Regional Conflicts and Their Linkage to Strategic Confrontation

Abstract

Arms trade with developing nations has become an important instrument of great power intervention. There has been a general tendency in Western literature to lump together the arms flow into developing countries; this covers up the essential significance of the arms trade as an instrument of interventionism. Nearly half of the arms flow to the developing world goes to certain oil-producing countries, and a quarter to developing countries with a relatively high GNP (about $700 per capita). The majority of the developing countries, which include some of the larger ones, like India and Pakistan, account for only 2.8 per cent of global military spending. Developing countries which import the bulk of the arms are those that borrow their threat perceptions from the military blocs. In other words, the increase in the arms flow and military spending of these developing countries is a secondary impact of the central arms race.