Arms, Social Theory, and Entanglement in the Long-Term

A recent story about Bulgaria’s dilemma in upgrading its MiG aircraft illustrates the difficulty of moving out of a long-term arms relationship. The issue is that Bulgaria is part of NATO, but that its aircraft are out of date.  Bulgaria can’t afford to change its total air force.  There are numerous costs involved in such a potential shift, both directly and indirectly.  Direct costs include the cost of purchasing new aircraft and paying for training for pilots of the new versions of aircraft.  Some of the indirect costs are the loss of expertise and experience that are necessary for competence in war-fighting.

Since MiGs are Russian-made, to upgrade them usually requires Russian involvement.  In this case, the Bulgarian government is considering using a Polish firm which upgraded Polish MiGs a few years ago when Poland faced a similar dilemma.  In this case, Bulgaria can bypass potential issues by using an ally country.

What if Poland was not an option?  The relations between Russia and the West have changed dramatically over the past decade.  A decade is not a long time in the life-cycle of a major conventional weapon like a fighter jet or tank.  Changing suppliers is hard - even when the geopolitical environment has been fundamentally altered.

What can this episode teach us about the arms-buying relationship?  First of all, the decision about suppliers is one that cannot be taken lightly by states - especially states that have real security needs.  Secondly, once that decision is made, it is quite sticky, and that has consequences.  These consequences are visible across a number of different domains. 

In terms of security, purchasing arms from a supplier makes it harder to fight against that supplier later.  This is due to the intimate knowledge that the supplying country will have with the strengths and weaknesses of the system due to firsthand experience.  It likely means (in the case of aircraft) that battles will hinge on the better trained military, and the resource imbalance that leads to exports vs. imports should normally provide an advantage here to the exporting rather than the importing state.

Also important in terms of security are the technological issues of supply of replacement parts, a maintenance program and the ability to upgrade equipment on a reasonable schedule.  Exporting states will have the advantage also in updating and improving the performance of the weapon system.

There is also another potential strategic advantage to the selling state.  The move to a new supplier is a potential indicator of future intentions or at least the assessment of the state about the potential for conflict in the future.  This offers an early warning advantage to the state providing arms.  It can also offer a first mover advantage in terms of conflict.

Even if a move from one supplier to another is not the result of strategic fears in the short and medium terms, the shift in relationships can be a powerful indicator about the status of the relations between the supplying and recipient states.  The sale of arms between states is a gamble always because once a state acquires weapons they can only be eliminated after the passage of a long amounts of time or through costly war. 

Because I am interested in the social relationship that is created and maintained by arms sales, such demonstrations of both interdependence and vulnerability provide fascinating insights into the potential mechanisms for studying and understanding interstate relations more completely.

How Fundamental are Arms to State Identity?

This is what I am thinking about all the time as I work on revising my dissertation into a book with a coherent theory.  My dissertation was an "exploration" using a foreign policy framework.  I am glad that I wrote the dissertation that I did because it allowed me to try a lot of things, to fail at most of them, but really to think about the topic of arms transfers in a way that is becoming more helpful to me now that I am more intellectually equipped to handle it.

Two articles from Radio Free Europe came across my reader this week and are stuck in my brain. I am writing my theory section of my book now and I am focusing on the ways that state identity is shaped by arms.  My larger project is about the power of arms to shape the roles that states take on in the international system - and the power that exporting states have in shaping the role of subordinate ore less powerful states.

And its a great time to be an arms research scholar because the issues of arms seem to be more prominent in discussions of international relations and foreign policy.

The first article is about Vladimir Putin's recent address to Russian legislators. During his two hour speech he discussed the new weapons that are in development - weapons aimed at defeating the US in a nuclear war. I'm not an expert on nuclear deterrence, but I seem to remember that first strike capability is quite useless if the other side can retaliate.  We are returning to the MAD MAD world, which is a disappointing development.  The interesting thing is that none of the weapons touted are ones that are useful in the kind of wars and conflicts that Russia is involved in (Syria, Ukraine) or will likely be in.  These weapons, and Putin's focus on them are meant to project an image of power.

