Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The illicit arms trade: Cold War and Post-Cold War

  • Chapter
Under the Counter and over the Border

Abstract

This article considers the principal changes that have occurred in the illicit arms trade across the Cold War and post-Cold War periods. It discusses the changed nature of demand and the sources and means of illicitly supplying arms to areas of conflict. Through a number of case studies it highlights the declining use of illicit arms supply as a foreign policy tool, and the extent to which involvement in the trade is now determined more by profit than policy considerations, with all the implications these changes have for control initiatives.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Notes

  1. Defined by the UK government as “acting as an agent in putting a deal together between supplier and customer or making the practical arrangements for the supply of the goods”. Foreign Affairs Committee, Sierra Leone (2nd Report, Session 1998–99, HC116-I), p. xxxviii, note 327.

    Google Scholar 

  2. See, for example, Philip Noel-Baker, The Private Manufacture ofArmaments (New York: Dover Publications, 1972 —original edition, London: 1936), and Fenner Brockway, The Bloody Traffic (London: Victor Gollancz, 1933).

    Google Scholar 

  3. See Audrey R. Kahin and George McT. Kahin, Subversion as Foreign Policy: The Secret Eisenhower and Dulles Debacle in Indonesia (New York: New Press, 1995).

    Google Scholar 

  4. George Thayer, The War Business: The International Trade in Armaments (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969), Ch. III.

    Google Scholar 

  5. On the UK response see Mark Phythian, The Politics of British Arms Sales Since 1964 (Manchester: MUP, 2000).

    Google Scholar 

  6. This stated that: “all states shall cease forthwith any provision to South Africa of arms and related matériel of all types, including the sale or transfer of weapons and ammunition, military vehicles and equipment, paramilitary police equipment, and spare parts for the aforementioned, and shall cease as well the provision of all types of equipment and supplies and grants of licensing arrangements for the manufacture and maintenance of the aforementioned.” http://www.un.org/documents/sc/res/1977/77r418e.pdf

  7. See Jane Hunter, Israeli Foreign Policy: South Africa and Central America (Boston: South End Press, 1987)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Michael Brzoska, “Arming South Africa in the Shadow of the Embargo”, Defense Analysis 1991, 7, 1: 21–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Seymour M. Hersh, The Samson Option, (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), p. 265.

    Google Scholar 

  10. On Bull’s career, see Mark Phythian, Arming Iraq (Boston, Mass.: Northeastern University Press, 1997)

    Google Scholar 

  11. William Lowther, Arms and the Man: Dr Gerald Bull, Iraq and the Supergun (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1991)

    Google Scholar 

  12. James Adams, Bull’s Eye: The Assassination and Life of Supergun Inventor Gerald Bull (New York: Times Books, 1992)

    Google Scholar 

  13. and Dale Grant, Wilderness of Mirrors: The Life of Gerald Bull (Scarborough, Ontario: Prentice-Hall Canada, 1991).

    Google Scholar 

  14. United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania: United States v. James H. Guerin. Superceding Indictment.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Alan Friedman and Tom Flannery, “Bush Adviser Seeks Clemency for Former Ferranti Executive”, Financial Times, 8.6.92.

    Google Scholar 

  16. William D. Hartung, And Weapons for All (New York: HarperPerennial, 1995), p. 193.

    Google Scholar 

  17. On ISC, South Africa and Cardoen, see also Alan Friedman, Spider’s Web: Bush, Saddam, Thatcher and the Decade of Deceit (London: Faber & Faber, 1993).

    Google Scholar 

  18. John Stockwell, In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story (London: Futura, 1979), pp. 57–58. See the appendices for lists of US arms delivered to UNITA in this period.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Office of the White House, “Statement by the President on Conventional Arms Transfer Policy”, 9.7.81.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Charles G. Cogan, “Partners in Time: The CIA and Afghanistan Since 1979”, World Policy Journal 1993, 10, 2: 73–82, 76.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Cited in James M. Scott, Deciding to Intervene: The Reagan Doctrine and American Foreign Policy (Durham: Duke University Press, 1996), p. 48.

