The task of our Institute is to conduct research on questions of conflict and cooperation of importance for international peace and security, with the aim of contributing to an understanding of the conditions for peaceful solutions of international conflicts and for a stable peace.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) issued its 2005 Yearbook on Tuesday and said that world military expenditure exceeded $1 trillion in 2004. The USA accounted for 47 per cent of this spending.

The Institute also said that the combined arms sales of the top 100 arms- producing companies in 2003 were 25 per cent (in current dollars) higher than in 2002.

HIGHLIGHTS from the SIPRI YEARBOOK 2005

• In 2004 it became obvious that maintaining control over Iraqi territory would require capabilities other than high-intensity warfare and more manpower than in the technologyintensive phase of the war.
• Many of the conflicts that continue to produce the greatest number of deaths, casualties and suffering are wars of long duration. Far from soliciting more attention, their longstanding and recurrent nature tend to make them less visible internationally. Although the current international emphasis on the prevention of violent conflict is a positive development, it is worth considering whether the emphasis of policy and research should be directed at addressing the resolution of the world’s longest-standing major armed conflicts.
• Much of the current discussion of peace-building is focused on the macro level. What current operational experiences appear to illustrate, however, is that peace-building fails most often at the micro level, in the content and delivery of specific security, rule-of-law, economic, social and political reforms.
• Nationally led ‘coalitions of the willing’ of the kind that undertook the military actions in Afghanistan (2002) and Iraq (2003) pose special challenges for parliamentary oversight, since the interstate component of decision making is not carried out through an established, transparent multilateral institutional process.
• Military expenditure by states in the Middle East is high and shows a rising trend since 1996. Conventional arms races are unconstrained, but developments related to weapons of mass destruction are the ones that receive international attention.
• Since the 1980s, the introduction of a more open economic model in most states of the Latin American and Caribbean region has been accompanied by the growth of new regional structures, the dying out of interstate conflicts and a reduction in intra-state conflicts.

The SIPRI Yearbook 2005 was launched at a press conference in Stockholm on Tuesday, 7 June.

Military spending and armaments

• In the new security environment, which focuses on insecurity in the South and greater global security interdependence, there is an increasing awareness of the ineffectiveness of military means for addressing threats and challenges to security and a growing recognition of the need for global action.
• World military expenditure exceeded $1 trillion in 2004. The USA accounted for 47 per cent of this spending.
• The combined arms sales of the top 100 arms- producing companies in 2003 were 25 per cent (in current dollars) higher than in 2002.
• China is almost completely dependent on Russia for its arms imports, but its relationship is changing from a recipient of complete weapons to a recipient of components and technology to be used in Chinese weapon platforms. There are indications that China is anxious to gain access to other than Russian technology, partly because that technology is becoming outdated.

• In April 2004 the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1540, an instruction to UN member states that they must legislate nationally to introduce effective controls on nuclear, biological and chemical weapon proliferation-sensitive items. The resolution was adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, leaving open the potential use of enforcement measures by the Security Council against states failing to comply with this instruction.
• The controversies over the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programmes led to renewed interest in proposals for limiting civil uranium-enrichment and plutonium-reprocessing capabilities on a worldwide basis.
• A number of official inquiries into the handling of intelligence concerning Iraq’s weapon programmes, including how it had been interpreted or presented, published reports in 2004. The inquiries found a common theme that pre-war assessments were inaccurate and unsupported by the available evidence.
• Since Libya’s policy change it has become clear that it received considerable foreign assistance to procure sensitive nuclear materials, technologies and components as well as documentation related to nuclear weapon design. However, the relatively low technical absorption capacity of its scientific–industrial base meant that these ‘short cuts’ did not bring Libya appreciably closer to achieving a nuclear weapon capability.
• The NATO–Russia stalemate over the adapted CFE Treaty has lasted for over five years, but the second wave of NATO enlargement was accomplished despite Russia’s concerns. In Europe, the focus has shifted towards ‘soft’ measures and arrangements, such as confidence- and security-building measures for stricter control of small arms, surplus ammunition and landmines.
• International non-proliferation and disarmament assistance (INDA) is becoming a significant element of the wider anti-proliferation effort. To increase the effectiveness of this assistance, the efforts made by the G8 group of industrialized states were redesigned in 2004. Traditionally undertaken as a bilateral effort between the USA and Russia, the functional and geographic scope of INDA programmes is expected to expand in future to include projects in a wider range of countries, cover new types of sensitive material and undertake projects in new countries.
• In 2004 the EU reviewed the instruments that have been used to create an effective and modern system for controlling transfers of both conventional weapons and dual-use items. As a result of these reviews. revisions will be made to both the arms and dual-use export control systems of the EU.
• Over the years, the law of the sea has been adapted to changed priorities. Today, the general rule of flag-state jurisdiction has yielded to the universal interest of combating the slave trade, piracy and drug trafficking. In future, the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction may also be added to this list.