The second article is about four Western powers (France, UK, Germany and the US) issuing a statement condemning Iran's export of weapons to Yemen in face of an arms embargo on that nation during its civil war. Russia vetoed a UN resolution that would have formally condemned Iran. Two things from this story stick out to me.  The first is that Iran is doing what other states do - using arms to socialize and support its allies.  The fact that they are doing it contrary to an embargo is the issue, but the action is one that is repeated hundreds of times a year.  All the states on the list export arms to other states - including to states that have poor human rights records.

Jennifer Erickson has written extensively about arms treaty compliance.  The increasing polarization of the world and the collapsing foundations of the liberal world order in the face of constant attacks by revisionist and non-liberal powers (I'm looking at Russia here) will mean that arms sales will be another arena for ideological and material competition in ways that hearken back to the Cold War.

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Erickson, Jennifer L. (2015a) Dangerous Trade: Arms Exports, Human Rights, and International Reputation. New York: Columbia University Press.

Erickson, Jennifer L. (2015b) Saint or Sinner? Human Rights and U.s. Support for the Arms Trade Treaty. Political Science Quarterly 130: 449–474.

Erickson, Jennifer L. (2013) Stopping the Legal Flow of Weapons: Compliance with Arms Embargoes, 1981–2004. Journal of Peace Research 50: 159–174.

Lo, Bobo. (2008) Axis of Convenience: Moscow, Beijing, and the New Geopolitics. London: Chatham House.

Lo, Bobo. (2015) Russia and the New World Disorder. Brookings Institution Press.

State Interests and the Business side of Arms

How do we measure the impact of non-state actors on state policy? I ask because I am generally curious.  I am curious because the answer that question is essential to understanding the complexity of the issue of arms in international relations. I think that the disconnect between the firms that produce weapons, and the states that regulate their sales and purchase them is one of the biggest barriers to really building general theories of arms transfers.

My most recent work on arms transfers relies on a constructivist/role theoretical framing of the state as a corporate actor.  The state has interests and acts deliberately (not always rationally, but deliberately) to advance those interests. Personifying states and accounting for the effects that come through the interaction of these agents is not necessarily new.  However, trying to account for many moving pieces beneath the surface and how they interact to produce the actions and outcomes we can see is still necessary for some degree of understanding.

How does this all relate to arms sales?  Well there are two stories that appeared in my reader this week that have made me think about this issue more deeply than I have for years - probably since I was drafting the first chapter of my dissertation six years ago.

The first story is about the struggles of the Italian defense firm Leonardo.  The firm was recently renamed (previously it was Finmeccanica) after it had troubles with scandals.  Now it is having trouble with orders and generating revenue, and its stock has plunged.  This particular line from the article really jumped out at me:

Leonardo, Europe's largest maker of military hardware after BAE Systems and Airbus, said it hoped to return to "sustainable growth" over the next five years thanks to a new sales strategy, accelerating orders, strict cost control and a better financial strategy.

I wonder about the model for sustainable growth in a defense firm that operates independently. It also operates in an environment where government (both Italian and EU) control over exports can limit the potential sales of the firm. Others have studied this economic paradox regarding arms before - and the original SIPRI arms classifications of hegemonic, industrial, and restrictive supplier accounted for the government policies regarding arms.  Italy is an industrial supplier.  It needs to sell arms in order to support internal business.

The tension is that the Italian government and the EU code restrict arms exports. In deciding how to allow firms to operate and to sell weapons, governments are faced with choices about what the most salient state interest is.  Is it to have a strong defense industry (or any industry) and to generate employment and exports, or is it to operate "responsibly" on the world stage?

The set of choices for state interests is also not simply a dichotomous choice between native industrial capacity and responsible action.  State interests in alliances and other relationships, security for client states, preferences for regional leadership in areas outside their own, or simply state prestige can affect the state's desire to control arms outflows.

That brings me to the second article.  This is a follow up to my post from last week about Trump's new "Buy American" plan.  The United States is sending a State department official to a defense expo in Singapore to promote the sale of US weapons - especially aircraft and missiles.

