1999Blanton , 2005Erickson 2011Erickson , 2015Johnson and Willardson 2018;Kinsella 1994Kinsella , 2002; Moore 2012; Platte and Leuffen 2016), the decision to change suppliers is often overlooked. The decision to produce arms is studied (e.g. ...
Arms dependency is typically framed as a security issue that states seek to avoid. Dependency creates an opportunity for an exporter to attempt to exert influence over the importer’s foreign and domestic policy. However, the arms trade is a trade and influence attempts to create economic costs for exporters by damaging relationships with current and potential customers. Thus, heavily dependent states do not necessarily need to change suppliers to avoid the threat. Additionally, as arms transfers are a signal of political support, dependency may be a sign of a mutually beneficial relationship rather than one that is potentially dangerous. This article evaluates these arguments using logistic regression models to evaluate changes in suppliers of major weapons systems. It finds that the relationship between dependence and arms transfers is more complex than previously argued where the nature of the relationship depends both on the type of exporter and the type of arm being exported.
... The arms transfer occurs when the supply of arms for politico-economic gains and the demand triggered in the disputed area meet. Accordingly, it is natural for the supplier to have an interest in the effects of arms transfer and on how their decisions will affect future disputes [42]. The public's heightened concern in the negative effects of arms trade also serves as a boost to the volatility of domestic politics [10]. ...
Comparative assessment of arms supplier policies by recipient nations is rationally important for arms purchase. However, such assessment is typically context-dependent or sometimes skewed by one or two perspectives. The use of a rational decision model in assessing and ranking policy options has been widely studied and is considered here. This novel research develops a hierarchical decision model (HDM) framework consisting of the relevant perspectives, their related criteria, and appropriate policy alternatives. Through a literature review a taxonomy was developed consisting of technological, economic, political, industrial, and military (TEPIM) perspectives, 13 criteria, and 65 sub-criteria. Then, based on elicitation of expert judgments, arms supplier policy alternatives were found to be represented by 3 archetypal policy profiles: hegemonic power, commercial trade, and selective export. This framework will be applied to future research involving an arms recipient’s import decision making
... Ironically, such emphasis has generated a good deal of quantitative data on arms transfers but […] has generally failed to make use of it in any rigorous way to explore relevant causal relationships. 3 Second, most of the literature from the Cold War focused on the competition between the two superpowers and how it played out in the arms trade to Third World countries. ...
The Gulf countries have become an increasingly lucrative market for international arms trade, especially since the shrinking of Western defence budgets added fuel to the global export race in their direction. Amidst the profuse literature on security relations of the Gulf with outside powers, however, few publications aimed at explaining the incentives driving this trade beyond security motives on the part of clients, and economic determinism on the part of suppliers. This paper, which focuses on evolving trends of arms trade in Qatar and the UAE, aims at filling this gap by offering an overview of their multifaceted internal and international drivers and the way it has impacted the rules of the regional and global security game. Qatari and Emirati defence procurement used to be a means to an end that had little to do with addressing threats they faced on their own, let alone gaining more power on the international stage. Because they were small – and young – states unable to overcome their own security dilemma, their military acquisition served other main purposes. The author hence begins by focusing on the famous “glitter factor” implied in their arms acquisitions. She starts by giving an overview of the reactions that this importance of – sparkly – appearances in Gulf countries’ arms purchases stirs before trying and analysing the internal and international motivations behind this reality. Then, the essay turns to all indirect ways through which arms trade in Qatar and the UAE guarantee the security and stability of the state and, above all, the regime. Pointing to multiple international and domestic political, social and strategic determinants playing out in this area, the author argues that it perfectly illustrates their multifaceted survival strategy as “Small Princes-States”. Finally, the study turns to new dynamics of arms trade in Qatar and the UAE as a consequence of new external incentives – chief among which was the global economic context combined with the regional turmoil and its associated vacuum of power – meeting with new internal priorities. The author points to the two countries’ recent assertiveness, analyses the impact this has on the Client State – Supplying State – Industrial company triangle, and questions whether or not this can lead to new rules of the regional and global security game.
... How to assess candidate providers remains tangled. Among many considerations, sub-criteria for international relations are listed below (Table 9): Agreement/exchange type, Diplomatic ties, Economic cooperation organization, Export/re-export restriction, Export license Suppliers' goal (Sanjian, 1991;Kinsella, 1994;Mintz, 1986;Gerner, 1983;Pearson, 1986;Kinsella, 2002) Hegemonic, industrial, restrictive Action-reaction Arms embargoes/sanctions (Smith, 2005;Brauer 1998 Check and balance Recipient vulnerability (Brigagão, 1986;Bitzinger, 1995, Väyrynen, 1980Jan, 2003) Reduction in sole-source dependence, supply security Market diversification (Väyrynen, 1980;Brigagäo, 1986) Import substitution ...