    Google Scholar 

  22. George P. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State (New York: Scribner’s, 1993), p. 692.

    Google Scholar 

  23. On the impact of the Stingers, see Alan J. Kuperman, “The Stinger Missile and US Intervention in Afghanistan”, Political Science Quarterly Summer 1999, 114, 2: 219–263.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Kuperman, “The Stinger Missile”, p. 253.

    Google Scholar 

  25. Hartung, And Weapons For All, p. 3.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Kuperman, “The Stinger Missile”, pp. 253–254.

    Google Scholar 

  27. Ibid, pp. 245–245; Daniel McGrory, “CIA Stung by its Stingers”, Sunday Telegraph, 3.11.96.

    Google Scholar 

  28. Elaine Sciolino, “Qatar Rejects US Demand For Return of Illicit Stingers”, New York Times, 28.6.88.

    Google Scholar 

  29. Chris Smith, “Letter from Dara”, New Statesman & Society, 11.11.94., p. 11.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Chris Smith, “Light Weapons and Ethnic Conflict in South Asia”, in Jeffrey Boutwell, Michael T. Klare and Laura W. Reed (eds.), Lethal Commerce: The Global Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons (Cambridge, Mass: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1995), pp. 61–80, p. 64.

    Google Scholar 

  31. Ibid, p. 65.

    Google Scholar 

  32. Tara Kartha, “Controlling the Black and Gray Markets in Small Arms in South Asia”, in Jeffrey Boutwell and Michael T. Klare (eds.), Light Weapons and Civil Conflict: Controlling the Tools of Violence (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), pp. 49–61, p. 53.

    Google Scholar 

  33. Chris Cowley, Guns, Lies and Spies (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1992), pp. 109–110.

    Google Scholar 

  34. The following draws on Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society (SPAS), International Connections of the Bofors Affair (Stockholm: SPAS, December 1987).

    Google Scholar 

  35. Formed in 1975 as a forum for the discussion of safety, transport and related issues.

    Google Scholar 

  36. Cited in Kenneth R. Timmerman, “Europe’s Arms Pipeline to Iran”, The Nation, 18–25.7.87., p. 48.

    Google Scholar 

  37. Concurrently, Nobel was involved in controversy over Bofors’ payment of bribes/commissions to Indian officials to secure a 8,400m kronor deal for howitzers. See, Henrik Westander, Classified: The Political Cover-Up of the Bofors Scandal (Bombay: Sterling Newspapers, 1992).

    Google Scholar 

  38. Timmerman: Europe’s Arms Pipeline to Iran, p. 50.

    Google Scholar 

  39. Ibid, p. 48.

    Google Scholar 

  40. SPAS: International Connections of the Bofors Affair, p. 35.

    Google Scholar 

  41. Wall Street Journal, 10.9.87.

    Google Scholar 

  42. At the time one dollar = 6.349 kronor.

    Google Scholar 

  43. See Gaylord Shaw and William C. Rempel, “Billion-Dollar Iran Arms Search Spans US, Globe”, Los Angeles Times, 4.8.85.

    Google Scholar 

  44. James Adams, Trading in Death (London: Hutchinson, 1990), p. 129.

    Google Scholar 

  45. The Washington Post, 10.2.91.

    Google Scholar 

  46. See, Lawrence E. Walsh, Independent Counsel, Iran-Contra: The Final Report - Vol.1: Investigations and Prosecutions (New York: Times Books, 1994), Ch.8.

    Google Scholar 

  47. Hartung, And Weapons For All, p. 183.

    Google Scholar 

  48. Reproduced in Tom Blanton (ed.), The White House e-mail (New York: New Press, 1995), p. 124.

    Google Scholar 

  49. Blanton (ed.), The White House e-mail, p. 125.

    Google Scholar 

  50. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy (Washington, DC: GPO, 1989), Introduction.

    Google Scholar 

  51. Ibid, IV, “Drug Trafficking and the Covert War”.

    Google Scholar 

  52. Described in the Report as “the head of the Costa Rican ‘air force’ and personal pilot to two Costa Rican presidents”. Ibid.