Whether it is misguided or not [and I am not convinced either way], the Trump administration has determined that it is in America's interest to sell weapons.  The export, balance of trade, and American manufacturing arguments will play well domestically and I think that is one of the primary drivers of the policy. However, the international implications of expanding arms sales could be just as significant - and those implications could be either positive or negative.  US arms purchases can signal greater cooperation with states in the future.  It can signal a willingness by states to improve their own defense capabilities.  Such a signal may make the US more willing to extend further security guarantees, or negate the need for the US to provide the majority the security for particular states or regions (Yarhi-Milo et al 2016).

Whatever the reason for the new emphasis, the outcome will likely be more arms sales.  Researchers will certainly be looking at the effects of those transfers in the years to come.
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Yarhi-Milo, Keren, Alexander Lanoszka, and Zack Cooper. (2016) To Arm or to Ally?: The Patron’s Dilemma and the Strategic Logic of Arms Transfers and Alliances. International Security 41: 90–139.

How do Arms Sales and Human Rights Work?

Two separate news stories in my reader last week have caused me to think about how states really think about human rights and arms transfers.  If you are inclined to think that arms sales should be responsible and that states should have to account for their behavior in order to procure more coercive power, then these two stories might make you happy. As someone who thinks a lot about the underlying premise of arms sales, these stories make me happy in other ways.

They are evidence, or at least confirmations, that the ways that I am thinking about arms sales is fruitful.  That is heartening, since I picked back up my book manuscript (dissertation) this past month and have been furiously cranking out new words, new ideas, and updates in a bid to have the book written by the end of this year. I won't spill too many words here about my new ideas (they're awesome, trust me), but I do want to outline how many (most?) states are responsible in their approach to arms sales.

The first story comes from RFE/RL and is a discussion of Hungary's bid to ease arms export sanctions to Belarus. They want to ease restrictions on some spare parts and gun parts. The EU put arms sanctions on Belarus in 2010 after government crackdowns.  It has eased off on sanctions in other areas after Belarus has improved its human rights record.  I am working on a paper that compares Kazakhstan and Belarus, so I have recently looked at Belarus's arms imports.  They don't really have a lot of sources for supply in the first place.

Imports to Belarus (1991-2016) [1]
Exporter	Years	Total Value	Percent
RUS	9	748	93.3
UKR	5	52	6.5
CHN	1	2	0.2

Up until last year only Russia, Ukraine, and China have provided to Belarus post independence (in terms of major conventional weapons).  The types of weapons that Hungary is asking for might not make it onto this list at all.  

The second story is about Germany and Hungary, two NATO allies. The German government and members of civil society have called for Germany and other states to stop supplying arms to Turkey because of their recent foray into Syria.  Germany has strict laws against supporting ongoing conflicts and providing arms to human rights abusers, and so the chance that Turkish troops could target civilians in their operations is the cause of this concern.  

***

These stories tell me two things.  The first is that states do try to be responsible, and that human rights matter.  The second thing that it tells me is that aggregate numbers of weapons may not tell the whole story.  In the case of Turkey, for example, the sale of tanks (the weapons system that Turkey wants Germany to upgrade) took place from the 1980s through the 2000s.  In an aggregate study without very careful research design, it could appear that Germany doesn't take human rights or conflict involvement seriously when it comes to providing arms to other states. This is an issue that I think has crept into the arms transfer literature as it has tried to account for state choice.  Aggregate data may not be the best way to do that.  

Richard Johnson and I have a forthcoming article in ISQ that looks at this type of aggregate data, and the picture that we find is not rosy.  It may be, however, that we are simply looking a the wrong thing in the wrong way to find the answers we want.  To our credit, we make this point.  Our study was meant to replicate earlier studies in ways that tried to at least take into account a more nuanced picture of decision-making.  Our attempt used this same kind of aggregated data, however.

The takeaway for me is that we need more work on the fundamentals of arms sales.  We need a variety of work that looks at both macro trends and micro decision-making.  Both types of work need to be guided by theory in ways that it simply isn't now.

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1. Source: SIPRI TIV values (www.sipri.org).  Total value is Millions of USD.

Russian Arms Propaganda?

