Fresh Perspectives on Pressing Small Arms Issues
In the latest issue of the Federation of American Scientists’ Public Interest Report, analysts from three continents provide new insights into arms trafficking in Africa, Venezuela’s small arms build-up, and the UN Small Arms Review Conference. Links to these articles, along with an issue overview by FAS analyst Matt Schroeder and a summary of the new book, The Small Arms Trade, are included below.
“Where Have All the Antonovs Gone? The Illicit Small Arms Trade in Africa” by James Bevan, Researcher, Small Arms Survey (Geneva)
“A Recurrent Latin American Nightmare: Venezuela and the Challenge of Controlling State Ammunition Stockpiles” by Pablo Dreyfus, Research Coordinator, Small Arms Control Project, Viva Rio (Rio de Janeiro).
“United Nations Action on Small Arms: Moving Forward from Failure” by Rachel Stohl, Senior Analyst, Center for Defense Information (Washington DC)
“Global Approach Needed to Stem the Trade of Illicit Small Arms,” by Matt Schroeder, Manager of the Arms Sales Monitoring Project, Federation of American Scientists.
“Book Summary: The Small Arms Trade”
A military depot in central Belarus has recently been upgraded with additional security perimeters and an access point that indicate it could be intended for housing Russian nuclear warheads for Belarus’ Russia-supplied Iskander missile launchers.
The Indian government announced yesterday that it had conducted the first flight test of its Agni-5 ballistic missile “with Multiple Independently Targetable Re-Entry Vehicle (MIRV) technology.
While many are rightly concerned about Russia’s development of new nuclear-capable systems, fears of substantial nuclear increase may be overblown.
Despite modernization of Russian nuclear forces and warnings about an increase of especially shorter-range non-strategic warheads, we do not yet see such an increase as far as open sources indicate.