Trading In Death
Weapons, Warfare And The Modern Arms Race
James Adams
James Adams 1990
Charles Spencer has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 1990 by Century Hutchinson Ltd.
This edition published in 2017 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
Table of Contents
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Acknowledgments
Robin Pekelney did some very good research for me in the United States. Others have now recognized her talents and the work she did for me suggests she is perfect for the job she has taken.
Peter Wilsher and Peter Hounam shared with me the research they had done into Israels nuclear program. Peter Hounam played a key part in bringing the story of Mordechai Vanunu to the world and I am most grateful to him for correcting my mistakes and adding his own valuable insight to the story. Askold Krushelnycky kindly shared his knowledge gained while writing about the war in Afghanistan.
A number of people were kind enough to help in the preparation of this book and some of them then took the trouble to read an early draft of the manuscript. I hope I have corrected the errors of fact and interpretation that they pointed out. I am unable to mention any of these people by name because they all work either for governments or industry in sensitive jobs and publicity could do them or their employers harm. Nonetheless, they have my thanks.
I am especially grateful to Rene Riley for smoothing out the rough spots and giving me encouragement and support just when it was needed.
Introduction
The start of the 1990s could well go down in history as the year peace broke out in the world. In 1989, Soviet forces completed their withdrawal from Afghanistan, peace became a possibility in Angola, the South Africans agreed to withdraw from Namibia and the ceasefire continued to hold in the Iran-Iraq war.
More importantly, the superpowers at last began to break away from an arms race that had continued unabated since the end of the Second World War. Intermediate range nuclear forces were disappearing from Europe, there was a real possibility of reductions in strategic nuclear forces and an early agreement on cutting back on conventional forces in both NATO and the Warsaw Pact seemed likely.
The new decade also brought with it important psychological changes in the perceptions of east and west. The Soviet bear appeared more benign than at any time since the Russian Revolution and even those in the communist bloc perceived their traditional capitalist enemies as people like themselves, divided not so much by ideology but by generations of ignorance about each other. The breaking down of the Berlin Wall, the overthrow in popular revolutions of communist governments in Eastern Europe, and the commitment of those new governments to democracy have further eroded barriers between east and west. At last, there is a real prospect of a complete change in relations between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
To even the most cynical cold war warrior all these changes are for the good. Anything, after all, that reduces tension between east and west should be welcomed. Less tension means less chance of nuclear war. Aside from reducing tension, this rapprochement should mean that fewer arms are required, but arms dealers are confident this will not be so.
Conflict is taking different forms, from terrorism to more regional conflicts, and weapons will continue to be in demand. Arms producers are predicting a fairly steady market for the next five years which will be followed by a sharp increase as new weapons currently in the development stage reach an expanded market. It appears that the arms business remains relatively unaffected by the prospects of superpower peace.
Weapons and their use on the battlefield is not just about war but about the application of technology to the exercise of violence. For terrorists and narcotics traffickers, weapons have become increasingly specific. Where these criminals used to be satisfied by the $500 AK47 Khalashnikov automatic rifle for attacks, and oil and fertiliser to make their bombs, they have developed an appetite for sniper rifles with night sights and difficult to detect Semtex explosives, detonated by remote control using lasers and sophisticated microcircuitry.
In the same way, nuclear warfare has evolved from the crude missile that goes up with a single warhead and comes down in the rough area of the target. Today, any ballistic nuclear missile should have decoys and a number of warheads that can maneuver in space and be independently targeted. Such specialized requirements have not only increased the demand for a different weapon but differing marketing strategies bring about competition between arms manufacturers designed with non-state sales in mind. This in turn has given the second, third and fourth customers unparalleled influence on the design and development of new weapons.
As a high premium is now placed on exports to earn foreign currency and maintain jobs, governments have become directly and openly involved in the arms manufacturing and sales process. More important, however, exports also help fund the research and development into new weapons that allow a country to maintain an indigenous arms producing infrastructure to keep a place in the club of arms exporters.
Losing a place at that table is not simply a matter of status and money. Arms mean power. Arms exports bring influence far outside the defence arena. The country that buys guns may also be inclined to buy grain, and to provide diplomatic support for the arms supplier in forums such as the United Nations.
Developing countries recognize this and also realize that arms sales can be a valuable source of foreign income. As a result, the arms business is more diverse than ever before with more countries vying for the $50 billion annual market in arms exports. Newcomers such as China, Brazil, Israel, South Africa and North Korea have made significant inroads to a business that has traditionally been dominated by countries such as the United States, Soviet Union, Britain and France.
The newcomers in the market have thrived in the 1980s because of the number of small wars ongoing around the world. Of these wars, the conflict between Iran and Iraq has proved the biggest bonanza to the arms business, and every arms producer has fed at the trough. Even with the ceasefires that are already in place, there are still some thirty-five or forty wars a year, from Peru, to Colombia and Afghanistan. These brushfire wars mean both government and black marketeers in the arms business have prospered.
In fact, this book will argue that while one arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States may at last be drawing to a close, another between developing nations, and even between black marketeers is only just beginning.
According to the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, worldwide sales of weapons broke through the $1 trillion barrier for the first time in 1987. While this is bad news, there is some ground for general optimism. Spending by the developed nations continued to rise but spending in Third World countries dropped by 9.1 per cent in 1987 compared to the previous year. However, spending in South Asia rose by 10 per cent.
The simple statistics suggest that, despite some small problems, the overall picture is much improved. In fact, the shrinking size of some arms budgets in some countries indicates not a reduced commitment to military investment but a change in the nature of that investment.