I wonder about the effectiveness of propaganda sometimes.  In this post I share two different stories that seem to be part of Russia's propaganda offensive.  One has to do with the capabilities of Ukraine, and the other a disputed version of events. I wonder about the audiences for these particular pieces and the larger strategic thinking - and whether this is strategic or simply business as usual.
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There is an article in the "Sputnik" news about the state of the arms export business in Ukraine. It's the type of article that I am interested in reading in a region that I am interested in reading about.  

The article details some shady deals and shoddy workmanship and highlights the fact that Ukraine's Military Industrial Complex is dependent on reworking or simply reselling its stock of inherited Soviet weapons - not on the development and sale of new weapons.

The problem isn’t however, that a lion’s share of those exports consisted of decades-old weapons and parts Ukraine had inherited from the Soviet Union. 

Even before the 2014 “Maidan revolution” the head of the Verhovna Rada’s defense and security committee Anatoly Kinakh admitted that weapons developed and built in post-Soviet Ukraine accounted for less than 20 percent of its exports.

By these standards, it would be interested to note what percentage of weapons sold by Russia have been developed and built post Soviet Union. Furthermore, an interesting question is the extent to which those more advanced weapons are used in the Russian military.

The Russian military industrial complex is still in fairly bad shape from top to bottom.  There has been some new development of weapons, but production has been sporadic and there has been a problem in delivering those weapons to the Russian military - and to foreign customers.  The fact that Ukraine is experiencing these problems is not surprising.  It is also questionable, to what extent the sale of arms is a priority for the Ukrainian government and economy.

The arms industry was highly integrated during the Soviet Era, and many firms have struggled to find markets and to integrate.  The Motorsich firm in Zaporozhye was building motors for Russian helicopters through the 2000s, but the number or orders was a fraction of what it used to be.

Dispute over incident in Mediterranean Sea

RT, Russia's official propaganda station airs this video and accuses the USS Gravely of breaching international safety protocols during the encounter shown in the video below.  The version of events as told by the US is much different.  In their version, the Russian Frigate claimed to be having problems with maneuverability, but was constantly trying to interfere with the USS Truman.  The video shown is the USS Gravely maneuvering to stay between the Frigate and the Truman - this is its job as part of the Carrier Battle Group.  (US Version)





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It is interesting to me that Russian media is starting to fight back against the propaganda shown on domestic channels.  I don't know much about propaganda as a subject, but it is fascinating to see how much it comes up in relation to the subjects that I study.

Arms related Humor

There are two pieces that I've seen in the past week or so that have me laughing.  The first is from the Onion, which is always fun.  The headline is the funniest part:

Lockheed Martin Sales Staff Instructed To Really Push Tactical Air-To-Surface Missiles This Week

and here is one of the quotes from the article:

“Do whatever it takes to unload this stuff: place a few cold calls to foreign defense agencies, offer to throw in a couple Stalker drones for free. I don’t care what you have to do, just so long as we can hit our numbers and make way for the anti-aircraft shipments we’ve got coming in at the end of the month.” 

Pure awesomeness! LINK

From Duffel Blog

For Sale: AGM-114K Hellfire Missile, Slightly Damaged. Asking $1000 OBO. Location: Fort Drum, NY LINK

And my personal favorite (with picture!)

Lockheed Upbeat Despite F-35 Losing Dogfight To Red Baron

LINK to the hilarious full post.

Academic Stalking and other Notes from APSA 2015

I am currently attending the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association.  As I was walking to a panel today I saw a man sitting and read his name tag: David Kinsella.  Dr. Kinsella is my academic hero.  A paper that I read of his during my first year of graduate school is what put me on the path to studying arms transfers.

I didn't have the guts to just go up to him and say hello and tell him how much his early work has inspired my own career.  I probably should have.

***

I ran into two Iowa students at the poster session this morning (September 3rd).  They were both young graduate students when I was finishing up.  Now they are both getting close to the end of their graduate work.  They are both doing interesting work and had well-prepared posters.

***

I saw a few interesting posters this morning.  One is related to my own arms sales research.  It is a test of arms data that shows that states that export weapons spend less on their own defense.  This is an interesting finding and one that I need to look more at before I do much more on my own project.

