In vast swathes of America, the sacredness of the Second Amendment has become a political third rail, never to be questioned. Gun rights supporters wear tri-cornered hats, wave the stars and stripes, and ask what would have happened if the revolutionaries had been unarmed when the British were coming. They have had great success in conflating unfettered gun ownership with the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, and all things American, even in an era of repeated mass shootings. Yet the all-to-familiar narrative of America's gun past, echoed in the Supreme Court's Heller gun rights decision, is not only mythologized, but historically wrong. As Robert J. Spitzer demonstrates in Guns across America, gun ownership is as old as the nation, but so is gun regulation. Drawing on a vast new dataset of early gun laws reflecting every imaginable type of regulation, Spitzer reveals that firearms were actually more strictly regulated in the country's first three centuries than in recent years. The first 'gun grabbers' were not 1960's Chablis-drinking liberals, but seventeenth century rum-guzzling pioneers, and their legacy continued through strict gun regulations in the 1920s and beyond. Spitzer examines interpretations of the Second Amendment, the assault weapons controversy, modern 'stand your ground" laws, and the so-called 'right of rebellion' to show that they play out in America's contemporary political landscape in ways that bear little resemblance to our imagined past. And as gun rights proponents seek to roll back gun laws and press as many guns into as many hands as possible, warning that gun rights are endangered, they sidestep the central question: are stricter gun laws incompatible with robust gun rights? Spitzer answers this question by examining New York State's tough gun laws, where his political analysis is complemented by his own quest for a concealed carry handgun permit and construction of a legal AR-15 assault weapon. Not only can gun rights and rules coexist, but they have throughout American history. Guns across America reveals the long-hidden truth: that gun regulations are in fact as American as apple pie.

The Munitions Inquiry, often called the Nye Committee after its chairperson, Senator Gerald Nye, critically examined the pre-World War II military-industrial complex of government agencies, corporations, labor unions, and financial institutions. Cold War-era historians typically presented the inquiry as a naive isolationist search for evil arms dealers who caused wars. Going beyond the concept of the Merchants of Death theory and into the social, intellectual, political, and cultural currents of the 1930s, Coulter expands the dimensions of a topic formerly framed within the narrow confines of isolationism and internationalism. In addition, he shows how the committee's 19th-century values and progressive idealism were unsuited to an era dominated by Hitler and Mussolini. In divesting the Munitions Inquiry of its image as an historical oddity, this book recovers a piece of American history that had been a casualty of World War II and the Cold War.

This book is the first in eight years to address the purposes, patterns, and prospects of Chinese arms transfers, and the only book to address China's recent and provocative rise to prominence as an arms trader since the mid-1980s. Focusing on the 1980s and the prospects for the 1990s, the work analyzes the principal arms trade relationships of the People's Republic of China to provide a greater understanding and more nuanced insight into the arms trade policies and goals of the world's fourth largest arms supplier.

This study finds that the economic motive for arms exports--the generating of foreign currency--while important, does not fully or even adequately explain why the Chinese export arms. Rather, Chinese arms exports should be seen in the light of political and strategic motivations, which are often more important. This book should appeal to both scholars and policymakers in the field of international relations.

A major historical study of the global arms trade, revolving around the transfer of small arms from metropolitan Europe to the turbulent frontiers of Indian Ocean societies during the 'long' nineteenth century (c.1780-1914).

"Treating Weapons Proliferation" is a chilling exploration of the dynamics of weapons proliferation and nonproliferation. Through an analogy with the disease of cancer, the book walks the reader through the history of the phenomenon, its growing complexities and changing dimensions, its causes and consequences, and the various policy responses currently available to address it. Taking stock of the nature and challenges of such responses, the book shows that there is no all-encompassing cure for weapons proliferation at the present time, only treatments of relative and contextual effectiveness. Simply put, weapons proliferation, like cancer, has no single cure, but it is a condition that can often be treated, sometimes successfully.

This is a comprehensive examination of the strategic affairs of the Persian Gulf since the Gulf War of 1991. The authors conclude that the arms race in the Persian Gulf should be controlled, but maintain it is likely to continue because of the clashing strategic perspectives of Saudi Arabia and Iran, and because of the sustained willingness of all major suppliers to find new revenue sources for their declining defense industries in the post-Cold War decade. They also argue that the U.S. should not adopt a policy of isolating or ignoring Iran in its endeavors to find security arrangements in the Persian Gulf, and that a weakened Iraq has become a major source of instability in the Persian Gulf.

