Small Arms Survey 2005: Weapons at War

One of the core motivating factors behind the creation of the Small Arms Survey in 1999 was the need for a better understanding of the use and impacts of small arms - including in armed conflict. In the first four editions of the annual Small Arms Survey, as well as in numerous other publications, the Survey has pursued this mandate by exploring many facets of small arms, from thriver production, trade, regulation, and misuse to their particular roles in different states and regions. The fifth edition of the Small Arms Survey focuses on the direct and indirect role of small arms in contemporary violent conflicts. As such, this volume develops in depth one important strand of work begun at the project's inception. It describes the many ways in which small arms and light weapons threaten human life and well-being in collective violence, while also focusing how these weapons are implicated in the origins, exacerbation, and aftermath of violent conflict. The Small Arms Survey: Weapons at War explores these themes in places such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Indonesia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan, and the former Yugoslavia - where armed conflicts have formed the backdrop against which efforts to combat the proliferation and misuse of weapons have unfolded. The connections between small arms availability and violent conflicts are complex and multifaceted. Chapters in this Small Arms Survey show that there is no clear-cut relationship between the supply of weapons and the outbreak of conflict, no easy way to assess the number of deaths caused by small arms in conflict, and no simple solution to coping with weapons in the aftermath of conflict. But as various chapters point out, practical and cost-effective control measures can be designed to curb the misuse of weapons at different points in the chain that leads from the production of a weapon to its use in Conflict. Before any consideration of armed conflict - and the roles small arms play in conflict - can take place, three important issues must be addressed: *What should count as armed conflict? *What types of deaths should count as 'caused' by armed conflict" What are the ways in which small arms cause conflict deaths?