More than two years after presidential candidate Bill
Clinton called for negotiated limits on conventional arms
transfers-approximately $50 billion worth of U.S. arms
sales later-his administration completed its long-awaited
review of U.S. arms export policy. Although Clinton
criticized the Bush administration during the campaign
for failing to initiate a conventional arms control
process (see ACT, March 1992), as president he has now
decided that the United States should, in fact, maintain
its role as the predominant weapons merchant in the
world.
In some respects, the new policy embodied in
Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) 34-actually
surpasses the Bush administration's strong commitment to
gaining an even larger slice of the global arms market.
It appears the United States is now prepared to sell
more-sophisticated weaponry to more countries than ever
before justifying such sales when necessary by expressing
concern for the economic well-being of the U.S. arms
industry.
On February 17, without much fanfare, the White House
released a six-page fact sheet outlining the classified
policy. It essentially reiterates previous
administrations' views, saying "transfers of
conventional arms [are] a legitimate instrument of U.S.
foreign policy-deserving U.S. government support-when
they enable us to help friends and allies deter
aggression, promote regional stability, and increase
interoperability of U.S. forces and allied forces."
In sum, it is difficult to find anything new except an
explicit statement that the government will consider the
impact on the U.S. arms industry when deciding whether to
approve an export. Not surprisingly, the country's
weapons manufacturers have welcomed the new policy with
open arms. Joel Johnson, one of the arms industry's chief
lobbyists, has called the new policy "the most
positive statement on defense trade that has been
enunciated by any administration.
A Pro-Export Arms Policy
At first, the U.S. arms industry feared the incoming
Clinton administration would attempt to rein in the
country's dominant role in the global arms trade, as the
Carter administration had done. These fears quickly
proved unfounded. Key Clinton administration officials
who had participated in Carter's principled but failed
effort (including Defense Secretary William Perry,
Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Under Secretary
of State for International Security and Arms Control Lynn
Davis) made clear in appearances before Congress that
they were now pessimistic about the feasibility, and
dismissive of the utility, of conventional arms export
control-especially if it meant limiting U.S. arms
transfers. Having failed during Carter's tenure, these
officials were now reluctant to move the new
administration particularly in light of its public
commitment to maintain U.S. jobs-down a similar path.
Thus, while going through the policy review process,
the Clinton team continued-and in many ways exceeded-the
pro-export practices of the Reagan and Bush
administrations during the Cold War. In fiscal years (FY)
1993 and 1994, the executive branch (and Congress) signed
off on record levels of government- and
industry-negotiated arms deals (see Table 1). Moreover,
the administration actively assisted industry by
subsidizing marketing activities, lobbying foreign
officials to "buy American" and financing
several billions of dollars worth of arms sales. Through
it all, the arms lobby maintained its frequent,
high-level access to arms transfer policy makers through
the State Department' s Defense Trade Advisory Group and
the Pentagon's Defense Policy Advisory Committee on
Trade.
Meanwhile, the administration stalled on setting up a
consultative body, man- dated by Congress in late 1993,
which might have provided more circumspect and certainly
less self-interested views on arms trade policy. The FY94
defense authorization act (Public Law 103-160) required
President Clinton to empanel a com- mission of
independent experts to study "the factors that
contribute to the proliferation of strategic and advanced
conventional military weapons . . . and the policy
options that are available to the United States to
inhibit such proliferation." The board was to be up
and running by December 15, 1993, and a report was due
six months later to facilitate the administration's
review. On January 23, 1995 only three weeks before the
new conventional arms transfer policy was completed
President Clinton finally signed an executive order
creating the advisory board.
The U.S. arms industry did suffer one partial defeat
in the policy when the government rejected the idea of
establishing a new loan guarantee program to finance arms
sales. Exporters have long sought such a program,
claiming that U.S. firms face unfair competition from
European arms merchants who have access to
government-backed loans. The various agencies involved in
the policy review (the departments of State, Defense and
Commerce; the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency; and
the Office of Management and Budget) disagreed over the
need for, and desirability of, additional U.S. financing.
The United States already provides over $3 billion in
grant aid annually to finance the purchase of new U.S.
arms, and an additional $1 billion to aid payment of past
military debts Israel owes the United States. The issue
of new loan guarantees was pushed all the way up to
President Clinton for resolution. He decided not to
address it at all. While arms control advocates welcomed
the lack of overt support for loan guarantees, the fact
that the policy does not oppose a new financing program
leaves the door open for Congress to add such a program
to future Pentagon budget bills. Members of Congress from
districts with major weapons contractors are expected to
introduce such legislation shortly.