    Google Scholar 

  53. Ibid.

    Google Scholar 

  54. Cited in Scott, Deciding to Intervene, p. 118.

    Google Scholar 

  55. Ibid, p. 134.

    Google Scholar 

  56. Ibid, p. 138. See also, Victoria Brittain, Death of Dignity: Angola’s Civil War (London: Pluto Press, 1998), Ch. 3.

    Google Scholar 

  57. Schultz, Turmoil and Triumph, p. 1124.

    Google Scholar 

  58. See Angola Peace Monitor at www.anc.org.za/angola/ for a regular summary of allegations of arms smuggling to UNITA and UN and international efforts to enforce the embargo.

    Google Scholar 

  59. Alex Vines, Angola Unravels: The Rise and Fall of the Lusaka Peace Process (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1999), Ch. IX, “Arms Trade and Embargo Violations”, at www.hrw.org/hrw/reports/1999/angola/

    Google Scholar 

  60. Ibid.

    Google Scholar 

  61. For its part, UNITA emphasizes Angolan government use of mercenaries. For example, in its “Latest News” bulletin of 28.10.99. it draws attention to “the supply of mercenaries from Israel, Russia, Ukraine, Portugal and Brazil and the exchange of military information with specialized agencies of some NATO countries” and reports that the, “military planes of Eduardo dos Santos’ regime, piloted by Russians and Brazilians have been overflying the central highlands at very high altitudes to avoid our defences. They have been dropping lethal napalm, phosphorous, cluster chemicals and air-fuel- explosives bombs indiscriminately.” See the UNITA website at www.kwacha.com

    Google Scholar 

  62. James Rupert, “Zaire Reportedly Selling Arms to Angolan Ex-Rebels”, Washington Post, 21.3.97.

    Google Scholar 

  63. Vines, Angola Unravels, Ch. IX. Vines lists those air freight companies operating out of Kinshasa and flying to UNITA-held areas in 1995 as being: Trans-Service Airlift (TSA); Trans-Air Cargo (TAC); Guila Air; Express City Cargo; Skydeck; Fil Air; and Walt Air.

    Google Scholar 

  64. See, for example, Peta Thorneycroft, “SA Arms Going to UNITA”, Electronic Mail & Guardian, 20.6.97., at www.mg.co.za/mg/news/97june2/20june-unita.html

    Google Scholar 

  65. Vines, Angola Unravels, Ch. IX.

    Google Scholar 

  66. John Mullin, “Honeymoon’s Over for Mandelson”, Guardian, 29.1.00.

    Google Scholar 

  67. For one account, see Adams, Trading in Death, Chs. 2–3.

    Google Scholar 

  68. Henry McDonald, “Smuggled US Guns for IRA Truce Rebels”, Observer, 16.11.97.

    Google Scholar 

  69. Toby Harnden, “IRA Dissidents Seek Gaddafi Arms”, Daily Telegraph, 4.5.98.

    Google Scholar 

  70. Maeve Sheehan, “Britain Sought to Aid Libya Despite Gadaffi’s IRA Arms”, Sunday Times, 26.9.99.

    Google Scholar 

  71. David Usborne, “Suspect Says He Was Buying Arms For IRA”, Independent, 30.7.99.

    Google Scholar 

  72. See, Anthony Davis, “Tamil Tiger International”, Jane’s Intelligence Review, October 1996, pp. 469–73. See also, Rohan Gunaratna, “LTTE Fundraisers Still on the Offensive”, Jane’s Intelligence Review Dec. 1997: 567–570; Raymond Bonner, “Rebels in Sri Lanka Fight With Aid of Global Market in Light Arms”, New York Times, 7.3.98.

    Google Scholar 

  73. www.cdi.org/issues/World_at_War/wwar00.html

  74. Margareta Sollenberg, Peter Wallensteen and Andrés Jato, “Major Armed Conflicts”, in SIPRI Yearbook 1999: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security (Oxford: OUP/SIPRI, 1999), pp. 15–25.

    Google Scholar 

  75. For example, Charles Hables Gray, Post-Modern War: The New Politics of Conflicts (London: Routledge, 1997); Mark Duffield, “Post-Modern Conflict: Warlords, Post-Adjustment States and Private Protection”, Civil Wars, April 1998, 1, 1: 65–102.

    Google Scholar 

  76. Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999), p. 2.