Arms transfer policies are generally not aligned between supplier and recipient nations. Hence they involve complex and protracted negotiations and decision making. Decision modeling has been established as an effective method of resolution for such complex scenarios, however, this is a novel approach in arms transfer policy making. In this paper, import policies of recipients are investigated as a required phase for developing a holistic decision model for each side. The objective is to identify policy criteria. For a comprehensive assessment of the arms import policies, a literature review is conducted in multidisciplinary fields of study such as political science, economics, and military science. The results indicate that some topics are field-specific while others, such as diffusions, offsets, and economic considerations are common to multiple disciplines. Hence, a multiple-perspectives approach is applied to include technological, economic, political, industrial, and military (TEPIM) in formulating the decision model for recipients. To conclude, the paper suggests a hierarchical decision model (HDM) framework that incorporates the multiple TEPIM perspectives, their associated criteria, and alternatives to be considered by recipients in making an effective arms import policy. Future research will include a validation process with expert panels to better define the decision model.
... The Water is one of the most contentious issues in the MENA region, and consequently a fundamental component of the ideal and physical structure of that region's nation-states (Buzan, 1991:65, 91;Messerschmid and Selby, 2015, p. 258 guidance to Egyptians and Syrians (Bickerton and Klausner, 2014;Kinsella, 1994). ...
... How to assess candidate providers remains tangled. Among many considerations, sub-criteria for international relations are listed below (Table 9): Agreement/exchange type, Diplomatic ties, Economic cooperation organization, Export/re-export restriction, Export license Suppliers' goal (Sanjian, 1991;Kinsella, 1994;Mintz, 1986;Gerner, 1983;Pearson, 1986;Kinsella, 2002) Hegemonic, industrial, restrictive Action-reaction Arms embargoes/sanctions (Smith, 2005;Brauer 1998 Check and balance Recipient vulnerability (Brigagão, 1986;Bitzinger, 1995, Väyrynen, 1980Jan, 2003) Reduction in sole-source dependence, supply security Market diversification (Väyrynen, 1980;Brigagäo, 1986) Import substitution ...
... How to assess candidate providers remains tangled. Among many considerations, sub-criteria for international relations are listed below (Table 9): Agreement/exchange type, Diplomatic ties, Economic cooperation organization, Export/re-export restriction, Export license Suppliers' goal (Sanjian, 1991;Kinsella, 1994;Mintz, 1986;Gerner, 1983;Pearson, 1986;Kinsella, 2002) Hegemonic, industrial, restrictive Action-reaction Arms embargoes/sanctions (Smith, 2005;Brauer 1998 Check and balance Recipient vulnerability (Brigagão, 1986;Bitzinger, 1995, Väyrynen, 1980Jan, 2003) Reduction in sole-source dependence, supply security Market diversification (Väyrynen, 1980;Brigagäo, 1986) Import substitution ...
Arms transfer policies are generally not aligned between supplier and recipient nations. Hence they involve complex and protracted negotiations and decision making. Decision modeling has been established as an effective method of resolution for such complex scenarios, however, this is a novel approach in arms transfer policy making. In this paper, import policies of recipients are investigated as a required phase for developing a holistic decision model for each side. The objective is to identify policy criteria. For a comprehensive assessment of the arms import policies, a literature review is conducted in multidisciplinary fields of study such as political science, economics, and military science. The results indicate that some topics are field-specific while others, such as diffusions, offsets, and economic considerations are common to multiple disciplines. Hence, a multiple-perspectives approach is applied to include technological, economic, political, industrial, and military (TEPIM) in formulating the decision model for recipients. To conclude, the paper suggests a hierarchical decision model (HDM) framework that incorporates the multiple TEPIM perspectives, their associated criteria, and alternatives to be considered by recipients in making an effective arms import policy. Future research will include a validation process with expert panels to better define the decision model.
... Another important aspect associated with alliances and arms buildups is the role of great powers or third-party in interstate dispute escalations. The research shows that most of third party arms transfers apparently contribute to imbalanced military relations between minor powers and thereby, besides regional destabilization, lead them to formulate intensive rivalrous relationships (Barringer, 1972;Kinsella, 1994Kinsella, , 1995Kinsella, , 1998Sanjian, 1999Sanjian, , 2001Sanjian, , 2003. Barringer's work sheds light on major powers' role in aggravating minor powers conflicts: ...
Most explanations tend to claim that ‘ideology’ played single most important role in initiating the Indo-Pakistani rivalry.
This study argues that Kashmir’s territorial saliency and proximity with the challenger state, Pakistan, also played fundamental
role to begin this rivalry. By adopting a conceptual framework underpinned by the conception of enduring rivalry, this article
shows how the fusion of ideology, territorial saliency, and geographic contiguity formed a stronger core which influenced
external strategic factors and collectively formulated a ‘hub-and-spokes’ framework to move the cartwheel of India–Pakistan
rivalry. Placed within this framework, once India and Pakistan’s bilateral conflict over Kashmir had taken roots, ever-increasing
interaction between ‘hub’ and ‘spokes’ brought in centripetal and centrifugal stress on the embryonic rivalry by unfolding
a process of change, that is, the gradual augmentation in hostility and accumulation of grievances, which locked them into
a longstanding rivalry.
... This article categorizes arms to show that there are important differences that are not accounted for with the traditional SIPRI TIV (for previous use see Kinsella 1994Kinsella , 1998Kinsella , 2002 or the WMEAT measure (for previous use see Blanton 1999Blanton , 2000Blanton , 2005 that quantitative analyses use to measure arms transfers (Moore 2012 is a notable exception). The TIV does not take into account the type of arms transferred, but the aggregate military volume in the form of a dollar amount of all weapon systems transferred. ...
