From the Introduction

• There were 27 major armed conflicts in 1999, all but 2 of which were internal. Seen against the 19 conflicts in 1997, according to the revised statistics, there was a sharp upturn in the last two years of the decade.

• Over 1000 people were killed in 14 conflicts in 1999. In only two other years of the past decade was there such a high incidence of intensive conflict.

• Foreign military intervention occurred in 5 of the 27 conflicts waged in 1999, suggesting that intervention remains the exception and is not becoming the rule.

• The war in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 1998 has involved the armed forces of nine states and at least nine rebel groups. The main parties to the conflict signed a peace agreement in 1999, but successful implementation of the agreement is in doubt. The course of the war and its outcome will strongly influence political stability and economic development throughout central and southern Africa for years to come.

• UN peace operations were massively expanded in 1999, with new missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, East Timor, Kosovo and Sierra Leone. Each of these complex missions revealed the challenges of post-conflict reconstruction and the constraints on the international community in building sustainable intra-state peace.

• Russia’s resolve to fight the threat of separatism, widely supported by Russian public opinion, brought it into a protracted war in Chechnya, causing a massive civilian refugee problem and taking a heavy toll of human life.

• The renationalization of security policies and too-slow progress in shaping a common European security and defence policy are much greater threats than too-rapid change.

• Military expenditure increased in many regions in 1999 and total world military expenditure, amounting to roughly $780 billion, increased by 2.1% in real terms. This is almost one-third less than in 1990, but represents 2.6% of world GNP.

• Military expenditure in Africa has been increasing since 1997, primarily because of the armed conflicts in the region. Because of the methods of financing these conflicts, official military expenditure data considerably understate the actual cost of military activities in many African countries.

• Restructuring of arms production continued in 1999 but the post-cold war decline in arms production slowed considerably in the latter half of the 1990s.

• SIPRI estimates show a fairly stable level of global major conventional arms transfers from 1995 at about one-half of the cold war peak value.

• The growing controversy over a US national ballistic missile defence system and the future of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty jeopardized the prospects for negotiating deeper cuts in strategic nuclear forces and threatened to reverse the progress made in recent years in reducing those forces.

• The adoption of the IAEA strengthened safeguards system by its Board of Governors in 1997 represented an important step towards limiting the spread of nuclear weapons and enhancing international security, but acceptance of the new provisions by the IAEA member states has been very slow.

• The proliferation of chemical and biological weapons remained a major security issue in 1999, with special concerns regarding biological warfare programmes in Russia.

• Political will appears to be the key to the successful implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and the achievement of a meaningful protocol to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.

• Incidents of terrorism with chemical and biological weapons are unlikely to occur, but governments cannot ignore the threat and must develop balanced policies in order to avoid a climate in which hoaxes become as efficient for terrorists as the actual use of chemical and biological weapons.

• 1999 marked the end of the UN Special Commission for Iraq (UNSCOM) as a consequence of the divisions in the UN Security Council. Iraq has so far refused to accept UN Security Council Resolution 1284, which created the successor organization, the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC).

• The 1999 Agreement on Adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) crowned the multi-year efforts of the 30 states parties to the CFE Treaty to rid the treaty of its cold war straitjacket and make it better suited to the new cooperative security environment.

• In September 1999 the United States and North Korea reached a new understanding that may halt the development and testing of long-range ballistic missiles by North Korea.

• The 35 states that participate in the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls completed the first five-year review of the operation of the regime. The review led to agreement on expanded transparency measures for conventional arms transfers.