Why Arms Sales are Complicated - Purchaser Edition

I have spent a lot of time in the past decade researching arms transfers. There are a few of us who study this particular subfield of international relations/economics and sometimes I wonder if there is a really a lot more to say about the subject.  Then I read a bit more and realize that we are really only scratching the surface in terms of the complexity of the subject matter of arms sales.  I am working on some projects now that work to better integrate arms transfers with wider research in IR and that has me thinking more about the motivations of importing states.

I think that many of the models of arms sales think mostly of supplier considerations. There is a lot to commend in thinking of models of how states use arms as a foreign policy tool. Richard Johnson and I published an article last year in International Studies Quarterly (LINK) where we tested whether major democratic arms suppliers take human rights into consideration in their arms sales. Despite some evidence for this a decade ago (Blanton 2005) in the US context, it doesn't appear that human rights are really a major driver in states' decision-making.  That is important information to know, but rather than simply knowing what does not motivate sales, we need to think about what does.

It is often said that the end of the Cold War signaled a shift from a sellers' to a buyers' market in terms of weapons.  There is some truth to that, but states do not usually simply purchase arms "off the rack." The considerations for states in terms of replacement parts, continued supplies, ammunition, training, etc. especially for complex weapons systems also plays a role.  In other words, this is not simply an economic transaction.  Arms sales by their nature are political - and they often involve top-level government involvement in making the deals.  This is especially true of the most complex weapons systems - combat aircraft and ships.

Caverly and Kapstein (2012) argued a few years ago that the US was making a mistake focusing its research and development and arms sales policy on selling the most complex equipment. Their argument was that many states needed cheaper, reliable arms and that the US would push customers towards rivals (Russia and China) by focusing only on the latest generation of equipment.

I thought about that when I read a recent post in The National Interest that discussed Taiwan's decision to stop seeking access to the US F-35 fighter.  Taiwan's strategy has been to collect the most advanced weapons system that it could in order to deter potential future Chinese aggression.  The authors suggest that a better strategy would be one of denial that relies on abundant cheap resources such as anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles to make any potential aggression costly. Rather than going toe-to-toe in terms of quality, to beat the Chinese by using multiple cheap technologies.  The strategic consideration of customers (especially for those that are allies) will do a great deal to determine the types of weapons required. This is to say nothing about budgets and the finite resources that states have to acquire weapons.

A second complication that I have been thinking about is one that came up in an article about India's attempt to upgrade its own air force.  Internal politics of this deal have been extremely heated and complicated.  The Indian supreme court refused to get involved in a case about Modi's deal to purchase French Rafale fighters. Modi changed the terms of the deal - abandoning the licensing and construction of aircraft in India in favor or purchasing aircraft built entirely in France.  Licensing, financing, and other considerations along with long-standing political cleavages and battles within purchasing states can also seriously affect the ability of a state to sell arms, and limit the types of equipment (and therefore the number of potential suppliers) available.

All this means is that there needs to be more work that examines qualitative details of arms sales from both the purchaser and seller perspective. Our quantitative models of arms sales need more accurate inputs and theories to become more reliable.  I am looking forward to an exciting year of digging into arms sales details.

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Blanton, Shannon Lindsey. (2005) Foreign Policy in Transition? Human Rights, Democracy, and U.S. Arms Exports. International Studies Quarterly 49: 647–668.

Caverley, Jonathan, and Ethan B. Kapstein. (2012) Arms Away. Foreign Affairs 91: 125–132.

Johnson, Richard A. I., and Spencer L. Willardson. (2018) Human Rights and Democratic Arms Transfers: Rhetoric Versus Reality with Different Types of Major Weapon Systems. International Studies Quarterly 62: 453–464.

Some Links about Russian Arms

My own thinking about arms is grounded, primarily in my own experience in the Army and a lifelong proximity and love of aircraft.  I don't think a lot about the Navy, but I should.  The past few weeks have provided a number of interesting articles about the Russian navy and arms acquisition and manufacture, which have many applications for I think about the problem of arms in general. 