    Google Scholar 

  77. Ibid.

    Google Scholar 

  78. SIPRI Yearbook 1999, p. 25.

    Google Scholar 

  79. See David Shearer, “Africa’s Great War”, Survival Summer 1999, 41, 2: 89–106.

    Google Scholar 

  80. US State Dept. Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Bureau of Public Affairs, “Arms and Conflict in Africa”, July 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  81. Hansard, 26.7.99., cols.149–50w.

    Google Scholar 

  82. Anthony Lake, “Confronting Backlash States”, Foreign Affairs March/April 1994, 73, 2: 45–55. These were North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Cuba. Cuba is primarily included for domestic political reasons and barely features in Lake’s discussion. For a similar exercise, see Raymond Tanter, Rogue Regimes: Terrorism and Proliferation (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998). To Lake’s original list, Tanter adds Syria.

    Google Scholar 

  83. State Dept, “Arms and Conflict in Africa”.

    Google Scholar 

  84. The network was first exposed in November 1996. See Sam Kiley, “British Company Supplied Arms to Hutu Militia”, Times, 18.11.96.

    Google Scholar 

  85. Richard Duce, Daniel McGrory, Ian Murray and Jon Ashworth, “How the Mil-Tec Trail Led From Sussex to Sark”, Times, 19.11.96.

    Google Scholar 

  86. Ibid. See also, Christopher Elliott and Richard Norton-Taylor, “Mystery of Arms Sales to Rwanda”, Guardian, 19.11.96; Michael Gillard, David Connett and Jonathan Calvert, “How the West Fuelled Genocide”, The Observer, 24.11.96.

    Google Scholar 

  87. Foreign and Commonwealth Office, “Report by Inter-Departmental Committee on Trafficking in Arms”, 21.1.97.

    Google Scholar 

  88. Mark Honigsbaum and Anthony Barnett, “UK Firms Armed Hutu Killers”, Observer, 7.3.99. See also, David Connett and Michael Gillard, “UK Dealers Escape Action on Arms Sales to Rwanda”, Observer, 26.1.97.

    Google Scholar 

  89. Tim Butcher, “Firm’s Chairman Quits Over “Arms to Africa’ Claim, Daily Telegraph, 19.11.96.

    Google Scholar 

  90. FAC, Sierra Leone, para. 26.

    Google Scholar 

  91. Hansard, 11.7.97. co1.625.

    Google Scholar 

  92. UNSC Resolution1132, 8.10.97., at http://www.un.org/Docs/scres/1997/9726713E.htm

  93. See the evidence of Sir John Kerr to the FAC, Sierra Leone, Minutes of Evidence 17.11.98. Q.1771–82 (HC 116-II).

    Google Scholar 

  94. FAC, Sierra Leone, para. 13.

    Google Scholar 

  95. FAC, Sierra Leone, evidence of Sir John Kerr, Q.1770.

    Google Scholar 

  96. For example, Hansard, 12.3.98. co1.841.

    Google Scholar 

  97. FAC, Sierra Leone, para.21.

    Google Scholar 

  98. Sir Thomas Legg KCB, QC and Sir Robin Ibbs KBE, Report of the Sierra Leone Arms Investigation, (“Legg Report”) (London: The Stationery Office, 27.7.98), para. 3.28.

    Google Scholar 

  99. www.sandline.com

    Google Scholar 

  100. Ibid.

    Google Scholar 

  101. There are numerous reports of this contact. See, for example, Fran Abrams and Andrew Buncombe, “The Anatomy of a Very Secret Coup”, Independent on Sunday, 7.5.98; Nicholas Rufford, “Diamond Dogs of War”, Sunday Times, 10.5.98. See also, Abdel-Fatau Musah, “A Country Under Siege: State Decay and Corporate Military Intervention in Sierra Leone”, in Abdel-Fatau Musah and J. Kayode Fayemi (eds.), Mercenaries: An African Security Dilemma, (London: Pluto Press, 2000), pp. 76–116.

