The Correlates of Arms Importation

The basic question of why nations import arms is addressed by identifying clusters of variables most closely correlated with arms import levels, both for the world's aggregate of countries and by region. From prior impressionistic studies of arms transfers a set of six hypothesized clusters is proposed, entailing: (1) national characteristics such as geography and population; (2) governmental characteristics such as regime type; (3) military characteristics such as defense expenditures; (4) economic characteristics such as degree of wealth and level of trade; (5) international conflict involvements; and (6) international political alignment and alliance entanglements. Each of these is measured with data from Kidron & Smith's, The War Atlas, supplemented by ACDA's, World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers, and by scholarly studies. The cluster with the largest impact on arms import levels consisted of military variables, especially budgetary expenditures and nuclear status. Economic and alignment variables were next in overall importance, followed by conflict involvement; national characteristics and regime type had very little influence. The inertial nature of arms importation was indicated by the high correlation between 1970s and 1980s import levels. Size of the military, levels of military expenditure, and war involvement in the 1980s had the strongest association with Latin arms acquisition, while military spending and nuclear potential dominated for the Middle East. In East Asia and the Pacific, beginning levels of indigenous weapons production and relatively low defense expenditures were associated with imports, while the impact of South Africa caused African import levels to be highly related to wealth, armed force size, and war involvements. In Europe, bloc politics and the presence of foreign bases constituted the main correlates of arms importation. The findings imply the need to control militarization if the global arms trade is to be contained.