What is Missing?
The most striking feature of the new policy is what is
missing: Nowhere does it state-or even imply-that
conventional arms control in general would serve U.S.
security interests; nowhere does it acknowledge any
connection between the global spread of conventional arms
and the regional warfare and instability that has be-
come a central organizing principle of post-Cold War U.S.
security strategy.
Instead, the administration's policy imbues weapons
exports with several unsubstantiated and near-mythical
qualities. According to the fact sheet, in addition to
deterring aggression, promoting stability and increasing
interoperability, the arms export policy will prevent the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and
missiles; "promote peaceful conflict resolution and
arms control, human rights, democratization"; and,
"enhance the ability of the U.S. defense industrial
base to meet U.S. defense requirements and maintain long-
term military technological superiority at lower
costs."
The influence of the arms industry was clearly an
important factor, but the assumptions and trade-offs
evidenced by several of these goals are key to
understanding why the United States is not working to
curtail the global production and trade in conventional
weapons.
Sales Equals Restraint
In its opening paragraph, the conventional arms
transfer fact sheet states that U.S. policy
"promotes restraint, both by the U.S. and other
suppliers, in transfers of weapons systems that may be
destabilizing or dangerous to international peace"
[emphasis added]. Government-supplied data on arms
transfers do not bear out this assertion, however. In a
report issued last July, the Congressional Research
Service (CRS) estimated that governments of the world
sold $31.8 billion worth of weaponry in 1993. Of this,
U.S. foreign military sales (FMS) agreements accounted
for $22.5 billion, or 70 percent of the market. (The CRS
report actually understates the magnitude of U.S. arms
sales agreements because it excludes sales negotiated
directly by U.S. industry but licensed by the
government.) More than two-thirds of the U.S. arms sales
agreements were with developing countries. It strains the
bounds of credulity, however, to believe that the tens of
billions of dollars in arms exported around the world by
the major suppliers serve the cause of international
stability and peace.
Proponents of U.S. arms transfers often claim that the
increase in U.S. market share is not due to an increase
in sales, but rather to a shrinking market. In truth,
U.S. dominance is attributable both to bullish U.S.
marketing during and since the 1991 Gulf War and to the
sharp fall in Moscow's exports since the collapse of the
Soviet Union. In 1991 and 1993, U.S. sales spiked
precipitously. Meanwhile, suppliers often cited in the
U.S. media as irresponsible merchants of death-namely
Russia, China, France and South Africa-had marginal sales
by comparison in terms of dollar volume (see Table 2).
Given the overwhelming U.S. dominance of the market
and its global political- military influence, U.S.
leadership is vital to the success of any arms export
control initiatives. The sole concrete-if somewhat
anemic-proposal for multilateral restraint put forward in
the Clinton policy statement is the establishment of a
new arms transfer regime built on the infrastructure of
the Cold War-era Coordinating Committee for Multilateral
Export Controls (COCOM). The post-COCOM regime will
reportedly seek to block all arms and military technology
to "rogue" states like Iran, Iraq, Libya and
North Korea.
Twenty-three counties have been negotiating the
elusive regime since November 1993. It was intended to be
up and running by April 1, 1994, when the old COCOM was
disbanded. A year later, Russian participation in the
regime is said to be the sticking point; the European
members will not go forward with the regime until Russia
is a member, and Russia cannot join the regime until it
renounces arms sales to Iran, one of its chief customers.
While President Boris Yeltsin announced in September 1994
that Russia would make no new arms sales to Iran, he
would not agree to break existing contracts.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government considers most of the
rest of the world fair game (with the exception of a
handful of countries facing UN-sanctioned arms
embargoes). In 1993, the Clinton administration approved
arms exports to over 140 countries. Now, the
administration is seeking to expand its sales to Eastern
European and Latin American countries-states that cannot
really afford high-technology weaponry and may thus
require U.S. financial assistance.
The Clinton policy emphasizes
"transparency"-openness in exporting-over
restraint. In this context, it reiterates U.S. support
for the UN Register of Conventional Arms and for the
creation of regional transparency measures and registers.
The UN register was established in the aftermath of the
1991 Gulf War to guard against further "excessive
and destabilizing arms build-ups." Last year, nearly
90 UN members supplied information on imports and exports
of seven categories of weapons during 1993, but several
of the United States' largest buyers-including Saudi
Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait and Thailand-did not participate.
The administration resisted suggestions that the United
States should condition its arms transfers on
participation in the register.
Changes in the Arms Market
The arms market is more commercially driven than ever.