This article examines the determinants of United States arms transfers by examining military aid separate from military sales. Separation of the two types of transfers is necessary due to the different benefits the United States receives from the transfers. Sales create direct economic benefits while aid is economically costly. The results show that some political, strategic, and economic factors have differing effects on the type of transfer and its size.
... This article categorizes arms to show that there are important differences that are not accounted for with the traditional SIPRI TIV (for previous use see Kinsella 1994Kinsella , 1998Kinsella , 2002 or the WMEAT measure (for previous use see Blanton 1999Blanton , 2000Blanton , 2005 that quantitative analyses use to measure arms transfers (Moore 2012 is a notable exception). The TIV does not take into account the type of arms transferred, but the aggregate military volume in the form of a dollar amount of all weapon systems transferred. ...
Arms transfers provide exporters an avenue to provide security to other states while gaining economic benefits. Arms transfers provide importers an avenue to gain security without having to rely on alliances. Past research uses aggregate measures of the monetary or security value of major weapon system transfers without accounting for strategic differences in possible use in interstate and civil conflict. This article presents a data set on interstate transfers of major weapon systems between 1950 and 2010 building upon Stockholm Peach Research Institute’s Arms Trade Register with several improvements. First, it disaggregates land weapons and air weapons into categories reflecting their strategic capabilities. Second, model level characteristics (e.g. age, speed, and range) are drawn from Jane’s Defence sources. Additionally, the data set covers a larger range of time and states than previous data sets categorizing arms. To demonstrate the usefulness, this article first presents summary statistics of the data set and then replicates an earlier test to show that the effect of human rights and regime types on United States transfers differs across the categories of arms compared to alternative measures of arms transfers.
... A case in point, arms transfers and military spending, aided and encouraged by the two superpowers, were thought to exacerbate tensions in the developing world and allow the cold east-west rivalry to play out in hot wars in distant places (Ayoob 1983/84: 47, 48;Buzan 1991: 433;Kinsella 1994;Obasi 2002;Thomas 2003: 219;Thomas & Mazrui 1992: 163-5). The United States and Soviet Union made liberal use of arms sales and gifts to win friends and maintain the global balance of power (Brzoska & Ohlson 1987;Kolodziej 1991;Pierre 1982). ...
... During the Cold War, for instance, the United States and its allies tended to supply arms to states whose policies were generally in accord with the global political-economic status quo, while the Soviet Union and its allies tended to supply dissatisfied or revisionist states. 14 There was, then, in the arms transfer network a certain homogeneity among states with the closest and most dependable ties. Such shared foreign policy orientations are not unlike the shared backgrounds (professional, ethnic, religious) that help sustain social networks comprised of individuals. ...
In recent years, researchers have increasingly turned their attention to the proliferation of small arms, a transnational trade amounting to over 1 billion worth enters the black market annually. I argue that the illicit trade in small arms should be understood not as a market but as a network, one that shares some important properties with networked forms of organization studied by sociologists. I then employ quantitative methods developed for the study of social networks in an effort to show the basic structure of illegal small arms transfers to Africa. The analysis draws from my Illicit Arms Transfers dataset still in development, so the results make use of the most rudimentary information being collected. They are suggestive, however, and the analytical approach promises to shed considerable light on a corner of the global arms trade that is of great interest to the research and activist communities, and of great consequence to those in war-torn regions of the world.
... Action-reaction dynamics have also been examined in superpower arms transfers to the Third World. Kinsella (1995) reports evidence that US arms-transfer policy was reactive to Soviet transfers to South Asia, the Middle East, and the Persian Gulf, but that only in the latter region was reactivity mutual (see also Kinsella 1994). So the quantitative empirical literature on US-Soviet relations would appear to suggest that the one-sided nature of the superpower arms race is not unprecedented when considered in a more general context. ...
Sparked by research on how the rise of China impacts other nations, we study the effects of Chinese arms exports on recipients' civil conflict incidence. By using an instrumental variable strategy that exploits annual shifts in the RMB exchange rate and a share variation in the propensity of receiving Chinese arms, we find that increasing Chinese arms sales reduces civil conflict incidence. We also provide underlying evidence suggesting that the estimate can be explained by the deterrent power of Chinese arms inflow as well as its positive spillovers that shift a portion of labor forces to newly developed arms industries.
The emergence of nuclear capabilities and technology at the end of World War II and its uses in the field of lethal weapons led to the emergence of new risks at the global level. The actions of the major countries that possess this technology and their dealings with the issue of trading and exchanging this technology with a number of countries wishing to obtain it, whether for peaceful or military purposes, have varied depending on on strategic, bilateral or economic positions. The paper deals with different stances on its topic, the spread of nuclear technology, and different opinions and positions on this subject. It also deals with, for example, the Iranian nuclear program and the international stance towards it, especially the position of the United States of America on it, and some future possibilities and options if Iran continues with this program. The paper also deals with how the nuclear countries provide assistance for nuclear expertise, which is considered a form of international contribution to achieving the proliferation of nuclear weapons. It will also address some countries that are based on the transfer of nuclear expertise and the extent of its impact on the development of international relations and the effects of the proliferation of nuclear weapons. It also deals with hypotheses. On the conditions that provide for the provision of nuclear assistance and then addresses the potential strategy and characteristics of nuclear suppliers and the most important factors determining the provision of nuclear assistance and emphasize the importance of economic motives.