Russia's Internal Arms Consumption

Russia is trying to re-equip its own army (LINK).  This has been going on for awhile.  P.M. Medvedev announced recently that the goal for new equipment in the Russian military is being raised to 75 percent new equipment by 2020.

There are a few implications for this, both internally and externally.  The first is that this is a move that is both about the military and about the militarized economy.  One of my favorite books about the subject of Russia's military economy is by Gaddy and Ickes (2002) [1].  This book talks about the distortions caused by the Soviet Union's militarized economy.  Russia's economy is still riding the oil and gas boom, but employment in those sectors is still small.  There are numerous factory towns (large and larger) whose existence and employment base was dependent on the militarized economy.

Vladimir Putin has elevated arms sales to the same level of state enterprise as the oil and gas industries.  The reasons for this are plentiful. One reason is that arms still are symbolically important.  The more states that use Russia's weapons, the greater Russia's perception of its own uniqueness and importance.  A second reason is hinted at above - Putin needs to employ individuals.  One way to do that is to continue to ride the distortions of the Soviet economy (to a lesser scale) by emphasizing the military industrial complex.

There have been some reports that Russian firms are unable to produce arms sufficiently to meet their obligations to external customers, let alone to fulfill such an ambitious rearmament agenda.  However, by emphasizing internal purchasing of weapons the Kremlin is sending a strong signal that these industries will have the continued support of the state - and that may goad them into ramping up production through hiring, streamlining processes, etc.

This will be an interesting phenomenon to keep an eye on.  To what degree will the Russian military re-arm itself in the coming years?[2]
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[1] Gaddy, Clifford G., and Barry W. Ickes. 2002. Russia’s Virtual Economy. Washington  D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.

[2] I did not tackle the issue of corruption in this post. I have addressed it earlier (here and here). That will be an even bigger issue as more funds are funneled into the defense sector.

Note: It has been a while since I've posted anything here.  This is not a widely-read forum in general (and for now I'm okay with that), and has been more of a way for me to keep my thoughts together and to have a little fun doing side projects.  I have finished my dissertation and am in the process of moving to a visiting professor position at UNLV.  I may not be writing much over the summer either.

Deals, Corruption, and Leader Involvement in Arms Sales

There have been a number of interesting stories piling up in my reader over the past few days.  I have wanted to get to them, but have also been trying to finish up the last chapter of my dissertation.  Priorities are fun.  This is what I'm doing on my break.

India

As a follow up to my post last week (here) about Russian corruption is an interesting story out of India.  India made a deal for helicopters with Finmeccanica (Italian firm), which now appears to be the result of bribes paid.  Now the Indian government is threatening to cancel the rest of the contract if the allegations prove true. (Read more here)

(And more here)

More from India.  India wants to start producing more of its own arms, particularly aircraft.  However, it is having difficulty because the firm that could potentially produce arms is so inefficient as to make this an untenable prospect.

James Hardy, an analyst at the defence consultancy IHS Jane's, says that HAL is "overextended", expressing an opinion largely shared by observers at home and abroad.

More here

Russia and Syria
Russia is continuing to supply the Syrian government with weapons from contracts that were already in place.

The head of Russia's arms exporter Rosoboronexport, Anatoly Isaikin, said Russian deliveries to the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad included air defence systems but not the advanced Iskander missiles sought by Damascus. 

"We are continuing to fulfill our obligations on contracts for the delivery of military hardware," Isaikin was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

Link

But Russia is not smuggling tank parts into Syria. (Link)

France and India

As part of my dissertation I am looking at the involvement of state leaders in arms deals.  I got a special gift from France's president Hollande on Valentine's Day.  The French President led an entourage to India to "clinch the world's biggest defense deal" in India.  The deal is a $12 Billion sale of 126 aircraft.  Along with this deal there are negotiations about French involvement in to help build a nuclear power plant in Maharashtra.

Link

And Now Corruption in Arms

Transparency International has come up with a new index of corruption in the defense sector.  I haven't had a chance to dig too deeply into the details yet.  Unsurprisingly Russia ranks high (low?) on corruption in the study.

