r.naylor the rise of the modern arms black market and the fall of supply side control

7/30/2019 r.naylor the rise of the modern arms black market and the fall of supply side control

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T C P S E R I E S : V O L U M E I 43

The Rise of the Modern Arms Black Marketand the Fall of Supply-Side Control1

R T Naylor

FFour decades after the Second World War, a world divided betweenantagonistic nuclear superpowers seemed largely at peace. To be sure,

there were flare-ups civil wars, insurrections and border clashes some of them highly destructive of life and property. But each one seemed

exceptional in cause, remarkable in effect and, in the minds of the citizensof the major powers, relegated to faraway places.

Today, by contrast, the entire globe, from Albania to Zaire, from SouthAfrica to North Ossetia, from Eastern Slavonia to the West Bank, seemswracked by political violence. These conflicts cannot be written off as

merely internal feuds and therefore the business, apart from outsidehumanitarian hand-wringing, of only the people directly involved. Their

number and scale affect the world at large and each apparently intra-stateconflict, by calling into question the position of ethno-sectarian minorities,

has the potential to precipitate inter-state clashes as well.

Behind the Bloodbath

In retrospect much of the peace of earlier decades was precarious, with the

underlying tensions held in check by a number of constraints. One, to besure, was the very Cold War alliance system which not only set limits to the

autonomy of those under its thrall, therefore limiting inter-state conflict, but

also provided many states with a reason for existence, helping to reduce the

potential for civil strife.2

That was reinforced by an ideological factor. Both sides preached their ownversion of universal humanism, creeds that at least on the surface

transcended race and colour. At the same time developing countries couldoffer to their multi-ethnic populations the prospect that the state could be an

agent above tribe, clan or sect, to promote economic progress and integrate

them equally into civil society.

Added to this was the illusion of the boundlessness of nature, onceharnessed by productive capital and human ingenuity, and therefore of the


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r.naylor the rise of the modern arms black market and the fall of supply side control

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