Cold War Imperatives and Quarrelsome Clients

Abstract

This study extends a formal systems model on the political and strategic consequences of great power arms transfers. Using the United States and the Soviet Union as the exporters (or patrons) and Pakistan and India as the importers (clients), tests of the model's components reveal the following: the superpowers were indifferent to the effects of their arms supplies on the relationships between the importers, changes over time in the importers' arms acquisitions from third countries depended on the relationships between the importers and on the record of superpower supplies, subsequent superpower transfers were influenced not by the consequences of past transfers but by the political relationships between the exporters and importers and by the arms trade behavior of the importers, and each importer would be penalized by its arms transfer patron with decreased future supplies for excessive third-country arms shipments and for receiving arms from the opposing superpower.