In the shadow of giants: Superpower arms transfers and Third World conflict during the Cold War
This is an investigation of the impact of superpower arms transfers on interstate rivalry in the Third World during the Cold War. The study is anchored in a theoretical framework which conceives of interstate rivalry as the basis for the development of security complexes in the international system. In the case of Third World rivalries, these security complexes tend to be local in scope. The superpower security complex was global. The theoretical framework emphasizes the tendency of one security complex to encroach upon another. This study focuses on the extent to which the Cold War was externalized through the process of superpower arms transfers to local rivals. The empirical investigation consists of statistical analysis of four enduring rivalries in the Third World: those between the Arab states and Israel, Iran and Iraq, India and Pakistan, and Ethiopia and Somalia. The author employs a time-series methodology - vector autoregression - which permits a rather rigorous discrimination between cause and effect. A rigorous methodology is essential to decipher the relationship between arms transfer and interstate conflict since there is reason to suspect that causality may be mutual. Historical narratives for each of of the four rivalries facilitate an interpretation of the statistical results, but also serve to highlight anomalies. The results suggest that the impact of superpower arms transfers was most pronounced in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. Soviet arms transfers to Egypt and Syria tended to exacerbate the Arab-Israeli rivalry. In the case of the Iran-Iraq rivalry, it was American arms transfers to Iran that were influential, but the effect appears to have been a restraining one. An action-reaction dynamic in superpower arms transfers is evident in both these cases. The statistical results are not enlightening for either the India-Pakistan or Ethiopia-Somalia rivalries. Some theoretical refinements to the security-complexes framework are suggested.
- Research Organization:
- Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 7168116
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: Thesis (Ph.D.)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
29 ENERGY PLANNING
POLICY AND ECONOMY
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
NATIONAL SECURITY
WEAPONS
TRADE
ARAB COUNTRIES
ARMS CONTROL
DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
ETHIOPIA
INDIA
IRAN
IRAQ
ISRAEL
PAKISTAN
POLITICAL ASPECTS
SOMALIA
AFRICA
ASIA
INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS
MIDDLE EAST
SECURITY
350200* - Arms Control- Proliferation- (1987-)
290200 - Energy Planning & Policy- Economics & Sociology