Surplus arms production here and abroad has created a
buyers' market, allowing customers to demand-and receive
sweeter and sweeter deals. A frequent request is for
technology to produce weapons. Manufacturers are
increasingly granting licenses to recipient countries to
produce subcomponents, components or entire weapons
systems. A prime example is the $5.2 billion Korean
fighter deal of 1991 South Korea contracted to purchase
12 off-the-shelf F-16C- and D-model fighters and 36
aircraft kits for assembly in Korea. In addition,
Seoul-which is seeking to develop an indigenous fighter
aircraft production capability-purchased the right to
manufacture 72 F-16s under license. Fifteen other
countries also produce F-16 parts or assemble the F-16
fighter; Egypt's M-lA1 tank production line provides
another example of this trend. To win the sale, U.S.
industry is willing not only to send manufacturing jobs
overseas, but also to risk the creation of new
competition in the near term. The security risk of
helping to establish new weapons industries in countries
around the world takes a back seat to pressures to make
the sale now. The Clinton policy did not address this
critical issue.
The sale of even higher-tech weaponry is another
feature of today's commercially driven market. In the
past few years, top-of-the-line systems that were
previously off limits-such as the U.S. F-15E "Strike
Eagle" and Russia's Tu-22M "Backfire"
bomber; modern European diesel sub- marines; and,
supersonic, sea-skimming anti-ship missiles-have been
placed on the auctioning block. This, too, is not without
obvious risk to the sellers.
U.S. military and intelligence officials have
repeatedly said the increasing avail- ability and
sophistication of conventional arms on the market is a
prime threat to U.S. security. The director of naval
intelligence, Rear Admiral Edward Shaefer, testified last
summer that "the overall technical threat and
lethality of arms . . . being exported have never been
higher." And then-CIA Director James Woolsey
testified before Congress on January 10 that advanced
conventional weapons "have the potential to
significantly alter military balances, and disrupt U.S.
military operations and cause significant U.S.
casualties." Yet Clinton's new policy did not
propose any sort of multilateral qualitative export
limits.
Light, portable weapons such as machine guns, mortars
and landmines are also a menace. They fuel many of the
regional conflicts and humanitarian crises in the Third
World in which U.S. troops are increasingly being called
upon to intervene, and where often, ironically, they are
directly threatened by these low-tech weapons. While the
administration has embraced a congressionally initiated
export moratorium on anti-personnel landmines, it made no
proposals to shed light on or to regulate the traffic in
these other vexing small arms.
Weapons of Mass Destruction Link
Ballistic and cruise missiles are the only
conventional weapons the Clinton administration appears
to believe pose a serious potential threat to U.S.
security interests. This concern, codified in the export
prohibitions of the Missile Technology Control Regime, is
usually attributed to the utility of missiles for the
delivery of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.
However, U.S. officials ignore the spread of many
other means of delivery for weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) payloads, such as attack helicopters, advanced
aircraft and long-range artillery. Besides fueling
regional conventional arms races, the accelerating
proliferation of these advanced delivery systems are
often the driving force behind decisions to pursue WMD
programs.
Insofar as administration policy makers will
acknowledge that conventional and WMD proliferation are
related, they seem to think (selectively) that a good
shipment of modern conventional arms will curb efforts to
acquire WMD. Joseph Nye, assistant secretary of defense
for international security affairs, recently made this
case before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
As required by a law known as the "Pressler
Amendment," the United States suspended most arms
transfers to Pakistan in 1990 (in particular, 28 F-16s
for which Pakistan had already paid) because of
Islamabad's nuclear weapons program. Nye criticized the
U.S. conventional arms embargo and suggested that it
might actually strengthen Pakistani resolve to pursue
nuclear weapons.
Prior to the embargo, however, Washington had already
delivered to Islamabad 35 sophisticated F-16
fighter-bombers and a multitude of other conventional
arms in a failed effort to dissuade Pakistan from
continuing its nuclear weapons program. The F-16s now
provide Pakistan's most likely means to deliver nuclear
weapons, according to CIA testimony.
Deconstructing 'Interoperability'
The pursuit of "interoperability" of
weaponry is fast becoming the Clinton administration's
most prevalent rationale for continuing widespread arms
exports. Interoperability-commonality of arms-is a
hallmark of coalition warfare, which the United States
built up during the Cold War.
Both the "National Security Strategy of
Engagement and Enlargement" and the Pentagon's
"Bottom-Up Review" require that U.S. forces be
prepared quickly to fight or intervene anywhere in the
world, thus necessitating forward-deployed forces. Arms
transfers and joint military training exercises are used
to gain access to overseas bases and to establish the
infrastructure necessary for U.S. intervention.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the 1991 Gulf
War, the United States has established military ties with
more countries around the world. Most notable are recent
military training exercises with, and arms transfers to,
Eastern European countries and former Soviet re- publics
under NATO's "Partnership for Peace" program.