    Google Scholar 

  102. Philip Sherwell, “The Peace Dividends”, Sunday Telegraph, 17.5.98.

    Google Scholar 

  103. FAC, Sierra Leone, evidence of Sir John Kerr, Q.1778 & 1833.

    Google Scholar 

  104. FAC, Sierra Leone, para.27.

    Google Scholar 

  105. Legg Report, para. 5.18.

    Google Scholar 

  106. FAC, Sierra Leone, para 31.

    Google Scholar 

  107. Hansard, 21.1.97. co1.537.

    Google Scholar 

  108. Mark Honigsbaum and Antony Barnett, “British Firms in African Arms Riddle”, Observer, 31.1.99. It is unclear whether the company’s directors were aware of the use to which the aircraft was being put. One of their aircraft had been chartered by a Congolese airline. “What they use the planes for is anybody’s guess”, one of Air Atlantic Cargo’s directors told the newspaper.

    Google Scholar 

  109. Paul Lashmar, “British ’Arms’ Cargo Seized by Customs”, Independent, 11.2.99.

    Google Scholar 

  110. Mark Honigsbaum, Antony Barnett and Brian Johnson-Thomas, “British Pilot Flies Arms to Sudan”, Observer, 14.3.99.

    Google Scholar 

  111. Ibid.

    Google Scholar 

  112. See Human Rights Watch, Sudan: Global Trade, Local Impact: Arms Transfers to all Sides in the Civil War in Sudan, August 1998, at http://www.hrw.org/reports98/sudan/. Ch.V, “Arms Transfers to the Government of Sudan”.

  113. Ibid, Ch.II, “The Civil War”.

    Google Scholar 

  114. Al J. Venter, “Africa Greets Gun-Runners With Open Arms”, Jane’s International Defense Review 1998, 8: 63–66.

    Google Scholar 

  115. “Top Officers Involved in Arms Trafficking”, New African, May 1998, at http://www.africalynx.com/icpubs/na/may98/naaa0504.htm

  116. Commission of Inquiry into Alleged Arms Transactions Between Armscor and One Eli Wazan and Other Related Matters, First Report, Johannesburg, 15 June 1995, p. 23.

    Google Scholar 

  117. See John Pomfret, “E. Europe’s ‘Merchants of Death’ Elude US Sting”, Washington Post, 24.4.93.

    Google Scholar 

  118. Julian Borger, Ian Traynor and John Carvel, “Booty Parade for Sharp Shooters”, Guardian, 27.11.93.

    Google Scholar 

  119. “Polish Police Catch East European Arms Smugglers”, Reuters, 24.10.99.

    Google Scholar 

  120. “Arms Transfers Continue From NATO Member to Hostile States”, STRATFOR’s Global Intelligence Update, 14.5.99., at www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/nato/GIU051499.html; “Scandal with MiG-21 Sale to North Korea May Affect Kazakhstani Arms Market”, Arms Control Letters, PIR, 8.10.99., at www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/nuclear/PIR1099.html.

    Google Scholar 

  121. George Bernard Shaw, Major Barbara (London: Penguin, 1988 ed. - originally 1905), p. 138.

    Google Scholar 

  122. Human Rights Watch, Bulgaria: Money Talks - Arms Dealing with Human Rights Abusers, April 1999, at www.hrw.org/reports/1999/bulgaria/

    Google Scholar 

  123. For a summary of the shortcomings of Bulgaria’s arms export guidelines, see HRW, Bulgaria: Money Talks, Ch.IIl. For a summary of the regulations, see the SIPRI arms export controls project entry a http://projects.sipri.se/expcon/natexpcon/Bulgaria/bulgaria.htm

  124. HRW, Bulgaria: Money Talks, Ch.IV.

    Google Scholar 

  125. John Pomfret, “E. Europe’s ‘Merchants of Death’ Elude US Sting”, Washington Post, 24.4.93.

    Google Scholar 

  126. HRW, Bulgaria: Money Talks, Ch.IV.

    Google Scholar 

  127. Ibid, Ch.VI.

    Google Scholar 

  128. Peter Fuhrman, “Trading in Death”, Forbes, 10.5.93., pp. 96–100.

    Google Scholar 

  129. UN Register of Conventional Arms, via www.un.org-Depts-dda-CAB-register.htm Neither did Bulgaria declare the export in its 1995 or 1997 returns.

