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Japan's lifting of its arms export ban through the Three Principles on the Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology has opened up new strategic opportunities for its policy-makers to reinforce existing, and build new, security partnerships. Japan still retains the intent to sustain and develop an indigenous defense production base, now through international collaboration rather than mainly autonomous production, and the leverage this may provide to hedge within and outside the US-Japan alliance framework. However, this paper demonstrates that Japan's principal objective through international arms transfers is very much to use this as a mechanism to strengthen Japan's integration of capabilities into the US-Japan alliance and overall US ‘rebalance’ strategy in East Asia. Japan's main moves in developing an arms transfer strategy have either revolved around US-Japan bilateral projects, or cooperation with US allies and partners. Moreover, Japan's continuing deficiencies in military technology and experience of international collaboration on the government and private sector levels means that its arms transfer strategy remains quite limited in ambition and especially implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses the performance of the productivity of the main industrial subsectors composing the security and defence technological and industrial base (SDTIB) in Spain from 1996 to 2009. Accordingly, we have used the non-parametric data envelopment analysis and bootstrapping techniques to compute Malmquist productivity indexes that allow us to split productivity growth into efficiency change and technical progress. The results obtained show productivity improvement in the SDTIB as a whole due mainly to advances in technology and to a lesser extent to the contribution of technical efficiency. The bootstrap approach yields further evidence, as for many cases, productivity growth or decline, is not statistically significant. This is the first time a study of this kind has been carried out on the production process of this sector in Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Major determinants of third world military industrialization operate at the domestic, regional, and global levels. I summarize these and then examine their relative importance by analyzing time-series cross-section data for twelve arms producers from 1968 to 1990. Overall, there is considerable support for the various factors identified in the literature. However, my findings do highlight the importance of opportunity, perhaps more than willingness, as an explanation for changing levels of third tier arms production. Resolution of the tensions that drive regional militarization and the eruption of military conflict should have some positive effects on restraining the expansion of arms production capacity. But there also seems to be a certain inevitability to the process, a process that is limited primarily by states' resources, industrial capacities, and access to weapons-production technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses and presents the determinants and directions of Chinese acquisitions of weapons and weapons technology from abroad, focusing on major conventional weapons and their relevant technologies. Following a brief development of historical themes which continue to affect Chinese military‐related imports today, the study considers the principal contemporary domestic and international determinants which contribute to shaping Chinese arms import policies, and the type of foreign arms acquisitions likely to result from those policies. In analysing past and current security policies, weapons development policies, foreign weapons procurement policies, the study reaches four main conclusions. First, a wide range of problems — including prohibitive cost, political and bureaucratic infighting, absorptive capacities, managerial and administrative roadblocks, and supplier controls — stand in the way of a Chinese military modernization strategy based on foreign procurement. Second, with the exception of Sino‐Soviet cooperation in the 1950s, Chinese arms and arms technology acquisitions from abroad have consistently been relatively modest, sporadic, and problematic. Even in the case of current transfers from such suppliers as Israel and Russia, it is unclear the extent to which these countries are willing to part with significant amounts of top‐of‐the‐line systems and technologies. Third, the impact upon international security of the improvement of Chinese military capability through the acquisition of foreign weapons and technology is not likely to manifest itself in violent military disruptiveness, but rather in the nuanced and steady expansion of Chinese power and influence in parts of East Asia around China's periphery. Fourth, the military capabilities of China's arms clients will probably not be significantly improved through the acquisition of foreign weapons and weapons technologies by China. In sum, Chinese military modernization through arms and technology imports will continue to be a slow and painful process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]