The first link is to a story about the sinking of the dry dock and damage to Russia's Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier.   The story highlights the importance of infrastructure for both building and servicing military equipment. In addition to the need to think about infrastructure, is a discussion about the shift in strategy and acquisition to favor small ships over a large blue-water navy. For states with arms production capability, the acquisition process is still tied to strategic priorities and bureaucratic politics. This is an issue that has been explored with a bit of depth in the US case and its often dysfunctional arms acquisition process. Opening the black box of other states and understanding what drives the purchasing decisions beyond economic necessity is an under-explored area in the literature on arms transfers.

A two-part article on the Russian Defense Policy Blog discusses the issue of nuclear submarines in the Russian fleet.  Part I of the article is basically a translation of an article that ran in the Russian press that asks hard questions about the priorities of the Russian fleet. Part II of the article provides more commentary on the primary arguments in the original piece. The gist of the piece is that the focus on nuclear subs with a capability that lags behind the US is starving the entire fleet of necessary resources that could provide stronger strategic value.

An interesting question to ask here is how the priority to export weapons interferes with or enhances the strategic capabilities of states.  Jonathan Caverley and Ethan Kapstein have written about this in the US context. They advocate updating the arms acquisition in the US to favor "good enough" weapons that can be exported as well rather than simply focusing on building the top of the line systems. When the state is both dependent on exports for reasons of status and economics (as I found in my dissertation), how do strategic priorities shift?  How can the state allocate resources efficiently under conditions of competing priorities?

In the case of Russia does chasing great power status and a posture that follows the Soviet Cold War allocation of naval resources (in terms of aircraft carriers for power projection and nuclear submarines for nuclear deterrence) harm its ability to meet its new strategic demands and realities?


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Caverley, Jonathan, and Ethan B. Kapstein. (2012) Arms Away. Foreign Affairs 91: 125–132.

The complexity of Arms Sales

A recent article about India's pursuit of advanced aircraft illustrates the complicated world of arms transfers.

The article itself is correcting some misinformation that India was going to purchase the F-35 and open up some joint manufacturing facilities for the aircraft there.  It turns out that initial inquiries into the possibility of F-35s in the future was confused with a current bid for the purchase of F-16 fighters.  India is looking to upgrade its aircraft but is in the bidding stage with both Saab and Lockheed Martin.

In both cases, the Indians will open factories to perform final assembly.  Such licensing and joint production is common.  F-16s are manufactured in Turkey under a similar agreement, for example.  The F-35 is a unique program because it is being built on licensing and co-production from the very beginning with partners all over the world.  It is a complex and collaborative endeavor that relies on pre-existing alliance ties and mutual trust and support. 

India is not approved for the purchase of the F-35 at this time.  The authors of the article noted that the issues of technology transfer that are more acute with this particular advanced aircraft.  The components are more advanced and there is a real worry that the technology could fall into the wrong hands.

For me this article is fascinating because it touches on so many of the complex and fascinating aspects of arms sales that I have been thinking about for the past few years.  The first is the importance of relations and relationship building.  There is a great deal of high-level negotiation that takes place for these arms deals - because they must be approved (in the case of the US) by the State Department working with the Department of Defense.  It is not just a mater of defense firms going out and making sales.

The complexity of licensing and production deals is another aspect of arms transfers that is unique.  There is an incentive for many states to build their own capacity while they purchase weapons systems.  This makes sense from a realist perspective of anarchy and fits with the logic of internal balancing outlined by Morrow (1993).  States don't want to be too dependent on arms imports because it limits their own actions.  States that wish to play a more independent role in international relations will avoid becoming too dependent on a supplier.

Even if the production facilities are mainly symbolic, they offer some work, build native capabilities, and establish the state as being less dependent than a state that simply imports finished arms. My current thinking about arms is about the ways that they are used to socialize states, and the use of licensing deals is an avenue that needs to be explored in more depth.
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Morrow, James D. (1993) Arms Versus Allies: Trade-Offs in the Search for Security. International Organization 47: 207–233.

