The Small Arms Survey 2005: Weapons at War is dedicated to exploring issues surrounding armed conflict, including the sourcing of weapons to conflict areas, weapons use, conflict deaths, and post-conflict disarmament initiatives.
The Small Arms Survey 2006: Unfinished Business offers new and updated information on small arms production, stockpiles, transfers, and measures, including a review of the International Tracing Instrument.
The Small Arms Survey 2007: Guns and the City offers new and updated information on small arms production, stockpiles, transfers, and measures, including a special focus on transfer controls.
This year’s thematic section explores the complex issue of urban violence with case studies on Burundi and Brazil as well as a photo essay by award-winning combat photographer Lucian Read. This edition also features chapters on lessons learned from the tracing of ammunition, the relationship between gun prices and conflict, and the role of small arms in South Sudan.
The Small Arms Survey 2008: Risk and Resilience presents two thematic sections.
The first examines the problem of diversion as related to stockpiles, international transfers, and end-user documentation. It includes a case study on South Africa and a comic strip illustrating the potential ease by which someone with access to forged documentation can make arrangements to ship munitions virtually anywhere.
New developments in small arms manufacturing, technology, and design pose important challenges for weapons marking, record keeping, and tracing. The Small Arms Survey has drafted a series of discussion papers to be presented at the UN First Committee on Disarmament and International Security in October 2014.
The dialogue continues on developments in weapons technology and the challenges they present for arms control. Benjamin King and Glenn McDonald explain how the modular design of weapons systems complicates weapons marking, record -keeping, and tracing. They also examine the issues raised by the conversion of replica firearms into viable weapons; and they consider how new weapons technology presents opportunities for improved stockpile management.
Even though states may not intentionally supply materiel to armed groups, a lack of stringent risk assessments on weapons and ammunition exports destined for areas prone to diversion can hamper efforts to curtail the broader illicit arms trade.
Following the Thread: Arms and Ammunition Tracing in Sudan and South Sudan provides an overview of the project’s findings with regard to the types of weapons observed, their country of manufacture, and patterns of holdings among different actors that are indicative of common supply sources. It synthesizes the findings of more than two years’ worth of fieldwork and follow-up investigations by HSBA project staff and consultants, initially published in web-based reports.
India is home to one of the world’s largest small arms industries, but it is often overlooked in international discussion because it mostly supplies domestic military and law enforcement services, rather than civilian or export markets. Small arms procurement by the Indian government has long reflected the country’s larger national military procurement system, which stresses indigenous arms production. This policy has changed since the 1990s, but its legacy will continue to affect Indian official small arms procurement for decades to come.
Authorized small arms imports to South-east Asia were worth at least USD 443 million in 2016, a 48 per cent increase from 2015, as revealed by the Small Arms Survey’s Trade Update 2019: Transfers, Transparency, and South-east Asia Spotlight. This increase, combined with the diversification in their small arms trading partners, highlights the region’s growing significance for international small arms flows.