    Google Scholar 

  130. The shipment was detained in Cape Verde. Human Rights Watch, Bulgaria: Money Talks, Ch.III.

    Google Scholar 

  131. Raymond Bonner, “Despite Cutoff by US, Ethiopia and Eritrea Easily Buy Weapons”, New York Times, 23.7.98.

    Google Scholar 

  132. Raymond Bonner, “New Weapon Sales to Africa Trouble Arms-Control Experts”, New York Times, 6.12.98.

    Google Scholar 

  133. “Russian Roulette”, Frontline, at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/russia/

  134. See the Indictment at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/fros/russia/scenario/indictment.html

  135. UNSC Resolution 976, February 1995, via www.un.org/Docs/scres/1995/

    Google Scholar 

  136. Rupert, “Zaire Reportedly Selling Arms to Angolan Ex-Rebels”, Washington Post, 21.3.97.

    Google Scholar 

  137. Human Rights Watch, Bulgaria: Money Talks, Ch.VI.

    Google Scholar 

  138. Borger, Traynor and Carvel, The Guardian, 27.11.93.

    Google Scholar 

  139. Thomas De Waal, “Corrupt Russian Arms Deals Help Chechens Fight On”, Independent, 17.2.95.

    Google Scholar 

  140. Carey Scott, “General ‘Sold Rockets’ to Chechens he was Fighting”, Sunday Times, 8.12.96.

    Google Scholar 

  141. Patrick Cockburn, “Chechen Missiles Bring Down Two Russian Jets”, Independent, 6.10.99. See also, Giles Whittell, “Chechens Buy Off Russians to End Bombings”, Times, 17.1.00.

    Google Scholar 

  142. Con Coughlin, “Russian Weapons Experts Confirm Baghdad Connection”, Sunday Telegraph, 21.2.99. See also, Con Coughlin, “Revealed: Russia’s Secret Deal to Re-arm Saddam”, Sunday Telegraph, 14.2.99. See also the detailed exposé of the origins and implications of Iraq’s post-Gulf War attempts to covertly procure Russian missile technology: Vladimir Orlov and William C. Potter, “The Mystery of the Sunken Gyros”, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Nov/Dec 1998: 34–49.

    Google Scholar 

  143. Coalition for a Liveable World Education Fund, “The Nuclear Crisis Deepens”, September 1999, at http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/nuclear/CLW0999.html

  144. John Berryman, “Russia and the Illicit Arms Trade”, in this volume.

    Google Scholar 

  145. Matthew Bunn, “Loose Nukes Fears: Anecdotes of the Current Crisis”,Global Beat Issue Brief No. 45, 5.12.98. at http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/pubs/ib45.html

  146. Ibid.

    Google Scholar 

  147. “Workmen Took Nuclear Arms”, Guardian, 21.4.97.

    Google Scholar 

  148. Steve Boggan, “Greenpeace Tried to Buy Atom Bomb”, Independent, 7.98. For otner cases see, for example, Oleg Bukharin and William Potter, “’ Potatoes Were Guarded Better”, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists May/June 1995, 51, 3: 46–50; “Heading Off a Nuclear Nightmare: Illicit Trade in Nuclear Materials, Technology, and Know-How”, Carnegie Quarterly Spring-Summer 1996, XLI, 2–3: 1–6; Paul N. Woessner, “Chronology of Nuclear Smuggling Incidents: July 1991 —May 1995”, Transnational Organized Crime Summer 1995, 1, 2: 288–329; Emily S. Ewell, “NIS Nuclear Smuggling Since 1995: A Lull in Significant Cases?”, The Nonproliferation Review Spring-Summer 1998, 5, 3: 119–125; Christopher Ulrich, “Transnational Organized Crime and Law Enforcement Cooperation in the Baltic States”, Transnational Organized Crime Summer 1997, 3, 2: 111–130; Andrew and Leslie Cockburn, One Point Safe (London: Little, Brown, 1997); Phil Williams and Paul N. Woessner, “The Real Threat of Nuclear Smuggling”, Scientific American, January 1996, at http://www.sciam.com/0196issue/0196williams.html

    Article  Google Scholar 

  149. “Factsheet on Reported Nuclear Trafficking Incidents Involving Turkey, 1993–1999”, at: http://cns.miis.edu/research/wmdme/flow/turkey/factsht.htm

  150. These characteristics also seem to apply to seizures in west and central Europe. See, for example, Rensselaer Lee, “Smuggling Update”, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists May/June 1997, 53, 3: 11–14.

