The New Business of War: Small Arms and the Proliferation of Conflict

Ethics and International Affairs

Volumn 15, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 79-96

  Hartung, William D ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84961593689     PISSN: 08926794     EISSN: 17477093     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1747-7093.2001.tb00345.x     Document Type: Article

References (45)

1. Kofi A. Annan, “We the Peoples”: The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century; available at www.un.org/millennium/sg/report, p. 3.
2. Ernie Regehr, “Introduction,” Armed Conflicts Report 2000 (Waterloo, Canada: Project Ploughshares, 2000), available at www.ploughshares/ca/content/ACR/ACR00-Introduction.html).
3. Michael Renner, “Ending Violent Conflict,” State of the World 1999: A Worldwatch Institute Report on Progress Toward a Sustainable Society (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), p. 153.
4. William D. Hartung and Bridget Moix, “Cold War Legacies,” Focus on Africa (April/June 2000); available at www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/focus.
5. Paul Collier, Economic Causes of Civil Conflict and Their Implications for Policy (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, June 15, 2000), pp. 15–28.
6. For more detailed definitions of small arms and light weaponry, see Swadesh Rana, Small Arms and Intra-State Conflicts (Geneva: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 1995), pp. 2–3.
7. Jeffrey Boutwell, Michael T. Klare, and Laura W. Reed, eds., Lethal Commerce: The Global Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons (Cambridge, Mass.: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1995), p. 33.
8. George Musser and Sasha Nemecek, “Waging a New Kind of War,” Scientific American, June 2000, p. 47.
9. International Committee of the Red Cross, Arms Availability and the Situation of Civilians in Armed Conflict (Geneva, June 1999), p. 8.
10. On child soldiers, see Neil G. Boothby and Christine M. Knudsen, “Children of the Gun,” Scientific American, June 2000, pp. 60–65.
11. on the trauma caused by “small wars,” see Richard F. Mollica, “Invisible Wounds,” Scientific American, June 2000, pp. 54–57.
12. Jeffrey Boutwell and Michael T. Klare, “A Scourge of Small Arms,” Scientific American, June 2000, pp. 48–53
13. Commany Wesseh, “Small Arms Are a Big Problem” (speech at forum cosponsored by the Hague Appeal for Peace, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the World Conference on Religion and Peace, and the World Policy Institute, UN Headquarters in New York, January 9, 2001).
14. For the best analysis to date of the dynamics of the business of war, see William Reno, Warlord Politics and African States (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1999).
15. Boutwell and Klare, “A Scourge of Small Arms,” pp. 49–50.
16. For detailed documentation of the activities of Viktor Bout and some proposals for regulating illicit arms traders, see UN Security Council, Final Report of the Monitoring Mechanism on Angola Sanctions, UN Document S/2000/1225, December 21, 2000, pp. 11–20, 30–38, and 50–61.
17. In fact, the National Rifle Association is devoting substantial resources to lobbying against measures to stem the flow of small arms at the national, regional, or international levels. See Natalie Goldring, “The NRA Goes Global,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (January/February 1999), pp. 61–65.
18. Michael Klare, “The Kalashnikov Age,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (January/February 1999), p. 19.
19. Oscar Arias, “Stopping America's Most Lethal Exports,” New York Times, June 23, 1999.
20. Klare, “The Kalashnikov Age,” pp. 20–21.
21. International Action Network on Small Arms, (IANSA) Founding Document 6, May 1999; available at www.iansa.org.
22. For the Boutros-Ghali quote and an excellent chronology of UN statements and activities on the small arms issue, see David Biggs, “United Nations Contribution to the Process,” in the special issue, “Small Arms Control: The Need for Coordination,” Disarmament Forum 2 (Geneva: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 2000).
23. Disarmament Forum, pp. 32–33.
24. Disarmament Forum, p. 32.
25. For a thoughtful consideration of the challenges facing the UN small arms conference, see Chris Smith, “The 2001 Conference–Breaking Out of the Arms Control Framework,” in Disarmament Forum 2, (Geneva: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 2000), pp. 39–45.
26. Emanuela-Chiara Gillard, “What's Legal?–What's Illegal,” in Lora Lumpe, ed., Running Guns: The Global Black Market in Small Arms (London: Zed Books, 2000), p. 27.
27. On the “boomerang” effect of U.S. arms transfers made for one purpose being turned against U.S. citizens and U.S. forces in other circumstances, see William D. Hartung, U.S. Weapons at War (New York: World Policy Institute, 1995), pp. 10–13 and 19–23.
28. On leakage from the CIA's Afghan arms pipeline into other conflict zones, see Chris Smith, “Light Arms and Ethnic Conflict in South Asia,” in Boutwell, Klare, and Reed, eds., Lethal Commerce, pp. 62–64.
29. Michael Renner, “Arms Control Orphans,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (January/February 1999), p. 23.
30. For a state-of-the-art view of what governments and nonstate actors can and should do in the field of small arms regulation and control, see Sarah Meek, “Combating Arms Trafficking: Progress and Prospects”
31. Ted Leggett, “Law Enforcement and International Gun Trafficking”
32. Lora Lumpe, “Summary of Recommendations for States and Citizens,” all in Lumpe, Running Guns, pp. 183–232.
33. The firearms protocol is discussed in Meek, “Combating Arms Trafficking,” pp. 199–202.
34. On the issue of licensed production of small arms see Peter Abel, “Manufacturing Trends: Globalizing the Source,” in Lumpe, Running Guns, pp. 81–104
35. on regulating brokers and shippers, see Brian Wood and Johann Peleman, “Making the Deal and Moving the Goods: The Role of Brokers and Shippers,” also in Running Guns, pp. 129–154.
36. The Axworthy quote is from Lucy Mathiak and Lora Lumpe, “Government Gun Running to Guerrillas,” in Lumpe, Running Guns, p. 73.
37. Running Guns, p. 76.
38. For a more detailed discussion of this critical point, see Wendy Cukier and Steven Shropshire, “Domestic Gun Markets: The Licit-Illicit Links,” in Lumpe, Running Guns, pp. 105–128.
39. UN Security Council, Report of the Panel of Experts on Violations of Security Council Sanctions Against UNITA, March 10, 2000; available at www.un.int.canada/html/angolareport.htm.
40. For a detailed assessment of the practicalities of stemming the flow of conflict diamonds, see the excellent reports by the London-based nongovernmental research group Global Witness, Conflict Diamonds: Possibilities for the Identification, Certification, and Control of Diamonds and A Rough Trade: The Role of Companies and Governments in the Angolan Conflict, available at www.oneworld.org/globalwitness.
41. For background on U.S. covert aid to UNITA, see Lucy Mathiak, “Light Weapons and Internal Conflict in Angola,” in Klare and Boutwell, Lethal Commerce, pp. 81–97.
42. Associated Press, “Halt to ‘Blood Diamonds’ Urged,” October 25, 2000. For a recent analysis of the “blood diamonds” problem.
43. see John Hirsch's occasional paper for the International Peace Academy, Sierra Leone: Diamonds and the Struggle for Democracy (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2001).
44. Paul Collier, Economic Causes of Civil Conflict and Their Implications for Policy (Washington, D.C.: World Bank Development Research Group,, 2000), p. 20.
45. See also Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, “Greed and Grievance in Civil War” (Washington, D.C.: World Bank Policy Research Group Working Paper 2355, 2000).