Winter
FAS Winter 2007 Public Interest Reports
The Small Arms Trade provides a gripping overview of the global impact of nearly 640 million small arms and light weapons – pistols, carbines, assault rifles, light machine guns and surface to air missiles – in circulation around the world. In the hands of irresponsible government armies, rebel groups, and terrorists, these weapons cause tremendous human suffering… read more
Few security threats are more ubiquitous, intractable, and pernicious than the illicit proliferation and misuse of small arms and light weapons. They are the weapons of choice or most terrorists, criminals, and insurgents who use them to devastating effect against civilians and soldiers alike. The Geneva-based Small Arms Survey estimates that these weapons are responsible for roughly sixty to ninety percent of direct conflict deaths, which numbered between 80,000 and 108,000 in 2003 alone,1 and tens of thousands of additional deaths outside of war zones. Some countries suffer disproportionately from this scourge. n war-torn Colombia, for example, small arms-related violence has claimed the lives of nearly a half million people since 1979.2 Even the fighting forces of the most powerful nations in the world are vulnerable to modern small arms. In Lebanon, the terrorist group Hezbollah shocked the world when it used laser guided anti-tank weapons, assault rifles and other small arms to bring Israel’s August ground offensive to a grinding halt – a feat unmatched by the armies of the Arab world. Similarly, coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan – the best armed and best trained soldiers in the world – regularly suffer Casualties at the hands of insurgents armed only with small arms, light weapons, and improvised explosive devices…. read more
In 2001, the United Nations held a landmark conference on small arms. The UN had only begun working on the small arms issue six years prior, spurred on by the 1995 publication of Supplement to An Agenda for Peace. Authored by former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the Supplement introduced the concept of “micro-disarmament” – controlling the millions of small arms and light weapons which Boutros-Ghali identified as the weapons “that are actually killing people in the hundreds of thousands.”… read more
Widespread corruption, organized crime and weak states are conditions that facilitate and provoke the diversion of small arms and ammunition from military and police stockpiles to criminal organizations and illegal armed groups. The situation is particularly serious when these arms and ammunition feed armed conflicts. For instance, several academic works and policy papers provide examples of leaks of small arms from military and other state agencies to armed groups involved in the internal armed conflict in Colombia. These analyses suggest the diversion from Ecuadorian, Peruvian, Brazilian and Venezuelan official stockpiles to armed groups such as the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC ) and the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN ).1…..read more
What characterizes the small arms trade in Africa? For many it is the image of Antonov transport planes depositing their cargoes in failed states such as Liberia and Angola. The general view of this illicit trade is one of a complex network of corrupt officials, unscrupulous arms merchants, international brokers, and transport agents — all conspiring to supply the dictators and warlords of the continent…. read more
History tells us that South China and the Pearl River Delta region (Fig. 1) in particular began to suffer environmental damage about 1,000 years ago when large numbers of people migrated from north to south. (Marks, 1998; Parham et al., 1993). The forest vegetation was removed for a variety of reasons: to provide firewood, building materials, and to make charcoal; to clear land for farming and settlements; and to provide safety from fire, wild animals, snakes, and bandits. Much of the land in the Pearl River Delta region is still in a damaged and degraded state… read more
To increase awareness of the pitfalls of research that could potentially be used for malevolent purposes, the Federation of American Scientists launched an internet based tool to illustrate the experience of scientists who have dealt with “dual use” scientific research…. read more
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