    Google Scholar 

  151. Quoted in Michael T. Klare, “The Guns of Bosnia”, T he N ation, 22.1.96., p. 23.

    Google Scholar 

  152. Tim Judah, “German Spies Accused of Arming Bosnian Muslims”, Sunday Telegraph, 20.4.97.

    Google Scholar 

  153. Chris McGreal and Philip Willan, “Vatican Secretly Armed Croatia”, Guardian, 19.11.99.

    Google Scholar 

  154. Klare, “The Guns of Bosnia”, p. 24.

    Google Scholar 

  155. John Pomfret and David B. Ottaway, “Balkan Arms Smuggling: Wider Than US Acknowledged”, International Herald Tribune, 13.5.96.

    Google Scholar 

  156. Tom Rhodes, “Clinton Approved Iran’s Secret Arms Deals with Bosnia”, Times, 6.4.96.

    Google Scholar 

  157. Ed Vulliamy, “Clinton’s Irangate Spooks CIA”, Observer, 2.6.96.

    Google Scholar 

  158. Tom Hunter, “The Embargo That Wasn’t: Iran’s Arms Shipments Into Bosnia”, Jane’s Intelligence Review December 1997: 538–540. See also, House of Representatives Committee on International Relations, US Role in Iranian Arms Transfers to Bosnia and Croatia, Business Meeting and Hearing, 8& 30.5.96., 104th Congress, 2nd Session.

    Google Scholar 

  159. For example, Peter Fuhrman claimed that in the six months from November 1992, 9,083 ships were challenged, of which 125 were searched, and from which eight illegal cargoes were discovered. Fuhrman, “Trading in Death”, Forbes, 10.5.93., p. 100.

    Google Scholar 

  160. Quoted by Robert Block, “US Turns Blind Eye to Iran Arms for Bosnia”, I ndependent, 3.6.94.

    Google Scholar 

  161. John Pomfret, “An Arms Pipeline Uncovered”, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 30.9–6.10.96., pp. 6–7.

    Google Scholar 

  162. Ibid. In addition, “the organization was also forced to move large amounts of money to Croatia to bribe Croatian officials to allow the weapons to cross their country. The price of such passage skyrocketed in 1993 when Croat nationalists launched their own war for a separate state inside Bosnia. Money was also smuggled into Sarajevo on flights of the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees; Bosnian government officials used the money to buy weapons from both Serb and Croat middlemen who operated inside Bosnia. . .” p. 7.

    Google Scholar 

  163. Mike O’Connor, “Albanians, Struggling to Survive, Sell Stolen Rifles”, New York Times, 24.4.97.

    Google Scholar 

  164. Kim Sengupta, Steve Brogan and Mary Braid, “In the Bars of Kosovo, the KLA is Holding the Great Weapons Bazaar”, Independent, 16.8.99.

    Google Scholar 

  165. “Secret Arms Sales Scandal Escalates”, Latin American Weekly Report, 16.5.96, p. 206. See also, “Plot Thickens in Ecuador Arms Row”, Latin American Weekly Report, 23.5.96, p. 218.

    Google Scholar 

  166. “Camilión Quits Over Arms Scandal”, Latin American Weekly Report, 1.8.96, p. 338.

    Google Scholar 

  167. “Arms and the Men”, The Economist, 12.9.98., p. 62.

    Google Scholar 

  168. Phil Davison, “Illegal Arms Sales Test for Menem”, The Independent, 27.10.98.

    Google Scholar 

  169. At the time of writing, Libya is still subject to an EU arms embargo.

    Google Scholar 

  170. For a detailed overview, see “Libya’s Chemical weapons program” at http://cns.miis.edu/research/wmdme/flow/libya/. See also Joshua Sinai, “Libya’s Pursui of Weapons of Mass Destruction”, The Nonproliferation Review Spring-Summer 1997, 4,3.