Quantitative research on arms transfers has not adequately accounted for broader theories of international relations. We review the specialized literature on arms transfers and examine how arms transfers fit with the broad international relations theories. We derive and test seven hypotheses based on realist, liberal and constructivist theories using a dataset of all non-US/Russian aircraft transfers between 1990 and 2010. We find limited support for realist hypotheses. We find little support for hypotheses derived from the Democratic Peace literature, but some support for liberal trade arguments. We also find some support for constructivist arguments based on shared identity and prestige measures.
In many contexts, patrons wish to simultaneously increase a protégé’s military power while reducing the probability of war between that protégé and its enemy. Are these goals compatible? I show that the answer is yes when states face uncertainty over a class of military allotments. Arms transfers mitigate the information problem by making both strong and weak types behave more similarly. This encourages uninformed states to make safer demands, which decreases the probability of war. As a result, transfers to the informed actor both increase bargaining power and enhance efficiency under these conditions.
U.S. arms sales policy is out of control.
Since 2002, the United States has sold
more than $197 billion worth of major
conventional weapons and related military
support to 167 countries. In just his first
year in office, President Donald Trump inked arms deals
at a record pace, generating hundreds of billions of dollars’
worth of potential sales.
Though the president trumpets each deal as a victory
for the United States, an analysis of American arms sales
since 2002 reveals that the arms trade is a risky business.
The United States has repeatedly sold weapons to nations
engaged in deadly conflicts, and to those with horrendous
human rights records, under conditions in which it has
been impossible to predict where the weapons would end
up or how they would be used. On repeated occasions,
American troops have fought opponents armed with
American weapons.
Advocates argue that arms sales bolster American
security by enhancing the military capabilities of
allies, providing leverage over the behavior and
policies of client nations, and boosting the American
economy while strengthening the defense industrial
base.
We argue that the economic benefits of arms
sales are dubious and that their strategic utility is
far more uncertain and limited than most realize.
Arms sales also create a host of negative, unintended
consequences for the United States, for those buying
the weapons, and for the regions into which American
weapons flow.
Washington’s historical faith in arms sales is seriously
misplaced. The United States should revise its arms sales
policy to improve the risk assessment process, to ban sales
to countries where the risk of negative consequences is too
high, and to limit sales to cases in which they will directly
enhance American security.
In this volume the authors frame the conflicted relationship between Iran and the United States as a low intensity conflict and explore how diplomatic, military, and economic weapons are employed to bolster each nation's strategic and tactical advantage. It is a unique and major contribution to the scholarly and policy debate on American foreign and economic policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran. © Joseph J. St. Marie and Shahdad Naghshpour 2011. All rights reserved.
This book examines contemporary militarism in international politics, employing a variety of different theoretical viewpoints and international case studies. Militarism - understood as the social and international relations of the preparation for, and conduct of, organized political violence - is an abiding and defining characteristic of world politics. Yet despite the ongoing social, political and economic reach of military institutions, practices and values, the concept and subject of militarism has not received significant attention within recent debates in International Relations. This book intends to fill the gap in the current body of literature. It has two key overarching aims: to make the case for a renewed research agenda for IR centred on the concept of militarism; and to provide a series of empirically focused and theoretically informed case studies of contemporary militarism in practice. Containing a wide-ranging selection of chapters, the volume presents a diverse and eclectic body of research on militarism, designed to act as a stimulus to further research and debate. This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, war and conflict studies, international political economy and IR/security studies in general. © 2013 selection and editorial material, Anna Stavrianakis and Jan Selby.
This article looks at the origins, purposes and conflicts of national interests and policies that were the primary influences in shaping the substance of the Arms Trade Treaty, which came into force at the end of 2014. It then proceeds to a more legally focussed analysis and, having identified several important issues which have had to remain undiscussed, concentrates on detailed examination and evaluation of the most important provisions of substance. These are firstly the scope of the Treaty—defining the equipment or materiel covered (Article 2). There follows analysis of the provisions which contain the obligations on exporting States, ranging from absolute prohibitions (Article 6) to ‘export assessments’ (Article 7), which in practice will be the most frequently applicable. The paper concludes by identifying several valuable provisions in the Treaty whilst also highlighting several significant weaknesses and omissions. It contends that evaluation of the Treaty's likely contribution to controlling the recognized evils of the arms trade is premature at this stage and, further, that efforts towards that end must focus on the practice and law of domestic administrative implementation, rather than international law.
In this paper we extend dyadic research on conflict processes in international relations, to the analysis of triadic relationship. Specifically, we argue that although conflict can be explained at the dyadic level of analysis, a triadic analysis can greatly enrich our understanding of the dynamics of conflict and cooperation. We present a theory of triadic relationship and test it with data on the effect of aid and trade of Middle Eastern dyads with major powers (the US, The Soviet Union/Russia, the UK and France) in the post-WWII era using negative binomial regression. The results show the importance of expanding research in International Relations from dyadic to triadic interactions. Robustness tests demonstrate the validity of our analysis.
