Comment: Conventional arms Trade. (1998, 20 Marks)
The conventional arms trade is the international transfer, by sale, licence or aid, of non-nuclear weapons: the “major arms” that SIPRI tracks (combat aircraft, warships, armour, artillery, missiles and air defence) and the small arms and light weapons that do most of the killing in civil wars. Unlike nuclear weapons, conventional arms face no prohibition, only weak regulation, because the UN Charter’s Article 51 right of self-defence is read as a right to acquire the means of defence.
Structure of the market
- Concentration of supply: Keith Krause (Arms and the State, 1992) describes a three-tier hierarchy of first-tier innovators, second-tier adapters and third-tier buyers. SIPRI’s March 2026 data confirm it: the United States held 42% of global exports in 2021–25, followed by France (9.8%), Russia (6.8%), Germany and China, and these five supplied 70% of the total.
- Shifting demand: Ukraine (9.7%) was the largest importer in 2021–25, followed by India, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Pakistan, and Europe took the largest regional share (33%) for the first time since the 1960s.
- Supplier churn: Russian exports fell 64% between 2016–20 and 2021–25, while Türkiye, Israel and South Korea rose as second-tier exporters.
Why states trade arms
- Realist: buyers seek security under anarchy, which feeds the security dilemma (John H. Herz, 1950) and regional arms races, as in the Gulf or South Asia. Suppliers use transfers to build alignments: China supplied 80% of Pakistan’s imports in 2021–25.
- Economic: exports lower unit costs and keep production lines open, which Dwight D. Eisenhower warned in 1961 would create a military-industrial complex with its own interest in sales.
- Dependency and Marxist critiques: arms imports divert scarce resources from development and lock buyers into dependence on spares and upgrades, a leverage the supplier can use in a crisis.
Regulation and its limits
- Transparency: the UN Register of Conventional Arms (1991) relies on voluntary reporting; the UN Programme of Action on small arms (2001) is politically, not legally, binding.
- Supplier clubs: the Wassenaar Arrangement (1996) coordinates export controls on arms and dual-use goods; India joined in December 2017.
- Treaty: the Arms Trade Treaty (in force 24 December 2014) bans transfers likely to be used for genocide or war crimes. Major exporters stand outside it: the United States signed but announced in 2019 that it would not ratify, and Russia never joined, though China acceded in 2020. India abstained in 2013, calling the text weighted towards exporters and weak on non-state actors.
- Enforcement gap: Western arms kept reaching the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, and supplies used in Gaza drew court challenges in several European states.
India’s position
India was the world’s second-largest importer in 2021–25 (8.2% of the total), drawing 40% from Russia, 29% from France and 15% from Israel. Stephen P. Cohen and Sunil Dasgupta (Arming without Aiming, 2010) argued that India bought weapons without a matching strategic doctrine or defence-industrial policy. The fall in Russia’s share and the Ukraine war’s disruption of spares have reinforced the Atmanirbhar drive: positive indigenisation lists, the BrahMos sale to the Philippines, and record defence exports of ₹38,424 crore in 2025–26, up 62.66% on the previous year. Diversification reduces dependence on any single supplier and strengthens strategic autonomy.
Conclusion
The conventional arms trade is the least regulated instrument of world politics: indispensable to weaker states’ security, profitable to suppliers and corrosive where it fuels regional rivalries and civil wars. Regulation remains supplier-driven and largely voluntary. For an importer like India, the real answer is not a treaty but a domestic production base that turns dependence into choice.