Turkey and Russian Missiles

In December, word leaked that Turkey was buying S-400 systems from Russia.  There are a number of aspects of this sale that are both interesting and troubling. There are two very interesting aspects to me of this deal.  The first is that the sale was apparently concluded based on personal conversations between Erdogan and Putin.  I am fascinated by the personal involvement that state leaders have in the sale and transfer of weapons systems.  It is an area that is very under-researched, and one that I am working on in various ways in my own research on arms sales.

The second fascinating aspect of this sale for me is the potential that this sale has as an indicator of future alliance moves by Turkey.  This article (Link) by RFE-RL has a good write up of the problems that such a move has for NATO and future inter-operability of systems.  The news over this past weekend (January 19) that Turkey had launched an offensive against US-Backed Kurdish fighters in Syria also indicates that Turkey may be moving more closely into alignment with Russia on security matters in the region.  Neither of these things is good for the strength of NATO and the future of NATO-Turkish relations.

I am fascinated by this potential of arms sales as a bellwether for state relations and policy.  In the policy world, there is a great deal of need of and desire for accurate indicators.  This is the problem of strategic intelligence and planning.  How can we know what is planned by both adversary and ally?  That is the first step in determining what our own plans and reactions can be. Looking at arms sales as a leading indicator for alliance shifts seems to be a promising direction for research.

Complicating the Turkish story, however, is a follow up story that appeared just a week (Jan 7, 2018) after the RFE-RL (Dec. 29, 2017) story on Turkey's purchase of the missiles.  It is a Reuter's story about the signing of an agreement between Turkey and Eurosam, which is a French-Italian missile firm to develop surface to air missiles jointly.

Russia will not sign agreements to allow for the transfer of its technology, and so Turkey is going to continue to pursue its own missile program.  The issue of dependence on supplier is more acute with Russian and Turkish deals since the two countries have a long history of antagonism toward each other.

All of this is to say that although arms transfers may not be the sexiest topic in international relations, there are plenty of interesting things that are happening, plenty of puzzles, and plenty of unexplored stories for those that are interested.  And enough material that hopefully those of us that are interested can help others see the importance of this topic.

A round up of arms-related goodness

This is a post for me to take care of some bookkeeping tasks.  There have been a number of articles written about arms sales that relate to my research interests lately.  However, I have needed to put them aside to finish up some other projects and to finish up the end of the year.  I will present this as a roundup list with a little commentary so I can come back and do some deeper work with these sources later.

Vietnam

The Vietnam War ended long ago.  The US has now lifted its arms prohibition on the country.  It was done via an executive order and announced by President Obama.  This is an interesting story for me.  In this case, the prohibition on sales was political - trumping economic concerns.  This decision is also political - a signal to China about the US interests in security in the region. It looks like the US will start fielding requests for aircraft. (LINK)

Russia has been supplying arms to Vietnam for a long time.  I wrote a vignette about naval sales to Vietnam for a paper I wrote in 2012 (unpublished).  Here is an interesting piece on the mechanics who maintain Russian-made Sukhoi jets for Vietnam (LINK).  This aspect of arms sales and military effectiveness has not really made its way into the literature on arms sales.  I think that it is really fascinating. If arms are something more than symbolic, they need to be maintained. The capacity for states to maintain their own high-end equipment puts them ahead of states that need to rely solely on the manufacturing country.  I am still thinking of how this could be incorporated into a research paper, so for now it remains an interesting small question.

Russia

Russia and arms are always interesting.  An interesting article from RFE/RL outlines the proliferation of new and fancy weapons being built by Russia and the fear that they will lead to a new arms race.

In other interesting news, Russia and the US (along with the rest of the P5) agreed to re-arm the Libyan government for that government to fight internal rebels (LINK).  This is a very interesting state of affairs.  The norm for western governments has been to avoid providing weapons to states to deal with internal repression (at least in policy and rhetoric). Now states are agreeing that states arming to fight against extremists is okay.  This in many ways validates the Russian position in Syria. States have a right to protect their regime from violence. Does this signal a shift in norms to take into account the growing threat of Islamic violence (i.e. ISIS), or is this a unique case?