The same day the White House released its conventional
arms transfer policy, it announced that it would consider
on a case-by-case basis exports of major combat equipment
to Eastern Europe.
The need to standardize their equipment with that of
NATO forces is the justification cited for arms transfers
to these already heavily militarized, economically
depressed states.
The paradox in today's U.S. security policy is
striking. Now, instead of arming allies against a
discernable enemy-the Soviet bloc during the Cold
War-U.S.-led coalitions are arming against such abstract
targets as "regional instability" and
"uncertainty," according to Pentagon planning
documents. The liberal transfers of sophisticated and
small arms, as a way of cementing these alliances, are
likely to contribu te to the regional instability and
uncertainty they are ostensibly combating.
Arms As Stabilizers
According to its new conventional arms transfer
policy, the administration believes U.S. arms exports
promote regional stability by creating balances of power
and building up the deterrent capabilities of U.S.
friends and allies. Undoubtedly, the ability to create
regional balances is facilitated by the fact that the
United States is arming both sides in many cases: for
instance, Greece and Turkey; Persian Gulf sheikdoms and
Israel; and China (to a limited degree) and Taiwan. The
administration also appears ready to supply arms to both
India and Pakistan (if the Pressler Amendment were
repealed).
Whether weapons maintain peace and security or
undermine them will never be proven. However, given the
high degree of geopolitical flux today, predicting regime
stability and the steadfastness of alliances is
speculation at best. U.S. forces have been deployed
several times recently to combat former U.S. allies or
recipients of U.S. weapons and military training in
Panama, Iraq, Somalia and Haiti.
A bill pending in Congress would attempt to keep the
United States from making potentially disastrous exports
by identifying characteristics of less stable
governments. Under the so-called "Code of
Conduct" legislation, the four conditions a country
must meet to be eligible for U.S. weapons are: a
democratic form of government; respect for the basic
human rights of its citizens; non-aggression (against
other states); and, full participation in the UN Register
of Conventional Arms. The president may exempt a country
which fails to meet these criteria, but Congress must
pass a law affirming that exemption before weapons could
be exported to the country in question during that fiscal
year. While this legislation might not block all
dangerous sales, it would increase scrutiny on weapons
supplied to those governments that may be less stable
because of their repressive or aggressive practices.
Protecting the Industrial Base
Perhaps underlying all of the administration's other
rationales for continued conventional arms proliferation
is the perceived need to keep existing production lines
open to maintain a sufficient defense-industrial base.
The administration has not adequately addressed the
question of how much industrial capacity is required,
given the end of the Cold War. The answer, by default
thus far, has been that levels near those amassed during
the Cold War are still needed to ensure against the
emergence of some unforseen major military threat.
The recent spate of mergers and acquisitions in the
U.S. arms industry has not resulted in much shrinkage of
capacity at the prime contractor level, even though the
arms industry has laid off several hundreds of thousands
of workers since 1990. Production lines for many
front-line U.S. weapons-F-15 and F-16 aircraft, Apache
attack helicopters and M-1 A2 tanks to name a few-remain
open now only for sales abroad.
The administration recognizes that surplus arms
production by other countries results in dangerous
pressures to export. Last October Defense Secretary Perry
traveled to Beijing to attend the first meeting of the
U.S.-Chinese Joint Defense Conversion Commission. The
commission is intended to facilitate the conversion of
Chinese arms manufacturers to the production of
commercial goods; the U.S. government is promoting
technology transfer from U.S. firms to aid this
transition. Asked by a reporter why it is in the interest
of the United States to aid the conversion of China's
defense industry, Perry said "it is to our benefit .
. . to help these countries [China, Belarus, Russia and
Ukraine] resist the pressure to make weapons even beyond
their needs .... And secondly, to resist the pressure for
foreign arms sales. One very obvious way . . . of using
the excess capacity in the arms industry in each of these
countries is to continue to produce the same amount but
then to sell the excess to other countries. And that
creates . . . its own set of policy and security issues.
So to the extent [the United States] can be useful and
constructive in diverting this pressure into the
production of commercial goods, then I believe it is a
security benefit."
The Clinton administration apparently does not
consider this advice valid for the United States.