Although the illicit arms trade has evolved over recent years, despite the end of the Cold War it appears to be as vibrant as ever. From Bosnia and Kosovo to Angola and Sierra Leone, illicit arms flows have played a key role in areas of contemporary instability and violence. Against this background, this volume brings together studies of several key issues relating to this trade: the changing nature of the illicit arms trade; the origins of the Iran-Contra affair; the flow of illicit arms from post-communist Russia; the role of France in arming the genocide in Rwanda; the question of the role of private security companies in areas of instability; and the prospects of controlling the illicit trade in small arms. This timely volume will be essential reading for courses in Criminology, War and Peace Studies, International Politics, and African and other Area Studies which deal with arms trafficking and conflict issues.

The literature on the post-1950 arms trade is exhaustive. In contrast, there is almost nothing that examines the pre-1950 trade in arms in a solid, empirical manner. This volume fills that void. It is a broad collection of articles that examines aspects of the global trade in armaments from 1815 to 1940. Its collective thrust analyzes the connections between diplomacy, the domestic politics of procurement, private business, and military technology transfers in Asia, Europe, and Africa and the Americas. The Stoker-Grant collection disentangles the threads of diplomatic, domestic, political, and economic factors in explaining specific outcomes for each country. The research and conclusions are empirically and uniquely grounded in the archival evidence from the state and company records of the participants. Moreover, it advances academic and popular understanding of the arms trade in a number of significant ways. First, it elucidates the existing discussions of the arms race leading up to World War I by providing a longer-term context. In considering nearly a century and a half of case studies rather than a single decade, this work allows for a more accurate and non-polemical appraisal of the linkages between armaments and the outbreak of wars. An important collection for scholars, students, and other researchers involved with military history and business and political linkages in the global arms trade.

Most nuclear proliferation literature is focused on states seeking nuclear weapons, conducted in most cases clandestinely. The sharing of nuclear weapons technology between states is as important strategically, if unexpected, because nuclear weapons are such a powerful instrument in international politics. This book proposes to answer why, if nuclear weapons are such good preservers of peace, are states not more willing to see them proliferate? Schofield also examines the underlying phenomenon of the threat of proliferation races, and how nonproliferation bargains between adversaries make nuclear sharing far less common. But sharing is not rare. This book proposes a theory to explain nuclear sharing and surveys its rich history from its beginnings in the Second World War, including the cases of France-Israel, US-NATO, Russia-China, Israel-South Africa, China-Pakistan and Pakistan-Iran, as well as the incidence of soft balancing and permissive nuclear sharing in the cases of the US and Japan, Israel and India.

Military power and conflict have fuelled economic growth throughout history. Money matters to the military; it is needed to finance war and the desire to acquire it is often the motive for fighting. This book examines the interaction of economics and conflict, it explains the economic concepts used, and illustrates them with a range of military examples, both contemporary and historical. Among the many links explored lies the undeniable fact that fighting and finance are often both driven by the same basic human motives, fear and greed.
'Military Economics' draws on technical literature to provide an accessible introduction to: security, military expenditures, the arms industry, military operations and the economic consequences of defence spending. It raises current debates about the optimal size of the defence budget and examines how it is used to acquire forces, troops and weapons. The book examines how these forces are used to provide maximum military capability, and the potential to prevail in combat. Economic issues are central to the preparation for war, which involves balancing resources and commitments. By exploring the interaction between the military and economy, power and money, Ron Smith provides an insightful contribution to military planning, which becomes essential to the modern world. This book will be indispensable reading forall interested in defence economics, war studies andpeace studies.
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In this book William Durch examines conventional weapons proliferation since World War II, the role of arms transfers in fueling regional conflict, and prospects for curbing the global arms trade. Noting that supply side arms control efforts, which seek to constrain the companies and countries that produce and distribute major conventional weapons, have a poor international track record, Durch argues for a broader approach that tries to get at the demand side of the equation. Addressing the political and regional dynamics that impel arms acquisitions, he looks at how arms control might be combined with confidence and security-building measures to contain demand, and how value-based arms trade control measures like “codes of conduct” could be implemented in stepwise fashion consistent with US national interests in regional stability.

