Lansford, Tom

Tom Lansford

South Asia and the international arms trade

1 September 2003Feature Tom Lansford

Tom Lansford argues that South Asia provides an example of the correlation between aggressive new marketing strategies by defence companies and heightened support for arms sales as a component of foreign policy by the major arms producing nations--exacerbating existing conflicts and tensions in the region.

South Asia remains one of the most volatile regions of the world. Continued arms sales and weapons transfers only exacerbate both ongoing and potential conflicts in the area.

However, significant declines in the overall volume and profits of the global defence industry have increased domestic pressure on national governments to expand their market-share and continue arms sales to regions in conflict. Since1985, the overall total of global purchases of major weapons systems has…