Arms and Arguments: Modeling the Effects of Weapons Transfers on Subsystem Relationships

Abstract

This research assesses the effects of arms transfers from the Superpowers (the US and the USSR) and third parties (the UK, the PRC, and other states, more generally) on India-Pakistan and Iran-Iraq political and military relations during the Cold War. At issue here is whether each exporter's weapons shipments were politically and militarily stabilizing or destabilizing for the rivalry dyads: Did they contribute to political cooperation and balanced military relationships or did they perpetuate conflictual and imbalanced relations? Models are developed that take into account the intensity of arms transfers (how much was delivered rather than simply whether arms were sent) and that examine, in sequence, all possible combinations of the exporters as stabilizers and destabilizers. Testing on the models over the period 1950-91 shows the UK to have been a balancer of military relations in both South Asia and the Persian Gulf; the US and the PRC, on the other hand, emerge as consistent imbalancers. The tests also suggest that the USSR behaved conservatively, for the most part reacting to the USs use of arms transfers as a foreign policy tool. The impact of arms transfers on the importers' political relationships is less clear, but there is an indication that political tensions may have been reduced by arms transfers that furthered military imbalances.