This book assesses how progress in disarmament diplomacy in the last decade has improved human security.
Abstract Major determinants of third world military industrialization operate at the domestic, regional, and global levels. I examine the relative importance of these by analyzing time-series cross-section data for the twelve leading third world arms producers from 1968 to 1990. Arms production depends the state’s industrial capacity and is enhanced by the state’s capacity to produce weapons for export. It is affected by the closedness of political and governmental institutions, and thus the military’s potential influence in the allocation of resources, and by the actual allocation of resources in the form of military spending. States are motivated to pursue military industrialization programs by their involvement in regional conflict and the level of regional militarization. These too have a measurable impact on domestic arms production. The transfer of military technology in the form of arms imports affects domestic arms production overall; disaggregating, it is clear that technology transfer necessary for indigenous weapons production is accomplished in large part by licensing arrangements. Both arms imports and licensing might also be a vehicle for the diffusion of global military culture, but a crude indicator of state interaction fails to provide any independent confirmation. The global diffusion of military iconology as a driving force behind military industrialization is an important notion in my view, and represents a major challenge for systematic empirical research. 1 DETERMINANTS OF ARMS PRODUCTION IN THE THIRD WORLD
This study extends a formal systems model on the political and strategic consequences of great power arms transfers. Using the United States and the Soviet Union as the exporters (or patrons) and Pakistan and India as the importers (clients), tests of the model's components reveal the following: the superpowers were indifferent to the effects of their arms supplies on the relationships between the importers, changes over time in the importers' arms acquisitions from third countries depended on the relationships between the importers and on the record of superpower supplies, subsequent superpower transfers were influenced not by the consequences of past transfers but by the political relationships between the exporters and importers and by the arms trade behavior of the importers, and each importer would be penalized by its arms transfer patron with decreased future supplies for excessive third-country arms shipments and for receiving arms from the opposing superpower.
In a 1995 article in Journal of Conflict Resolution, Kinsella and Tillema argued that, between 1948 and 1991, American arms transfers to Israel exercised a restraining influence on both Israel and its Arab rivals, whereas Soviet transfers to Egypt and Syria tended to destabilize the region. This article reexamines Kinsella and Tillema's Poisson results by applying a more sophisticated statistical method to their data set. Using a multiplicative Poisson model that allows for variation in the coefficients depending on a metrical reference variable, the authors show how the impact of superpower activity on Middle Eastern interventions has changed with the influx of weaponry. They confirm that U.S. arms transfers decreased the likelihood of military intervention in the region, whereas Soviet supplies did not affect it. Contrary to Kinsella and Tillema, however, the authors show that the stabilizing effect of arms transfers clearly decreases with the total amount of armaments supplied to the region.
Focusing on an initial and potentially expandable four-variable model combining leading sector innovation, leading sector concentration, naval capability concentration, and military preparation for warfare, a vector autoregression analysis of U.S. data for the 1801-1992 period reveals a substantial degree of interrelationship. The two leading sector variables “Granger cause” the two military-political variables (naval capability concentration and military preparation for warfare). Eight of nine other anticipated relationships linking specific variables are obtained, as are two unanticipated relationships linking naval concentration negatively to the leading sector variables. A very tight, coevolutionary pattern is found to characterize the economic growth-systemic leadership-military mobilization experience of the United States, thereby underlining the constraints of structural change.
The authors' understanding of the relationship between the cold war and enduring rivalry in the Third World has been hampered by a tendency to view international conflicts as relatively isolated phenomena. The authors address this question by analyzing the impact of superpower arms transfers on armed interventions in the Middle East from 1948 to 1991. The evidence suggests that arms transfers from the United States to Israel restrained the level of military aggression in the region, on the part of both Israel and its Arab rivals. Soviet arms transfers, however, had the opposite effect. This latter pattern is attributed more to the Soviet Union's inability to restrain its clients than to its active promotion of regional conflict. The authors' conclusions are based on a Poisson regression analysis of time-series data derived from the Overt Military Interventions database and the arms trade registers compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Interstate rivalries in the Third World cannot be fully understood apart from the global context in which they evolve and endure. This study examines the link between the superpowers’ Cold War competition and regional rivalry by focusing specifically on arms‐transfer relationships. Poisson regression analysis highlights the interrelationships between superpower competition, arms transfers, and regional rivalry in the Middle East, Persian Gulf, South Asia, and the Horn of Africa from 1950 to 1990. Many of the observed patterns are consistent with a realist explanation of interstate alignment and conflict, but a more holistic theory is required to detail the mechanisms by which Third World rivalries are nested in great power competition.
Scholars have long been interested in the relationship between the amount of consensus in an academic field and the amount of scholarly production. In this paper, I describe previous theory and research that suggest four possible relationships between the amount of scholarly production and the degree of consensus. These relationships are tested with data on the content of 50 sub-debates in the field of bioethics from 1973 to 1995. I find support for the conclusion that increased consensus leads to increased scholarly production. I conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for the humanities in general and bioethics in particular.
