Arms watch : SIPRI report on the first year of the UN register of conventional arms /

This short report documents and evaluates the submissions by 78 governments to the UN regarding the transfer of arms in seven weapons categories in 1992, comparing these data with information published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute from its own trade register. The UN Register of Conventional Arms was created in 1991 largely as a consequence of the 1990-91 Gulf War as a tool for dampening the negative consequences of the arms trade. It was assumed that an increase in the level of openness and transparency in arms transfers would enhance confidence among states and promote stability. The authors findings are modest: (1) there was some gain in transparency through reporting on the scale and timing of transfers; (2) there was no evidence of government cheating in reporting; (3) one year of reporting is too short to draw definitive conclusions regarding success or failure in transparency. This is a very specialized study with 53 pages of text and 83 pages of data and documents. Researchers; professional. J. L. Nogee University of Houston