Arms and Civil War Intervention

The complexity of civil wars and intervention has been on my mind a lot lately.  I tend to look at everything through the lens of arms sales, and this is a really "good" time to think about these issues. Arms sales are in the news a great deal because of the ongoing proxy war in Yemen and the role that Western weapons are playing in that conflict as they are deployed by the different sides, especially by the Saudis.

In addition to proxy wars in Yemen and Syria, Libya is also the site of continued fighting.  Earlier this week, government forces found US weapons in the hands of rebel forces. There is an ongoing investigation about the source of these weapons, but it appears at first blush that they were originally sold to UAE (LINK). This would be a violation of the terms of sale to UAE and of the UN arms embargo to Libya in general, so it's a pretty serious issue.

I have a graduate student who is working on an MA thesis about outside intervention in civil wars, and she sent me an article from Brookings about this phenomenon. The article itself is about the analogies that we use to discuss wars and how analogies and history are weaponized and politicized to make different points, and that they take on a shorthand meaning to represent a certain viewpoint about intervention: think Munich vs. Vietnam as an analogy. Toward the end of the article there is a sentence that stood out to me and got me thinking about arms sales and civil war intervention:

"The proxy war problem highlights that, for the United States, ending civil wars is not merely a question of political will, but also a question of capacity. It is true that the US military is the most powerful in the world, but it is not the case that US military intervention will always tip the balance toward peace." 

 I thought about this in terms of two papers by Kalyvas and Balcells (2010, 2014) and how they have examined the "technologies of rebellion" and their effects on the outcome of civil war. They find that conventional war (fought with technology on both sides) leads to deadlier wars, but wars that are shorter in duration and with longer-lasting outcomes.

One way to think of this is that intervention on the part of the US government may not require physical intervention. Intervention in terms of providing equipment may be enough to tilt wars.  This brings me back to some of the research on arms transfers that took place at the height of the Cold War. Arms sales from the US and USSR to the third world were a deep concern because of the idea that these weapons may have been fueling conflict in many areas of the world.

There are a lot of normative and empirical pieces to unpack when thinking about intervening in civil conflicts. The role that arms can play (on both sides) is one that still needs to be explored more systematically.

Link-O-Rama: Russia's Domestic Market & Russian Arms Exports

Today I am sharing a number of links I keep saving in my Google Reader to get to later.  They deal with Russia and arms transfers primarily.  It is a mix of positive (for Russia) developments, negative developments, and some weirdness.  The weirdness is that Russia continues to fight against the rest of the world community on the arms to Syria issue. While it is true that arms sales to Libya have not yet been banned (primarily because of Russia's adamant opposition to the possibility), the consensus of the world is coalescing against the regime.  That is potentially long-term bad news for Russia's arms sales to that state.

However, the arms deal to Iraq (see below) is a sign that Russia may be able to regain some of its lost ground in the region.  The items from Libya are a bit confusing.

The bad news for Russia's arms industry is that it is losing past customers (even present allies) for its radar systems.

The last point I want to make before I get to the links is that Russia is really playing the embattled and encircled card on the issue of arms in general.  There is no doubt that the arms industry is a key component of Russia's foreign policy portfolio.

Putin wants to Re-arm Russia 

“In June, we in particular discussed implementation of a state armament program regarding aviation,” he said. “We will keep the issue under constant control.” 

“We will have no other historic chance to solve these ambitious tasks the country is now facing to ensure its defense capability in due time and with due quality when [the required] funds are available, thank God,” Putin said. “Tomorrow we will have none of these funds, and time will be lost.”

Part II

Russia will continue to build up its own defense capabilities according to foreseeable threats stated President Vladimir Putin at a meeting at the Defense Ministry, reports the Voice of Russia's correspondent from the session.

There are multiplying and expanding zones of instability on the planet: with non-stop armed conflicts in the Middle East, Central Asia, and the danger of radicalism and chaos being exported to Russia from neighboring regions. 

"At the same time there are methodical attempts being carried out to undermine the strategic balance," President Putin said.

Russia at War over Arms Sales

MOSCOW, March 2 (RIA Novosti) – Russia is facing a ‘real war’ aimed at hampering the country’s legal deliveries of weapons to Syria, the head of the Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation has said. 

“A real war has been declared against us,” Alexander Fomin told Ekho Moskvy radio on Friday without specifying who has declared the war. 

“The [Russian] ships are lured into ports and arrested there under various devised pretexts. When the ships are at sea, any insurance is canceled,” Fomin said adding that any attempts to deliver the contracted goods are being thwarted.

Libya and IRAQ
Iraq 

Indeed, when it became known that Iraq had problems with the Russian deal, there was widespread speculation that Washington had pressured Maliki to stop buying from Moscow to keep him dependent on the United States. 

That and the widespread accusations of corruption in the deal... 

Libya

There were denials all round at the time but the Americans, like the Russians, need hefty exports to keep assembly lines running amid massive cutbacks in domestic defense spending [1]. Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan said Feb. 27 he will shortly ask the U.N. Security Council to lift the arms embargo imposed in 2011. 

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Monday that Moscow had reservations about that, given the Tripoli government's lack of authority and multiple security threats but he said Russia was ready to help the new Libya "facilitate the possible acquisition of arms." 

Russia's RIA Novosti new agency reports Algeria, another Cold War client, is another target, but Algiers has quarreled with Moscow on the quality of its arms and isn't expected to be a major buyer of Russian systems.

More on Libya

The Libyan authorities should do everything possible to stop the spread of Libyan weapons in the region and beyond, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said on Wednesday. 

Rebels in Libya, some of them from Islamist groups, ousted and killed long-standing dictator Muammar Gaddafi in October 2011 after a months-long uprising, in which they received assistance from NATO forces. Government arsenals across the country were looted during the conflict.

Wouldn't arms leakage present an opportunity for more sale to Libya in the long-run if they get the contracts?

Russia and Vietnam

Moscow will proceed with plans this year to help Vietnam launch a new submarine fleet and train the crews, Russian Defense Ministry Sergei Shoigu said on Wednesday.

Vietnam ordered six submarines in order to counter Chinese expansion in the area. 

Estonia (and Belarus)

TALLINN, March 7 (RIA Novosti) - Estonia’s Air Defense Forces have dismantled their last obsolete Soviet-made radars, the General Staff of the country’s armed forces said on Thursday. 

One P-37 type radar will be installed as a monument at the Amari military base, while another will be sent to an aviation museum. 

At present, two radar stations monitor Estonia’s airspace - a TPS-77 at Kallavere, in western Estonia and an ASR-8 at Amari, not far from Tallinn. 

In late March, a new radar station will be opened on Muhu Island featuring a medium-range Ground Master 430 3D air-defense radar [2] with an effective range of up to 470 kilometers (295 miles) and an altitude of up to 30 kilometers (100,000 feet). 

Another post-Soviet republic, Belarus, said in mid-February it would replace a Russian radar station with an indigenous one and dispose of its Russian-made Sukhoi Su-27 fighters.

The fact that even Belarus (Russia's erstwhile ally) is moving away from Russian-produced radar does not bode well for the reputation of Russian defense products.  This is a serious problem for Russia given its priority of exporting weapons.
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[1] One of the assumptions I make in my dissertation is that both the US and Russia can use arms transfers as foreign policy tools because their domestic markets can support the arms industry.  This assumption does not seem to be holding up well.

[2] These are manufactured by the Thales group, a French firm.

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?