There are both military and political dimensions to arms transfers, and their effects on state behavior may not be the same. In this article I examine the degree to which arms transfers and arms transfer dependence interact to affect foreign policy conflict. I hypothesize that, as a transfer of military capability, weapons shipments increase the tendency of the recipient to strike a conflictual posture in its foreign policy, while arms transfer dependence restrains that tendency. An arms recipient faces the possibility that weapons shipments will be curtailed during periods of regional crisis and hostility, and when a state is dependent on one or a few major suppliers for the bulk of its imported weaponry, the costs associated with supply restrictions increases. This should encourage restraint on the part of states otherwise emboldened by arms acquisitions. My analysis treats conflictual behavior as a multiplicative function of arms transfers and arms transfer dependence. Parameter estimates are derived from time series data for nine states engaged in enduring rivalries during the Cold War. For some of these states, there is evidence that arms shipments encouraged more conflictual foreign policies; but there is also evidence that this propensity was tempered by the degree of arms transfer dependence. The model is non-linear, so the precise effects of dependence vary depending on context - i.e. the state's current level of arms importation and dependence - but realistic predictions involve changes in foreign policy conflict equal to 5-25% of their mean levels during the period.
Despite the importance of enduring rivalries, to date little attention has been placed on understanding how they develop. This article presents one of the first attempts to understand rivalry development. Two broad approaches to protracted rivalry development, behavioral and structural, are contrasted. The behavioral approach focuses on the actions of the potential rivals during their early confrontations, and argues that initial behavior will establish the direction of future interactions. The structural approach proposes that rivalries are caused by environmental factors largely out of the immediate control of the participants. When tested, we find that the development of proto and enduring rivalries can be explained best by a combination of both approaches. We also find that longer term rivalries do not appear to have one single cause. They may instead be produced by the confluence of many small factors.
Despite the importance of enduring rivalries, to date little attention has been placed on understanding how they develop. This article presents one of the first attempts to understand rivalry development. Two broad approaches to protracted rivalry development, behavioral and structural, are contrasted. The behavioral approach focuses on the actions of the potential rivals during their early confrontations, and argues that initial behavior will establish the direction of future interactions. The structural approach proposes that rivalries are caused by environmental factors largely out of the immediate control of the participants. When tested, we find that the development of proto and enduring rivalries can be explained best by a combination of both approaches. We also find that longer term rivalries do not appear to have one single cause. They may instead be produced by the confluence of many small factors.
Enduring rivalries form the most conflict‐prone dyads in the international system, but they are only the extreme case of rivalry; rivalries can be short‐lived as well as enduring. Rivalries are not merely a new topic of research—an extension of the logic behind studying “dangerous dyads"—nor are they merely a useful research tool and case selection device. Part of what has hindered a clear understanding of the wide‐ranging ramifications of the rivalry concept comes from the focus on enduring rivalries. We show that much can be gained by taking “enduring” out of enduring rivalries—resulting in what we term the “rivalry approach” to war and peace. There are three general ways in which the rivalry approach focuses attention on issues normally beyond the horizon of the traditional international conflict literature, or what might generically be labeled the causes of war approach: changing the unit of analysis from war to rivalry, adopting a longitudinal and dynamic approach, and putting rivalry context as part of theory rather than merely as a case selection device. We explore these three aspects of the rivalry approach, illustrating our points primarily by reference to scholarly work on deterrence, but also drawing on other examples from neorealism, expected utility, liberalism, arms races, power transitions, diffusion, and long cycles in order to illustrate the broader applicability of the framework.
Aside from alliances, major powers may use arms transfers to provide military assistance to other states. Guided by bargaining scholarship, I argue that arms transfers, unless they are part of defense pacts, aggravate and militarize information asymmetries, making their recipients more likely to experience militarized disputes. Using probit and two-stage conditional maximum likelihood (2SCML) with data on all states between 1950 and 1995, I find that, absent quo acceptance, increased arms transfers from major powers make states more likely to be initiators and targets of militarized disputes. Defense pacts with major powers not only reduce the chance that states will be militarized dispute initiators due to major power arms transfers but also lessen their risk of being militarized dispute targets.
Existing strategies for econometric analysis related to macroeconomics are subject to a number of serious objections, some recently formulated, some old. These objections are summarized in this paper, and it is argued that taken together they make it unlikely that macroeconomic models are in fact over identified, as the existing statistical theory usually assumes. The implications of this conclusion are explored, and an example of econometric work in a non-standard style, taking account of the objections to the standard style, is presented.
Political scientists have employed causal modeling techniques for quite some time. In most cases, however, they have relied on methods of a static, cross-sectional variety. Time series methods have been disseminated and applied, but these have not been expressly causal. The problem of assessing the causal character or direction of political relationships over time has not been addressed. Granger (1969) has suggested a notion of causality that is applicable in longitudinal analysis. The study and application of Granger's idea of causation now is widespread in economics and business. This discussion evaluates the usefulness of applying Granger causality in the study of political relationships. Granger's definition of causality is introduced, several popular procedures for assessing Granger causality are reviewed, and certain problems surrounding interpretation of those empirical tests are elucidated. The virtues and pitfalls of Granger causal analysis then are illustrated in an analysis of an important topic in international political economy and also in a reanalysis of a recent Granger causal investigation of arms races.