The report can be found here.
A press release can be found here.

This critical passage comes from the press release:

The Index shows that only 15 per cent of governments assessed possess political oversight of defence policy that is comprehensive, accountable, and effective. In 45 per cent of countries there is little or no oversight of defence policy, and in half of nations there is minimal evidence of scrutiny of defence procurement. 

The study also finds that citizens are frequently denied basic knowledge about the defence sector. Half of the countries’ defence budgets lack transparency entirely, or include only very limited, aggregated information. In 70 per cent of the countries, citizens are denied a simple indication of how much is spent by their government on secret items.

The patterns of corruption from the front page of the report are not entirely unexpected.

 I am surprised there was not data on Canada in the study. Australia and Germany are the exemplar states for openness in defense reporting and relations.

I'll need to dig into this a bit further as a factor in arms transfers.  The ability of certain actors in society to enrich themselves through arms deals that are notionally being used to enhance the defense capabilities of the state is an interesting variant of the principal agent problem.

This is definitely an area that could use some further examination.

Arms Export Strategy as a Cause of Russia's Military Decline

Dmitry Gorenburg writes on Russia's military and does a great job of following the developments in that sphere.  In a recent blog post he discusses one of the implications of Serdyukov's prosecution for corruption and ouster as defense minister.

It seems that the new leadership team at the MOD has decided to stop using the threat of importing armaments from abroad to get Russian defense industry to improve the quality of its products. 

One of the interesting implications of the whole affair is summed up in the last paragraph of his post.

In the meantime, however, the defense industry’s defeat of Serdyukov reduces the likelihood that the military will get the equipment it needs. It will take time for the MOD to amass the political capital to fight back against the industry and its allies. The result will be that the industry will get its money, while the military will be promised new equipment that in many cases will not arrive on schedule. In a few years, the military’s situation will get even worse, while the MOD will have rebuilt some of its lost political capital.

One of the primary reasons that the US and Soviet Union (and now Russia) are the world's largest arms exporters is that there has been a large internal demand for those weapons.  If Russia's military collapse continues will it be as a result of a focus on using domestic weapons?  Those weapons slated for the Russian military (that are not delivered to domestic customers for various reasons related to the export focus of the industry) could lead to a lack of development of new weapons systems for the internal market.

This particular internal dynamic could lead to an interesting shift in the overall patterns of arms sales. 

France and Russian Ship Deal - Russia not to Build its Own Ships

Here is the story:

Russia's new Defence Minister has made the decision that Russia will not build Mistral class helicopter-carriers, the Vedomosti newspaper reports with reference to sources in the Defence Ministry. 

According to earlier agreements, France was to build two such ships, with the costs totalling more than a billion euros, while Russia was to build two more ships at its own shipyards. 

But, according to the periodical, the concept of using Mistral class ships by the Russian Navy has turned out to be questionable, while the building and maintenance costs, too heavy. 

France is already building two helicopter-carriers for Russia, with the first one due to be commissioned in 2014, while the second one, in 2015.
Both naval ships will be based in Vladivostok.

My question on this particular case is whether or not Russia is backing out because it just doesn't have the capacity to build enough advanced ships for its own navy while maintaining its ship export commitments.

Russia and India Arms Relations Redux

Vladimir Putin spent some time in India this past week.  One of the primary deals struck between the two states during the visit, was the sale of $3 Billion worth of Russian helicopters - a tender, which was rumored to be going to the United States earlier in the month.

The Russian Ambassador to India had this to say about plans for further cooperation between the two states: (source)

...the deals that have been struck as part of the ten-year programme of military and technical cooperation between India and Russia are estimated at $30 billion. 

On Monday, during the Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to India, several important agreements in the military area were signed in New Delhi.

The helicopter and other aircraft deal looks like this:

Under one contract, India will buy 71 Mi-17B-5 Hip helicopters worth $1.3 billion, while the other provides for the delivery of assembly kits for 42 Su-30MKI Flanker fighters, worth $1.6 billion. 

The two countries also signed a number of cooperation agreements in the defense and technology sector, notably between Russian Helicopters and Elcom Systems Pvt Ltd.