How did Britain's most prominent armaments firms, Armstrongs and Vickers, build their businesses and sell armaments in Britain and overseas from 1855 to 1955? Joanna Spear presents a comparative analysis of these firms and considers the relationships they built with the British Government and foreign states. She reveals how the firms developed and utilized independent domestic strategies and foreign policies against the backdrop of imperial expansion and the two world wars. Using extensive new research, this study examines the challenges the two firms faced in making domestic and international sales including the British Government's commitment to laissez faire policies, prejudices within the British elite against those in trade, and departmental resistance to dealing with private firms. It shows the suite of strategies and tactics that the firms developed to overcome these obstacles to selling arms at home and abroad and how they built enduring relationships with states in Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East.

After marked reductions in military spending in the 1990s, military budgets around the world are on the increase. In this book, renowned authorities re-examine the economics of military expenditure, arms production and arms trade in developing nations. It includes analysis of military spending in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and new forms of civil conflict as well as nine case studies (Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Mozambique, Angola, sub-Saharan Africa, Greece, Turkey, Guatemala, and Chile). The book will serve as a valuable contribution to the fields of both development economics and security studies.

On the debate over whether or not arms transfers increase or deter the chances of war, Cassady B. Craft offers a balanced assessment of the effect of arms transfers on war involvement and outcomes. He considers correlations at the state and global level, supplier and recipient relationships, and the extent of the relationship in the perceptions of individual leaders.
This is the first study to examine the influence of arms transfers on combined interstate and civil wars. Drawing on a variety of theories and quantitative methods, including force-on-force attrition models, it uses innovative techniques that have the potential to change the way analysts weigh the impact of weapons sales. This book will provide both analysts and policymakers with a comprehensive examination of the various tradeoffs between weapons sales and the probability of conflict.

Stephen Valone takes the first in-depth look at the China arms embargo (1919-1929) and places it in the larger context of United States foreign policy. Until now historians have focused on the formation of the Second Banking Consortium as the U.S.'s primary weapon against Japan's aspirations in China. Valone explores the crucial role that the China arms embargo concurrently played in limiting Japan's intentions. The embargo's ostensible goal was to inhibit the flow of weapons into China forcing rival Chinese factions to negotiate their differences at the conference table. The United States' deeper motive was to roll back Japan's influence and defend its Open Door policy in China. Valone's diplomatic history concludes with a positive assessment of the embargo as a tool of U.S. foreign policy. From 1919 to 1929 the United States participated in an international agreement known as the China arms embargo. Stephen Valone's study provides an in-depth coverage of this embargo. Chapters cover Japan's wartime gains in China; Japan's apogee; ban on loans; arms embargo; challenges to the embargo; embargo success; British defense; unsuccessful attempts to strengthen the embargo; and the Soviet threat and cancellation of the embargo.

This report identifies and assesses the role that national law enforcement actors and public prosecutors in the EU member states play in helping prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by stopping the illicit trade in dual-use items. In the 1980s and 1990s, some EU member states discovered cases of illegal trade in sensitive items for use in, for example, the Pakistani nuclear weapon programme. The report discusses how these cases were dealt with in these countries, using a case study model. Acknowledging that dual-use goods are subject to the free movement of goods within the EU, the report emphasizes the importance of coordinating customs and licensing standards among the EU member states to prevent abuse of the EU market for 'licence shopping'. It also presents the argument for the coordination of prosecution and penalties for offenders. In order to show the level of coordination that is required, the report provides an overview of both the international, EU and national legal frameworks for control of the export of dual-use goods.

The global impact of the First World War dominated the history of the first half of the twentieth century. This major reassessment of the origins of the war, based on extensive original research in several countries, is the first full analysis of the politics of armaments in pre-1914 Europe. David Stevenson directs attention away from the Anglo-German naval race towards the competition on land between the continental armies. He analyses the defence policies of the Powers, and the interaction between the growth of military preparedness and the diplomatic crises in the Mediterranean and the Balkans that culminated in the events of July-August 1914. Drawing on insights from political science, the book offers a fresh conceptual framework for the origins of the First World War, and provides a thought-provoking case-study of the broader relationships between armaments and international conflict.

The transfer of arms and military technology is one of the main instruments of Russia's security strategy in East Asia. This research report documents Russia's arms exports to these countries and examines the motivations behind its policies and decisions.

