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.

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.  

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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.

Russia and Burma - Arms Sales in the News

My last post, on the unsurprising turn in US foreign policy regarding arms sales outlined part of the arguments that I am developing about the underlying reasons for arms sales by states.  A story on the RFE/RL website the next day has got me thinking again. It is not always easy defending arms sales as a practice.  As a practice, arms sales may seem to justify policies and regimes which engage in ugly activities.  Those activities may be directed at neighbors, or at their own population.  Arms are fungible to the extent that once states have them, they can be used as the recipient state sees fit. 

Russia is planning on selling advanced fighter aircraft to Burma (Myanmar), which is in the midst of an ethnic cleansing crisis. The US has condemned the sale, saying that the military is conducting this ethnic cleansing.  This sale by Russia has a bad appearance.  A state's military is directly involved in an ongoing campaign that is violating human rights - and causing death and suffering on a large scale. The question that I had after reading this was whether or not the US condemnation of Russian sales are hypocritical.

Richard Johnson and I in a forthcoming ISQ article break down arms sales by type to examine the hypothesis that democratic states do not sell arms to human rights abusers.  Our theory is that many weapons are not that useful in violating human rights (arms are only partially fungible), and so states will make deals for certain types of weapons with states that are human rights violators.  Our paper is an observational study where we look to establish broad patterns.  We find that there doesn't seem to be discernment across weapons systems (except for land-based vehicles sold by the US) for any of the major democratic arms suppliers (US, Britain, Germany, France).  In general, states sell arms to human rights violators.

In a follow up study, we should examine whether or not the military of those states are involved in repression, or if there are other state actors.  The reason that this distinction would be important, is that if the military is viewed as being professional, and outside of the internal repression apparatus, there may be an expectation by supplying states that the weapons sold will not, in fact, be used for repression (or that there is a low likelihood that they will be). The US position on Burma may be a reflection of this view.  The military is involved in the repression, and therefore all arms sales should be banned until the situation is clearer.

In this case, the US position seems less like hypocrisy, and more like a nuanced policy that engages with the dual nature of arms.  States have a monopoly on violence, and that violence can be turned inward.  However, the consequences to the international system of states where there is not a monopoly of violence (weak and failing/failed states) can ultimately lead to worse outcomes. The sale of arms is part of this complex interaction.  Russia's actions seem to be driven more for a need to establish any kind of influence with any state that will have them.  Putin as salesman in chief needs wins, and he'll take them even if it leads to the loss of life by others.

Salesman in Chief - An unsurprising Development in Arms Transfers

One of the most fascinating pieces of news about arms sales came out in a Reuters story a few days ago. The gist of the plan is that the Trump administration has a plan for the diplomatic and military apparatus to make the sale of arms a priority.  It's part of the "buy American" plan to increase manufacturing capability within the US.

President Donald Trump is expected to announce a “whole of government” approach that will also ease export rules on U.S. military exports and give greater weight to the economic benefits for American manufacturers in a decision-making process that has long focused heavily on human rights considerations, according to people familiar with the plan.

This is a real shift in the recent policies of the United States in terms of seeking to be more limited about which states received US arms.  Richard Johnson and I have a paper coming out in ISQ soon that looks at whether or not this rhetoric on human rights has any real substantive effects on arms sales by major democratic suppliers (hint: it does not - with a few caveats).  Our study is a follow up and expansion of Lindsay Blanton's 2005 work that looked at US arms sales only [1].

I am not surprised by this development. In my 2013 PhD thesis[2] I examined US and Russian decision-making on arms sales.  I found that both states were reliant on foreign sales to some degree. Russia has had - and this increased under Putin - a strategy of arms promotion at all levels of the state for a long time.  It is surprising how often Putin's name comes up when new arms deals are announced.  He is Russia's salesman in chief when it comes to arms sales.

The US move to an open policy of arms sales promotion makes sense under two common assumptions about arms sales.  The first assumption is about economics - and apparently that is the argument that is being made to justify this shift in foreign policy.  It is expensive to develop new weapons systems.  It is expensive to maintain manufacturing for spare parts.  Having external customers keeps production going, and provides partial relief for development costs.  It provides employment (which is particularly important in defense industries that can affect Congressional races where they are concentrated), and it ensures domestic manufacturing capability into the future. 

During the Cold War both the US and the Soviets could sustain their arms development because of the large internal market for weapons and the sizes of their military economies in general.  The end of the Cold war changed the imperatives for both states.  Russia felt this need first, and more acutely.  The United States needed arms sales more after the contraction of the armed forces during the 1990s.

The second assumption about arms sales that supports this development is the idea that arms purchases and sales are part of relationship building between states. This is a connection that has not been explored too deeply by arms scholarship. My current book project, which adapts and expands my dissertation examines these relationships more closely. Trump is a businessman in a business that is dominated by personal relationships. It seems natural that he would want to have a policy that reflects those preferences.  The fact that he is focusing on the sale of arms highlights to me the importance of arms sales to state identity. Arms sales are still not "sexy" like conflict and other types of security studies, but the more we see such fascinating real-world examples of their importance, the more likely that academics will pay more attention.
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[1]  Blanton, Shannon Lindsey. 2005. "Foreign Policy in Transition? Human Rights, Democracy, and U.S. Arms Exports." International Studies Quarterly 49: 647–668.

[2] Willardson, Spencer L. 2013. "Under the Influence of Arms: The Causes and Consequences of Arms Transfers." PhD Thesis. University of Iowa. Link

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.

Thinking about Teaching

This blog post from "The Professor is In" writing for "The Chronicle of Higher Education" is meant to provoke thought from job applicants.  The question asked is about how a candidate would redesign a major.  I was not asked that question in any of my job interviews, but a year and a half out of graduate school, and 2 months into my new job at Nazarbayev University I was asking my colleagues how we should number new courses we were offering in the spring.

That question led down a rabbit hole of discovery and confusion about the major as it had been designed (hastily) four years earlier before there were students and with only one or two faculty members had been hired.  It was a curriculum designed with good intentions (dual tracks for political science and international relations) and a capstone course requirement.  However, the curriculum didn't reflect some key realities of our situation.

First of all, our students all wanted to major in "International Relations" because that was something that translated into the local context - even if what they learned was different from diplomacy and history that constitutes such majors in local universities.  "Politologia"[1] just didn't translate.  The capstone courses had no guidelines, and scheduling hadn't been thought of, so not all of our senior majors were going to be able to take these classes - the ones they needed to graduate.  The undergraduate curriculum also hadn't accounted for the need for professors to split time between undergraduate and graduate teaching with the creation of a standalone MA program at the beginning of the 4th year - the same year I joined the department.

Using examples from our partner university - Wisconsin at Madison - and programs I was familiar with, I redesigned the curriculum to maximize flexibility for faculty and students.  We had some discussions as a department about what we wanted our students to master, and made decisions about requiring both research design and qualitative methods and quantitative methods for all of our majors.  We also had to make decisions about elective courses that could be dual-listed for MA and BA students.  In the end the curriculum changes were significant, but not necessarily revolutionary. 

Kelsky outlines the basics of an undergraduate curriculum in the social sciences, and it matches quite closely with what we did with our renamed major Political Science and International Relations (PSIR):

• (100 level) Introductory courses to acquaint students with the vocabulary and contours of the discipline.
• (200 level) methods courses that help students know the questions that can be asked, and how they can be answered.
• (300/400) courses where students think about knowledge production, debates, and more complex issues within the discipline.

The curriculum was approved by our school Teaching and Learning Committee, and took effect at the end of my first year.  In a few months our seniors will graduate - the first full cohort to graduate under the new standards.  In that time our department has grown and we've added majors, but the curriculum has weathered the storm.

I guess the moral of this story is that things worked out well.
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[1] Политология the Russian word for political science, but still not political science like we understand in the US context.