SIPRI Yearbook 1998: Highlights from the SIPRI Yearbook 1998

SIPRI Yearbook 1998: Armaments, Disarmament, and International Security

Stockholm Institute for Peace Research

May 1998

Highlights from the SIPRI Yearbook 1998

Security and Conflicts

Of the 25 major armed conflicts in 1997, only one – between India and Pakistan – was interstate. All the others were internal conflicts.
In 1997 the reinstatement of a cease–fire and the commencement in Belfast of the first negotiations in decades between all parties to the Northern Ireland conflict prepared the ground for the historic agreement of April 1998.
North Korea agreed to enter negotiations on a Korean peace treaty, and in November Japan and Russia agreed to work towards a peace treaty by the year 2000.
After a promising start with the Hebron Accords, the Middle East peace process suffered a difficult year in which renewed Israeli settlement activity caused a breakdown in the talks, while Israel accused the Palestinians of failing to stop terrorism.
There was growing concern in Russia about challenges to its role in the space of the former Soviet Union from competing influences, particularly in the oil–rich areas of Central Asia. A new pragmatism entered its relations with Chechnya.
There was growing concern in Russia about challenges to its role in the space of the former Soviet Union from competing influences, particularly in the oil–rich areas of Central Asia. A new pragmatism entered its relations with Chechnya.

Military Spending and Armaments

World military expenditure declined by around one–third over the 10–year period 1988–97 and is estimated to correspond to roughly $740 billion in 1997. In recent years the decline has slowed down: to an average rate of less than 1% in the past two years, as against an average of 4.5% over the entire period.
The most significant impact on the trend in global military expenditure was the sharp cut in Russian spending in 1992. Russia's actual military expenditure in 1997 was less than one–tenth of that of the USSR in 1988. There have also been significant cuts in Africa, Central America and the United States.
In 1988–97 military expenditure increased in some regions, in particular the Middle East and South and East Asia. However, the military budgets of several countries in East Asia are being revised downwards as a result of the financial crisis in the region.
The arms industry continued to undergo significant restructuring in 1997, mainly in the form of mergers and acquisitions in the US arms industry, which proceeded rapidly, and international joint ventures in Western Europe, a slower process.
The USA remains the dominant power in terms of military technology – with a military R&D budget more than seven times that of France, the nearest competitor – while Russian military technology is coming under stricter export controls and continues to fall further behind the state of the art.
India has spent about $500 million (in 1995 dollars) annually on military R&D since 1993, a figure that will rise significantly if current plans are carried out. This is roughly 28% of Indian Government funding of science and 18% of funding for science in the entire country, a figure exceeded only in the USA. If funding for nuclear and space R&D is included, the amount is $910 million, or 68% of government–funded science.
Japan, the USA's only competitor in the realm of civilian technology, cut its military R&D budget – which is only about one–twentieth of that of the USA – for the first time in 30 years in 1997.
At just over $25 billion, the global SIPRI trend–indicator value for deliveries of major conventional weapons in 1997 was some 12% higher than the level recorded for 1996. While the US share in deliveries of major conventional weapons had increased to 43%, that of Russia had fallen to 14%.

Non–Proliferation, Arms Control and Disarmament

The START II Treaty remained in limbo in 1997, despite agreement between Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin on a series of measures to boost its chances of being ratified by the Russian Parliament. Proponents of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test–Ban Treaty faced a difficult struggle to win the ratification of all the 44 states needed to bring it into force.
In 1997 China, Russia and the USA ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. The convention entered into force on 29 April 1997, and work was started on the establishment of an effective chemical weapon disarmament regime.
In 1997 membership of the multilateral export control regimes continued to grow. Of greatest significance was China's entry into the Zangger Committee, a regime in which nuclear supplier states can harmonize aspects of their national export control systems.
On 23 July at the CFE Treaty adaptation negotiations in Vienna, the Joint Consultative Group adopted the Decision Concerning Certain Basic Elements for Treaty Adaptation. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), reductions of heavy weapons were successfully completed under the 1996 Florence Agreement.
The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti–Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (the APM Convention) was opened for signature in December 1997. By May 1998, 11 states had ratified the convention. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines, together with its coordinator Jody Williams, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1997.