  171. Charles Richards, “Libya Parades its Obsolete Weapons of War”, Independent, 2.9.94.

    Google Scholar 

  172. On suspected smuggling of Serbian arms via Malta, see Chris Hedges, “Serbia is Suspected of Arming Libya”, International Herald Tribune, 8.11.96. There have also been cases of the direct shipment of dual-use goods allegedly destined for a military application. For example, see “British Companies ’Broke sanctions’ to Equip Libya”, Sunday Times, 3.11.96.

    Google Scholar 

  173. John Glover and John Mullin, “Italians Link Arms Ring to UK Murder of Libyan”, Guardian, 2.12.95; “UK Plane Parts Break Libya Sanctions”, Sunday Times, 21.4.96.

    Google Scholar 

  174. “UK Plane Parts Break Libya Sanctions”, Sunday Times, 21.4.96.

    Google Scholar 

  175. Nicholas Rufford, “Libyans Smuggled Scuds Through UK”, Sunday Times, 9.1.00.

    Google Scholar 

  176. “Taiwan Firm Denies Involvement In Illegal Arms Shipment For Libya”, Agence France Presse, 10.1.00.

    Google Scholar 

  177. Richard Norton-Taylor, Ewen MacAskill and Ian Black, “Cook Dismissed Libyan Arms Find”, Guardian, 11.1.00.

    Google Scholar 

  178. The following account draws on: “Flight of Fancy”, The Economist, 6.1.96., p. 53; Tim McGirk, “Would-be Hero Poisoned By His Own Sting”, The Independent, 11.9.96; John Gilbert and Jan McGirk, “An Amateur’s Guide to the Arms Trade”, Independent on Sunday, 1.12.96; Richard Norton-Taylor, “Gun-running Briton Faces Indian Death Sentence”, Guardian, 21.8.97; Richard Norton-Taylor, “Army Told of Indian Arms Deal”, Guardian, 12.9.97; David Graves, “Tory MP Denies Plot to Free Briton From Prison Cell in India”, Daily Telegraph, 22.9.97; Stephen Grey, “Arms-Deal Briton May Hang”, Sunday Times, 28.9.97; Peter Popham, “I Was Betrayed by MoD, Says Briton Facing Execution”, The Independent, 9.7.98; Raymond Bonner, “Murky Life of an International Gun Dealer”, New York Times, 14.7.98; “UK Alleged Gun Runner’s Conspiracy Claims”, BBC News Online, 23.7.98; Julian West, “I Know I’ll Get Justice, Says Briton Who Could be Hanged”, Sunday Telegraph, 23.1.00; Oxfam UK, Out of Control: The Loopholes in UK Controls on the Arms Trade, (London: Oxfam, 1999), pp. 6–7.

    Google Scholar 

  179. Oxfam UK, Out of Control, p. 7.

    Google Scholar 

  180. The consignment included: 300 Kalashnikov AK-47/56s; 10 RPG-6 rocket launchers; night vision equipment; 100 anti-tank grenades; 100 hand grenades; 25,000 rounds of 7.62 ammunition; 25 9 mm pistols; and 6,000 rounds of 9 mm ammunition.

    Google Scholar 

  181. Jon Stock, “Alterations’ Claim Delays Arms Trial of Briton”, Daily Telegraph, 18.1.00.

    Google Scholar 

  182. Jon Stock, “Briton Faces Long Jail Term for ’War Plot Against India’”, Daily Telegraph, 1.2.00.

    Google Scholar 

  183. Aaron Karp, “The Rise of Black and Grey Markets”, The Annals of the American Academy Sept. 1994, 535: 175.

    Google Scholar 

  184. Ewen MacAskill, “Britain’s Ethical Foreign policy: Keeping the Hawk Jets in Action”, Guardian, 20.1.00.

    Google Scholar 

  185. Christina Lamb and Peter Almond, “Britain Trains Magabe’s Army for Congo War”, Sunday Telegraph, 23.1.00.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Languages, Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Wolverhampton, Castle View, Dudley, DY1 3HR, UK

    Mark Phythian

Authors
  1. Mark Phythian
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Languages, Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Wolverhampton, UK

    Mark Phythian

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2000 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Phythian, M. (2000). The illicit arms trade: Cold War and Post-Cold War. In: Phythian, M. (eds) Under the Counter and over the Border. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9335-9_1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9335-9_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-5569-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-015-9335-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation