first glance, the international arms trade seems to be one of those problems that will always be with us, like death and taxes. But just as life can be prolonged and tax rates can be reduced, the traffic in weapons can be reined in, given the political will to do so, as I first suggested in two contributions to World Policy Journal the first, "Curbing the Arms Trade: From Rhetoric to Restraint" in the spring of 1992, and "Why Sell Arms?" a year later.

This dissertation comprehensively evaluates, for the first time, nonviolence and its relationship to International Relations (IR) theory and US foreign policy along the categories of principled, strategic, and regulative nonviolence. The current debate within nonviolence studies is between principled and strategic nonviolence as relevant categories for theorizing nonviolent resistance. Principled nonviolence, while retaining the primacy of ethics, is often not practical. Indeed, most nonviolent movements have not been principled, or solely principled. Strategic nonviolence is attractive because it does not require any individual or group to believe in a particular faith or ethical tradition. However, strategic nonviolence is problematic as a source for action because it empties nonviolence of ethical content. If left with only the categories of principled and strategic nonviolence any analysis of US foreign policy is hampered by either principled nonviolence‘s impracticability or by the possibility that strategic nonviolence will be used for unethical ends, what I term ―imperial nonviolence.‖ This tension led me to search for a middle path between principled and strategic nonviolence. ―Regulative nonviolence‖ is so-called because the concept owes an intellectual debt to Immanuel Kant. It is theoretically possible to argue for a US foreign policy that is grounded in the regulative ideal of nonviolence while it is nearly impossible to get from the current American policy of overwhelming force to one of principled nonviolence. In the end, regulative nonviolence is more ideal than strategic nonviolence, it retains the ethical core of principled nonviolence without removing all forms of violence

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An Unstoppable Arms Trade

Fostering Global Security: Nonviolent Resistance and US Foreign Policy

It is commonly argued that the end of a conflict generates increased outflow of weaponry. A surplus of secondhand small arms (ranging from small caliber to military grade mediumrange motor tubes, and ammunition) make their way into the trade stream through makeshift weapons supermarkets. Anecdotally, case studies suggest four possible market structures: trade interchange markets, trade mediators, epicenters, and trade channels. Using dynamic actor-based simulation modeling (SIENA), this study captures changes in the gray market of gun trade following the end of armed conflict, testing the degree to which market activity evolves to reflect each structure. Information about small arms and ammunition transfers were obtained from UNcomtrade for 224 nations from 1997 to 2010. Suspicious and likely clandestine trade relations were extracted by pulling all transfers that were reported by only one party to the exchange. While interchange markets are predominantly associated with conflict cessation on a global level, significant regional variation exists. Policy implications are discussed.

Conflict Cessation and the Emergence of Weapons Supermarkets

What characterises China’s weapons diplomacy and how does it unfold in the current security scenario in the Western Hemisphere? This article argues that Chinese arms deliveries have arrived in the ...

/pdf/china-s-weapons-transfer-in-the-western-hemisphere-1nf7hjz816.pdf

China’s weapons transfer in the Western hemisphere

Defunct American international relations journal

An Unstoppable Arms Trade

Citations

Fostering Global Security: Nonviolent Resistance and US Foreign Policy

Conflict Cessation and the Emergence of Weapons Supermarkets

China’s weapons transfer in the Western hemisphere

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