(According to CRS, China sold $300 million worth of arms
to developing countries in 1993; the United States sold
S15 billion.) The administration's new arms transfer
policy makes no reference to conversion and downsizing of
the U.S. arms industry. Instead, it states that decisions
to sell arms would take into account how such decisions
would affect the need to preserve the U.S.
industry-including the surplus capacity.
This defense-industrial base rationale is driven in
part by concerns about the loss of high-paying, high-tech
jobs. But more importantly, it is driven by the
inexorable development of next-generation U.S. military
technology, for which the present industrial base is
considered necessary. Thus, in the name of running a
technological race against no obvious competitor, the
United States is encouraging the commercialization of the
arms industry through cross-border "teaming"
arrangements and allowing the export of top-of-the-line
weapons. At the same time, these practices provide the
most obvious way to ensure that new military threats will
emerge.
Even more paradoxical, the development and production
of next-generation U.S. weapons are justified now on the
basis of a need to counter weapons being acquired by
Third World countries, including those the United States
has sold. Lockheed's lobbying campaign for the F-22
fighter is based on the global proliferation of very
capable fighters, such as the F-15E, F-16 and the F/A-18.
Options Not Explored
The United States and its European allies (including
Russia) accounted for 95 percent of all arms export
agreements in 1993. This global monopoly on transfers
makes supply-side export control initiatives particularly
feasible. While demand-side action is vital to the
long-term success of any restraint regime, agreement
among the handful of major weapons suppliers is probably
more achievable than is regional peace. Indeed, supplier
restraint is most likely a prerequisite for regional
peace.
There was no shortage of multilateral arms export
control initiatives that could have found their way into
the Clinton conventional arms transfer policy, but did
not. First, the administration could seek limits on
government support for arms exports, including agreed
limits on government financing of sales-a long-standing
U.S. industry complaint against its European competitors.
Rather than continually "leveling the playing
field" upward, exporters could agree to cap such
support.
Second, the United States could take the lead in
negotiating restrictions on licensed production or
co-production of military equipment. This is one of the
most important initiatives imaginable because such
manufacturing arrangements increase the global surplus in
production capacity and create further pressure for more
permissive sales. Once these new producers fulfill their
own military needs, they too will seek export markets in
order to keep their manufacturing lines open. A ban or
limits on such sales would be very feasible politically;
organized labor dislikes licensed production, whereby
manufacturing jobs are exported overseas. Diplomatically,
ending this practice would prove more difficult, but
achievable. Limits on licensed production deals would
force weapons-hungry countries either to purchase weapons
"off the shelf" from exporting countries or to
make the massive capital investment necessary to develop
an indigenous arms industry.
Third, the administration could explore
weapon-specific export controls. Currently, the only
types of arms which the United States seeks to limit are
cruise and ballistic missiles and anti-personnel
landmines. Mines are controlled because they pose
widespread humanitarian risk, but they are hardly the
only weapon which widely impacts non-combatants. The
United States could seek restrictions on exports of other
inhumane and indiscriminate weapons, such as cluster
bombs, fragmentation weapons, fuel-air explosives, napalm
and blinding laser weapons.
The United States has controlled the export of
missiles since 1987 because they are thought to be
especially destabilizing regionally, and because they
pose a potential direct military challenge to U.S.
interests. Building on this, the Clinton administration
could seek controls on the spread of other systems that
might be regionally destabilizing and potentially
threatening to its interests, such as ground attack
aircraft and "stealth" technology,
diesel-powered attack submarines, modern anti-ship
missiles and naval mines.
Finally, the administration could offer an initiative
on small arms-the weapons that continue to fuel most of
the world's civil and ethnic conflicts. Although control
in this area is more difficult to envision because there
are many more producers and black market activity is so
prevalent, a U.S. initiative could help promote
transparency and international cooperation on monitoring
and controlling illicit arms trafficking by sharing
expertise in export and border control.
Weapons and War
More than 30 wars are currently raging around the
world today, almost all of them fought with imported
weapons. Given its market dominance, it is not surprising
that U.S. weaponry is finding its way into combat in, for
example, Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Kashmir, Somalia
and Turkey, to name a few.
Lacking courage to take on weapons corporations, the
Commerce Department and the Pentagon, and lacking the
vision to devise new security paradigms, the Clinton
administration has failed to seize the opportunity
afforded by the end of the Cold War. Rather than seeking
to reduce reliance on the use of force-and building up
reliance on the rule of law-the White House is risking
not only much more warfare to come, but killing and
destruction at much higher levels.
In the final analysis, the long-awaited official
policy of the administration made plain that any change
in U.S. arms export policy must be wrought from the
bottom up. No progress will be made on the issue of
limiting the global arms trade without significant
pressure from the public.