F-35

The Pentagon admitted that the F-35 will be delayed and will not be ready for full production until (at least) 2018 (LINK).  The delays in this program are an interesting issue in arms acquisition and production.  The F-35 was supposed to be cheaper and better and it is morphing into a hybrid that is neither.  For me the interesting question to ask in a few years is whether the political capital gained by outsourcing and cooperating on its production are worth the cost in terms of acquisition cost and speed as well as the ratio of those two factors in effectiveness.

Arms Procurement Links: Japan Jumps in and India Sinking

One area that I neglected (out of ignorance and not deliberately) in my dissertation was the effect of domestic arms arms procurement procedures on arms exports and imports.  This is an area that I covered recently in a course that I am teaching on the Politics of Arms in International Relations.  I think that I have been primed to see problems of acquisitions because of the readings that we did in class - along with my own personal epiphany about the lack of such thinking in my earlier work. At the bottom of this post I'll post the readings that I had my class look at that turned my own view on the subject.  First, however, I am linking to two stories about domestic arms acquisitions that caught my attention in the past few weeks.

1. Japan to Launch a Defense Procurement Agency (LINK)

Japan's Ministry of Defense will use its new constitutional powers to set up an agency to manage international trade of weapons and military equipment. 

The ministry confirmed with IHS Jane's that the new agency will be named the Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency, and will begin operations on October 1. 

The agency's key objectives will include promoting international cooperation on the procurement of defense equipment, enhancing project management, and enhancing development for Japanese defense production and technology bases. 

The Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency is set to become one of the most powerful wings of the Japanese Ministry of Defense, and will employ 1,800 people.

It is interesting to think that Japan did not have this agency earlier.  The country obviously has the capacity to engage in defense acquisitions, but those functions were not concentrated in a ministry that was part of the defense establishment.  This new move may not necessarily make acquisition more rational (Caverley and Kapstein), but it will make the Ministry of Defense more powerful.  This will be an interesting subject to follow over the next few years.

2. India's acquisitions process is corrupt and broken (LINK)

In a long and interesting story, the details of India's decades-long failure to replace its rapidly aging and diminished artillery is still not complete.  Problems of corruption meant that the acquisition agency changed its rules.  These rules have negative consequences:

The other problem involved India’s Ministry of Defence. India’s defense procurement establishment has shown an extreme risk-averse behavior and Defense India observes external link that when a competition devolves to a single-vendor solution, the practice is often to re-tender. Soltam and Denel’s exit left just BAE Bofors, until they, too were eliminated by allegations that Bofors had paid INR 640 million (about $16 million) in bribes, trying to secure the order. 

The net effect of corporate blacklists, plus single-vendor prohibitions, is a process that can’t field equipment to India’s military when it’s needed – and sometimes ever. Unfortunately for India’s front-line soldiers, their need for working artillery hasn’t changed.

Things only got worse and weirder.  I recommend that you read the entire article.  The more I think that I understand the dynamics of the arms trade, the more new information like this appears.  I guess I should be happy that there is still plenty of research for me out there!

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Class readings related to (at least tangentially) to domestic arms acquisition processes:

Kovacic, William E., and Dennis E. Smallwood. 1994. “Competition Policy, Rivalries, and
Defense Industry Consolidation.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives 8(4): 91-110.

Mayer, Kenneth R., and Anne M. Khademian. 1996. “Bringing Politics Back in: Defense Policy and the Theoretical Study of Institutions and Processes.” Public Administration Review
56(2): 180-90.

Pearson, Frederic S. 1989. “The Correlates of Arms Importation.” Journal of Peace Research
26(2): 153-63.

Caverley, Jonathan, and Ethan B. Kapstein. 2012. “Arms Away.” Foreign Affairs 91(5):
125-32.

Qingmin, Zhang. 2006. “The Bureaucratic Politics of US Arms Sales to Taiwan.” The
Chinese Journal of International Politics 1(2): 231-65.

Smith, Ron, Anthony Humm, and Jacques Fontanel. 1985. “The Economics of Exporting
Arms.” Journal of Peace Research 22(3): 239-47.