Here is the blurb from a BBC story that really highlights the personal role that Putin is playing in getting these deals signed:

In an article in India's Hindu newspaper, Mr Putin described as a "historic step" the declaration of strategic partnership between the two countries signed in 2000. 

The Russian leader also said that the military co-operation between the two nations has reached an "unprecedented level". 

Russia's currently accounts for some 70% of India's arms purchases, the BBC's Sanjoy Majumder in Delhi reports. 

But India has recently signed a number of big defence contracts with the US and other countries, including France and Israel, our correspondent says. 

Russia is concerned, he adds, that its traditional position as India's main arms supplier could be under threat.

And that's the rub.  As I have already pointed out on this blog (11/30/2012 "Are they Related?"), India is one of Russia's primary partners.  China has gained ground recently, but India is still number one or two in all years since the early 1990s - and essentially helped keep Russia afloat in the arms export world in the 1990s.  The fact that Putin is soliciting arms deals and spending his time indicates that to the Russian government (in the form of Putin), arms sales are an important aspect of foreign policy.  This is mostly likely due to the domestic implications of losing the ability to produce arms and shutting down the factories that produce Russia's most sophisticated export materials.

When Cooperation, Competition, and Politics Collide

The world of international arms transfers is a complicated one. The more I study the complex interactions of states in this arena, the more complexity I see.  The US and Russia are the world's largest arms exporting states.  In most arenas they are competitors.  The reasons for this are both historical  and current.  The reasons are historical in the sense that there is path dependence in arms patterns established during the Cold War. They are current in that Russia's own domestic political weakness is a factor in its anti-US foreign policy decision-making (See Ortmann 2011).

The US has problems with Russia's arms export agency, Rosoboronexport:

Rosoboronexport was subject to US sanctions from 2006 to 2010 for allegedly providing nations including Iran and Syria with equipment that could be used to develop weapons of mass destruction. (Source)

The Pentagon, in its Afghanistan mission, has turned to Russia's export agency to provide ammunition for the Afghan forces as well as to supply the reconstituted Afghan army with helicopters.  The first batch of helicopters has been delivered and a new contract is in the works.  The US Congress (both the Senate and the House) are working on legislation to prevent US agencies to work with Rosoboronexport:

In mid-June, US Senator John Cornyn called on the Pentagon to take action against Rosoboronexport, but the Pentagon dismissed his claims, saying that dealing with Russia’s arms exporter was the "only legally available method" to supply the helicopters to Afghanistan.

In this transaction the US is essentially acting as an agent for the Afghan military, which has a preference for the Russian helicopters.  This preference is probably based more on historical considerations than current events, but it is their preference.  The Pentagon is caught in the middle.

This transaction - and others like it in Iraq - show the limits in my current research on the arms trade.  When the sale of helicopters is completed it will show that Russia sold arms to Afghanistan.  The US involvement in the transaction - including paying for the equipment with US taxpayer money is not accounted for.

While such transactions are not the norm, they do highlight weaknesses in the way we code arms transfer data and limitations in the ways we can make inferences from such data.

References

Ortmann, Stefanie. 2011. “The Russian Network State as a Great Power.” In Russia as a Network State: What Works in Russia When State Institutions Do Not?, eds. Vadim Kononenko and Arkady Moshes. Palgrave Macmillan, p. 139–163.

Are they related?

In today's mystery music show we examine two news items from the Russian press and ask the question: are they related?

The first is a stringent denial that Russia has lost a bid to supply India (its second largest customer for arms after China)* heavy helicopters:

MOSCOW, November 28 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s state arms exporter Rosoboronexport denied on Wednesday media reports that it had lost tenders on the delivery of heavy-lift helicopters and aerial tankers to the Indian air force. 

“Rosoboronexport denies media speculation about Russia’s loss in both tenders as these reports are false,” the company said in a statement. (Link to full article)

The second is a story related to the ongoing corruption scandal in the Russian military.

MOSCOW, November 28 (RIA Novosti) – Companies controlled by the Russian Defense Ministry embezzled more than a combined 10 billion rubles ($257 million) this year, investigators said on Wednesday. 