The transfer of arms and military technology is one of the main instruments of Russia's security strategy in East Asia. This research report documents Russia's arms exports to these countries and examines the motivations behind its policies and decisions.

China's Arms Acquisitions from Abroad assesses current Chinese arms imports in the light of China's historical efforts to modernize its weapon-production capacity through foreign acquisitions. It considers the implications of these imports for future security developments in the East Asian region.

The idea of space control and the militarization or weaponization of space has become
increasingly prominent in contemporary society. This book puts the widely-held view that
'arms control in space is not feasible' to the test and aims to explore how, and under what
conditions, arms control in space is feasible and could become a reality. Developing a
hypothesis on the general conditions for preventive arms control, Mutschler uses three major
theoretical approaches to international relations, neoliberal institutionalism, neorealism, and
constructivism, and examines the unsuccessful case of arms control regarding space weapons
and the successful case of arms control in the field of Anti-Ballistic Missiles (ABMs).

Technology offsets, a nonconventional international trade-financing tool, is used by governments (buyers) to obtain industrial and technological benefits from companies (sellers) as part of international procurement. Offsets deals involve billions of dollars and this practice exists in around 80 countries around the world. Though offsets is a popular practice in defence, it is increasingly gaining popularity in civil sectors. Offsets is often tainted by controversy and receives bad press. What then makes offsets popular? Governments claim that offsets delivers technology and knowledge transfer, skills in high technology sectors and employment, and offsets expands export opportunities through participation in OEM supply chains. For companies, offsets is mainly employed as a tool to obtain a competitive edge and win sales in international business. In the past, there have been mixed results of case studies on the impact of offsets successes and failures. Considering the mismanagement of globalisation, unfair trade agreements and current political and economic discontent, there is a stronger need for governments and companies to use vehicles such as offsets to create a relationship of trust and commitment for sustainable development. This book fills the gap in offsets and focuses on how to manage offsets more effectively by addressing issues of strategy, policy and implementation, technology management, governance and risk. Technology Offsets in International Defence Procurement is designed for those studying international procurement, international trade, international business, technology management, defence policy and industrial policy. This book will also be of interest to practitioners and policy makers in both government and industry.

"Taking Aim at the Arms Trade" takes a critical look at the ways in which NGOs portray the arms trade as a problem of international politics and the strategies they use to effect change. While NGOs have been pivotal in bringing the suffering caused by the arms trade to public attention and documenting its negative impacts on human rights, conflict, security and development around the world, their overall activity has the perverse effect of justifying the status quo in the arms trade. They unintentionally contribute to the generation of consent for a hierarchical and asymmetrical world military order, facilitating intervention in the global South based on liberal understandings of the arms trade and associated issues of conflict, development and human rights. As a consequence, their actions contribute to the construction of the South as a site of Northern benevolence and intervention, a stark contrast to NGOs' self-image and widespread reputation as progressive actors. In exposing the contradictions inherent in NGOs engagement with the arms trade, Stavrianakis argues forcefully for a change of approach that can avoid such damaging outcomes.

Lyndon B. Johnson and the Politics of Arms Sales to Israel seeks to reconstruct and elucidate the processes behind the decisions made by the Johnson Administration during the years 1965-68 to sell Israel M-48 tanks, A-4 Skyhawk planes and F-4 Phantom planes. This examination is based on a distinction between three factions which competed for influence within Washington's high-policy elite: the traditionalists (whose major representative was Secretary of State Dean Rusk); the pragmatists (whose most outspoken representative was Robert Komer of the National Security Council); and the domestically oriented policymakers (the central decision-maker who quintessentially exemplifies this category being President Johnson). This book is a sequel to John F. Kennedy and the Politics of Arms to Israel, which examined the first arms deal between the US and Israel.

The Arms Industry is an area that is of huge concern to many people around the world. The economics of this hugely important industry are a vital strand that needs to be understood.
This volume brings together contributors from all over the globe, such as Todd Sandler and Keith Hartley, and focuses on the important issues surrounding the Arms Trade such as:
*the determinants of US military expenditure
*alliance formation and expansion
*new challenges to export controls
This well-rounded, comprehensive book will be of huge interest to students and academics involved in the economics of defence, as well as more general studies of the defence industry. The book will also be an invaluable read for those with an interest in the Arms Industry such as policy-makers and corporate managers.