On March 13, 2018, CATO published a report by A. Trevor Thrall and Caroline Dorminey entitled Risky Business: The Role of Arms Sales in U.S. Foreign Policy.
The report observes that since 2002, the U.S. has sold more than $197 billion worth of major conventional weapons and related military support to 167 countries. In just his first year in office, President Donald Trump signed arms deals at an accelerated rate, generating hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of potential sales.
According to the report, U.S. government-to-government arms sales since 2002 reveals that the U.S. has repeatedly sold weapons to nations engaged in deadly conflicts, and to those with horrendous human rights records, under circumstances in which the U.S. has not been able to predict where the weapons would end up or how they would be used.
The report argues that economic benefits of arms ales are dubious and that their strategic utility is far more uncertain and limited than most realize. The authors persuasively argue that the U.S. should revise its arms sales policy to improve the risk assessment process, to ban sales to countries where the risk of negative consequences is too high, and to limit sales to cases in which they will directly enhance U.S. security.
The U.S. sells arms to a large number of risky customers in the world, and the U.S. sells weapons to most of them. The data shows that the U.S. does not discriminate between high- and low-risk customers. The average sales to the riskiest nations are higher than those to the least risky nations. Due to the lack of discrimination, these recipient governments have used their U.S. weapons to promote oppression, commit human rights abuses, and perpetuate bloody civil wars.
A result of the lack of discrimination in arms sale is blowback: U.S. troops and their allies have faced U.S.-made weapons in almost every military engagement since the end of the Cold War, including in Panama, Haiti, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Syria.
Arms sales do not just affect the recipient nation; they also affect and can destabilize the local balance of power, often causing ripple effects throughout the region.
The report recommends the U.S. should reorient its arms sales policy to ensure that sales provide strategic benefits and to avoid producing negative unintended consequences. At a practical level, arms sales must be reduced dramatically, especially to nations with high risk factors
The report made several recommendations, including that “the president should issue a new Presidential Policy Directive reorienting U.S. arms sales policy so that the new default policy is “no sale.” The only circumstances in which the United States should sell or transfer arms to another country are when three conditions are met: (1) there is a direct threat to American national security; (2) there is no other way to confront that threat other than arming another country; and (3) the United States is the only potential supplier of the necessary weapons.”
Other (Non-state-to-state arms sales) –
The latest Issue Brief from the Small Arms Survey—Dribs and Drabs: The Mechanics of Small Arms Trafficking from the United States—analyses a side of the arms trade that is less flashy, less centralized, and even more difficult to stop. It reviews the modes of transport, concealment methods, and smuggling techniques employed by arms traffickers in the U.S. The brief finds strong arms export licensing regimes are necessary but not sufficient for stopping small arms trafficking. “The illicit trade in parts and accessories for small arms is more significant than commonly assumed. Networks that traffic in firearms parts are among the most prolific and geographically expansive of the smuggling operations studied.”
The U.S. is the largest producer of small arms in the world, with more than half of the world’s producers based in the U.S. Many arms traffickers buy relatively inexpensive firearms in the U.S. and resell them on the black market abroad because the penalties are relatively light compared with the penalties for smuggling drugs – and the profit margin is high. Arms brokers bypass regulatory norms and facilitate weapons transfers from states to non-state actors and buyers who could not otherwise obtain them.
The rate of U.S. firearms flowing into Central America, particularly the northern triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, constitutes a major regional security problem.
The United States is one of three countries that have not ratified the Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related Materials (CIFTA). The Convention requires parties to criminalize the illegal manufacture, import, or export of high-powered weapons. It also provides for information exchange and cooperation on initiatives including the marking and tracing of weapons and the identification of criminal transit routes. President Bill Clinton signed CIFTA in 1997 and submitted it for ratification to the Senate, but the Senate failed to act. Twenty-nine countries in the Western Hemisphere have ratified CIFTA.
Just as importantly, the U.S. voted in favor of the United Nations’ Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) in April 2013, and it has signed, but not yet ratified the treaty. 93 states participate, including 22 Latin American and Caribbean countries participate in the treaty. The landmark Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), regulating the international trade in conventional arms – from small arms to battle tanks, combat aircraft and warships – entered into force on December 24, 2014.
Strengthening U.S. gun control and participating in CIFTA and the UN Small Arms Treaty will offset widespread regional views that the U.S. remains indifferent to its own role in exacerbating one of Latin America’s most significant challenges.