The alleged sum included 6.7 billion rubles ($215 million) suspected to have been stolen via a corruption scheme that cost Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov his job earlier this month, Investigative Committee spokesman Alexander Sorochkin said. The sum in the high-profile case was previously reported to be 3 billion rubles. (Link to full article)

Russia's intertwined military industrial complex may be eating itself.  If the corruption within the system increases to a point where Russia cannot competitively sell its arms to longtime partners, the entire house of cards could come crashing down.

Verdict: Possibly related.


* Here is a fun graph I made to show this relationship:

A Love Hate Relationship with R is Born

I am interested in arms transfers.  I am also interested in networks. In my dissertation I am combining those two interests.  I think that I am looking at some really cool relationships.  This is well and good. However, to do this fun research stuff I have had to leave my comfort zone of STATA and work in R.  Now I am fighting through the twin troubles of learning new software (and a language to code in) and learning new models.

I did a preliminary round of study to make sure that I could do this analysis in an advanced statistics class last semester.  Over the summer R changed versions. The package I use to do my ERGM analysis broke.  That package was updated.  Then my code broke and nothing worked the past two weeks as I have tried to get my analysis done for my dissertation.

After hours of frustrated Googling, I found a note on a blog (that I can't find a link to now... arrrrrgh!) about R namespaces and needing to remove the igraph and statnet packages and reinstall statnet first in order for it to work correctly.  I did this (without reinstalling igraph, just to be sure).  Now things run.  Now I can actually do analysis and not debugging and firefighting with the software.

Enough of the hate. I love Rstudio.  After running through some model specifications last night I decided to try out the knitr package. Awesome.  I still have a lot to learn to make things into real good documents and documentation of my analyses, but you can check out this link to my output for my test models here.

And here is a network graph of France's (egocentric) arms network during the 1950s.  The network is created from the main world network.  The world network accounts for all arms transactions from 1950 to 1959.  The sociomatrix shows a 1 if state i sold weapons to state j at any point during the 10 year window.

Created Using R. Data come from SIPRI.

World Arms Network 1950 and 1975

I am starting work on my dissertation.  The first thing I needed to do was to get all of my arms transfer data into a form that I can work with it for network analysis.  That effort is going nicely.  I spent a little time today playing around with the graphs for the year 1950.  Here is the worldwide arms network for 1950:

I also ran a quick graph of the arms network in 1975.  The thing that jumps out is the difference in the number of states that are importing weapons.  The graph as an analytical tool is nearly useless given the crowded nature of the arms market.  This is why I have to utilize real Social Network Analysis tools to get at the questions I really want to answer.  Graphs are fun, though.

Russia, Syria, and Arms - Oh My!

The following excerpts from this Russian news article highlight the strange "dependence" of Russia on arms sales.  Russia seems intent on proving that it is a "Great Power" through demonstrations of how it can defy the rest of the world community.  This continued "opposition" strategy does not imply that Russia is strong enough to do what it wants.  It really seems to show that Russia is not confident enough in its own position to take a non-realist, non-material stance on issues.  Thoughts?

Russia to honor Syria arms contracts | World | RIA Novosti: "Libya.

Russia will honor all arms contacts with Syria despite continuing violence against anti-government protesters in the country, a senior military official said on Sunday. 

“Since there are no restrictions on the supply of arms to Syria, Russia will fulfill its obligations under the contracts signed with this country,” Vyacheslav Dzirkaln, deputy head of Russia’s Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation, told reporters in Dubai. 

“Russia is interested in continuing mutually beneficial cooperation with the new Libyan government, both on the already-signed contracts and prospective deals,” he said.
In September, Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) chair Mustafa Abdul Jalil said his country would not buy Russian arms. Observers said the decision came as little surprise because of Moscow’s links with the late Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s regime and its slowness to recognize the rebel leadership as the legitimate government. 

Dzirkaln also said Russia hoped to continue arms sales to Yemen when violence there ended."

Does it matter how the violence ends?  If Russia continues to support the Assad regime does it do so because it is afraid that a different regime will not look to Russia for arms?  How do these arms contracts that Russia seems so keen to uphold further Russian interests in the long-term?