In many respects political scientists agree about how best to model political processes. But we disagree about how to translate our theories into structural equations; each of us seems to have our own structural equation model of the same theory. This disagreement is a serious impediment to theory building. Vector autoregression (VAR) is a means of circumventing this problem. We explain the logic of this alternative modeling strategy and examine its relative virtues. In particular, VAR and the more familiar structural equation (SEQ) approaches are compared in terms of their epistemological underpinnings, empirical power, and usefulness in policy analysis. This comparison shows that the two modeling strategies are based on different conceptions of theory and of theory building and that, for the four--six variable systems we usually study, the choice between VAR and SEQ models presents a trade-off between accuracy of causal inference and quantitative precision, respectively. In addition, VAR models have the disadvantage of being unable to incorporate multiplicative and nonlinear relationships as easily as SEQ models. But VAR models have the advantage of providing a more complete treatment of policy endogeneity than SEQ models. These and other contrasts in the two modeling strategies are illustrated in a reanalysis of Alt and Chrystal's (1983) permanent income model of government expenditure.
The modern scientific study of war relies primarily on correlational studies aimed to uncover the recurring patterns of actions, events, and conditions associated with interstate conflict. The goal is an explanatory theory of war grounded in reproducible evidence, free of the subjective biases that have plagued traditional analysis. But to date the myriad findings within the correlational project remain unintegrated and the promise of a scientific breakthrough unfulfilled. This article suggests that the problem of nonintegration in the study of war is rooted at least partly in an overly restrictive epistemology that cannot ground causal theory. The argument summarizes an understanding of integrative causal reasoning drawn from some of the natural sciences, and suggests that future research into the question of war be aimed to develop such causal theory. Without some such vision of integrative reasoning, this analysis implies, the correlational project is unlikely to transcend its current state of empirical fragmentation.
A persistent problem for American political and military planners has been the question of how to defend “third areas.” How can a major power make credible an intent to defend a smaller ally from attack by another major power? Simply making an explicit promise to defend an ally, whether that promise is embodied in a formal treaty or merely in a unilateral declaration, is not sufficient. There have been too many instances when “solemn oaths” were forgotten in the moment of crisis. On the other hand, more than once a major power has taken up arms to defend a nation with whom it had ties appreciably less binding than a formal commitment. If a deterrer is to be firm, the prospective gains from a successful policy of firmness must be greater, when weighted by the probability of success and discounted by the cost and probability of war, than the losses from retreat.
General deterrence, unlike immediate deterrence, has rarely been analyzed in a systematic comparative manner. We outline a research design for doing so, by studying the circumstances under which, in a set of enduring rivalries, challengers are likely to initiate militarized disputes. We indicate the conceptual and operational steps necessary to make and empirically compare predictions stemming from three often-competing theoretical frameworks: rational deterrence, a general model of rational conflict initiation, and a cognitive psychological model of behavior emphasizing risk orientation and misperception. The results of probit analysis on a pooled time series of enduring rivalries since 1945 provide support for hypotheses from each of the different theoretical models.
Historians commonly criticize studies in a more behavioral mode as being “ahistorical”; that is, they lump together a disparate group of events without regard for their historical contexts. We propose to focus on what may be the most obvious and serious form of historical continuity: repeated conflict among the same set of states, or what we refer to (in accordance with the small but growing literature) as “enduring rivalries.” Specifically, we (1) explore the theoretical relevance of the concept of enduring rivalries, (2) define the concept of enduring rivalries, (3) evaluate current operational criteria for enduring rivalries, and (4) describe empirically the rivalries generated by those criteria.
International arms transfers to the major Arabian Sea nations reported by SIPRI for the period 1948–1978 are correlated with measures of international conflict and cooperation provided by the COPDAB events data summaries. In general the correlations between the two are found to be strong, with many correlations significant at the .001 level. The best predictor is the number of arms transfers, rather than the quantity of different types of weapons transferred. The order of the importance of various types of weapons (air, sea, land) is relatively consistent across different indicators. Correlations are highest with political and military conflict behavior, and generally higher for conflictual than for cooperative behavior. Generally transfers correlate with subsequent international behavior rather than previous international behavior. Within the Arabian Sea area, the correlations are strongest in the Middle East and weakest in the Horn of Africa. Correlations are generally higher when the transfer data is smoothed using a 3‐year centered moving average, though unsmoothed data does almost as well.
This paper analyzes the relationships between actual arms transfers and conflict from a different perspective from the preceding paper. Here we report tests of three hypotheses relating war occurrences with transfers of tanks and jet aircraft by NATO and WTO states to third world states. By using stepwise logistic regression, we find that NATO aricraft transfers and WTO tank transfers predict to contemporaneous wars, and that NATO aircraft transfers predict to lagged wars. No strong association is found between wars and transfers either leading or lagging wars. The contemporaneous causation model provides a basis fox estimating the increase in war probability associated with a non‐marginal increase in specific types of arms transfers. Directions for future research on these data are suggested.
I explore the relationship between superpower arms transfers and the Arab‐Israeli rivalry. My empirical analysis suggests that Soviet arms transfers to the Middle East, more than American transfers, have exacerbated interstate rivalry in the region. It also suggests that Soviet arms transfers, again more than American transfers, have encouraged compensatory arming by the other superpower. These conclusions derive from the results of cross‐correlation analysis, Granger‐causality tests, and variance decompositions, and are quite robust. While my findings paint a rather unflattering portrait of the effects of superpower involvement in the region, they do constitute grounds for optimism in light of current developments.
