SIPRI Yearbook 1995

Armaments, Disarmament and International Security

National and international security are multi-dimensional. Both security and defence in the policies of the great powers and many other states are perceived in a much broader sense than was formerly the case. They are no longer confined to the military dimension, although it is an essential component, but increasingly embrace such issues as economy, ecology, demography, communications, and the development of civilization and technology.

Threats and tensions, formerly of an inter-bloc character and largely concentrated along the East-West divide, are now evident in many regions, while the chief vectors of potential antagonisms are along the North-South line. . ..

. . . The security structures and institutions called into being in the cold war period with the aim of staving off conflicts between the blocs are not fully equal to the task of preventing the new type of conflicts. The transformation of security institutions and structures is still far from the desirable new international security system. As Boutros-Ghali noted: '[t]he different world that emerged when the cold war ceased is still a world not fully understood'. It is the moral duty of the scientific and intellectual communities to facilitate an understanding of the changed nature and the root causes of conflicts and to offer decision makers ways in which they may be peacefully solved. The considerations and data presented in this volume offer a modest contribution to this goal."

From the Introduction

Highlights from the SIPRI Yearbook 1995

Armed conflicts and regional security

• In 1994, among the 31 major armed conflicts in 27 locations around the world, no 'classical' interstate war was waged. All of them were intra-state conflicts. However, there were interstate components in several conflicts, such as Nagorno-Karabkh, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Tajikistan.

   

• Conflict settlement efforts achieved success in varying degrees in three previously conflict-ridden regions--Southern Africa, Central America and the Middle East. All efforts failed to end the wars in the former Yugoslavia, and even the more limited goals of peacekeeping and provision of humanitarian aid were severely jeopardized. Rwanda cruelly demonstrated the inadequacies of international mechanisms for preventing conflict.

   

• As the United Nations continued its reform efforts, while remaining wary of major new involvements, regional organizations struggled to take up the slack.

   

• In Europe, a serious effort was made in 1994 to harmonize the security policies of NATO, the European Union, the Western European Union and the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe. High priority was attached to including the reforming states of Central and Eastern Europe in these institutions, without creating new divisions in Europe.

   

• On the territory of the former Soviet Union, the armed conflict in Chechnya was the most destabilizing. Eight states or regions of the FSU were areas of conflict or tension, and three are classified as major armed conflicts in 1994.

   

Military spending, arms production, arms trade and export controls

• Aggregate world military spending continued to decline in 1994, although this trend was not apparent in every region or country. Expenditure levels fell in the CIS states, notably in Russia, and in other industrialized states, but rose in the Middle East and South Asia.

   

• The production of military equipment continues to decline. In the OECD countries, many companies have reduced output without losses in market value or earnings and with little government intervention. In Russia, production cuts have been drastic and chaotic and not part of deliberate company strategies or government defence industrial policy.

   

• The global volume of deliveries of major conventional weapons appears to have been stable in 1991-94. The volume of deliveries by the USA declined but still accounted for 55% of the total in 1994.

   

• Only 33 states participated actively in the multilateral weapon-related export control regimes which now seek to establish rules for trade andtechnology transfer. There is greater consensus on taking measures to prevent proliferation of weapons of mass destruction than to prevent the spread of conventional weapons.

   

Arms control and disarmament

• Ukraine fulfilled its pledge to accede to the Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear weapon state. This marked a milestone in settling the contentious legacy of the former Soviet nuclear arsenal.

   

• The massive withdrawal of Russian troops from Germany and the Baltic states was completed in 1994.

   

• The instruments of ratification for the START I Treaty were exchanged by the five states parties, bringing the treaty into force and paving the way for even deeper reductions in nuclear arms set out in the follow-on START II Treaty.

   

• The Chemical Weapons Convention did not attract the required number ofsignatories and therefore did not enter into force in January 1995. By 1 April 1995, only 27 states had ratified the Convention.

Summaries of all SIPRI YEARBOOK 1995 chapters

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