This paper examines the policy assumption that conventional arms transfers and the conflict behavior of 87 Third World countries are linked causally. It uses World Event Interaction Survey (WEIS) data and U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency data from 1967 through 1976 to measure conflict and arms transfers. Based on a series of regression analyses, the paper's principal conclusions are, in general, that conflict and arms transfers are not linked causally, that variations in the two variables occur simultaneously, and that a deeper understanding of Third World conflict processes is required before those processes can be controlled by reducing conventional arms transfers.
Let us define a cycle as a recurrent pattern in the life (or functioning) of a system. The concept implies that over a certain period of time the system, in some meaningful sense, returns to its starting point, that it regains a state occupied at an earlier stage. If such behavior is demonstrably regular and if recurrence takes place in a pattern that is potentially predictable, such behavior may appropriately be called cyclical or periodic. Cycles are commonly distinguished from trends.
The value of major conventional weapons imported by Third World countries between 1971 and 1985 was quadruple that for the previous two decades. This spectacular increase reflects changes in the economic and technological relations between industrialized nations and the Third World, as well as having profound political repercussions. This book gives a comprehensive overview of the flow of major conventional weapons during the period 1971-85. It analyses both the suppliers and the main Third World recipients, describing the inflow of arms and the reasons underlying it. The facts that propel this arms trade are assessed in a concluding chapter which also analyses the structural changes that have occurred in the arms markets and their implications. The detailed statistics and arms trade registers for the period (in some cases from 1951), and the introduction of a new SIPRI price system for evaluating the arms trade, make this a valuable reference work.
The spurious nature of the restrictions used to identify many macroeconometric models has led some researchers to advocate a style of econometric inquiry that is less dependent on prior theoretical restrictions of the sort that were central to the approach of the Cowles Commission. This development, which we call atheoretical macroeconometrics, is summarized and evaluated in the current paper. It is contrasted with an updated version of the Cowles Commission approach. We conclude that while some of the exercises of atheoretical macroeconometrics are valid, those that have attracted the most attention and appear the most innovative-exogeneity testing, impulse response analysis and policy analysis using estimated vector autoregressions - are based on incorrect analysis.
7th ed. Terminologický slovník
There occurs on some occasions a difficulty in deciding the direction of causality between two related variables and also whether or not feedback is occurring. Testable definitions of causality and feedback are proposed and illustrated by use of simple two-variable models. The important problem of apparent instantaneous causality is discussed and it is suggested that the problem often arises due to slowness in recordhag information or because a sufficiently wide class of possible causal variables has not been used. It can be shown that the cross spectrum between two variables can be decomposed into two parts, each relating to a single causal arm of a feedback situation. Measures of causal lag and causal strength can then be constructed. A generalization of this result with the partial cross spectrum is suggested.The object of this paper is to throw light on the relationships between certain classes of econometric models involving feedback and the functions arising in spectral analysis, particularly the cross spectrum and the partial cross spectrum. Causality and feedback are here defined in an explicit and testable fashion. It is shown that in the two-variable case the feedback mechanism can be broken down into two causal relations and that the cross spectrum can be considered as the sum of two cross spectra, each closely connected with one of the causations. The next three sections of the paper briefly introduce those aspects of spectral methods, model building, and causality which are required later. Section IV presents the results for the two-variable case and Section V generalizes these results for three variables.
Standard explanations of the bivariate correlation of money and income attribute this correlation to an inability of agents to discriminate in the short run between real and nominal sources of price shocks. This paper is an empirical comparison of the standard explanation with two alternatives: 1) the"credit view", which focuses on financial market imperfections rather than real-nominal confusion; and 2) the real business cycle approach, which argues that the money-income correlation reflects a passive response of money to income. The methodology, which is a variant of the Sims VAR approach, follows Blanchard and Watson (1984) in using an estimated, explicitly structural model to orthogonalize the VAR residuals. (This variant methodology, I argue, is the more appropriate for structural hypothesis testing.) The results suggest that the standard explanations of the money-income relation are largely, but perhaps not completely, displaced by the alternatives.
American and Soviet Influence, Balance of Power, and Arab-Israeli Violence
- Milstein
- Jeffrey
Milstein, Jeffrey S. 1972. "American and Soviet Influence, Balance of Power, and Arab-Israeli Violence." In Peace, War, and Numbers, ed. Bruce M. Russett. Beverly Hills: Sage.
Macroeconomics and Reality Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. 1971. The Arms Trade with the Third World
- Sims
- Christopher
Sims, Christopher A. 1980. "Macroeconomics and Reality." Econometrica 48:1-48. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. 1971. The Arms Trade with the Third World. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell.
The Origins of Alliances
- Walt
- Stephen
Walt, Stephen M. 1987. The Origins of Alliances. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Causality and Econometrics
- Zellner
- Arnold
- H Allan
- Meltzer
Zellner, Arnold. 1979. "Causality and Econometrics." In Three Aspects of Policy and Policymaking: Knowledge, Data, and Institutions, ed. Karl Brunner and Allan H. Meltzer. New York: North-Holland. This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Sat, 14 Feb 2015 20:39:26 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions