Escaping reuterswärd's shadow

Abstract

The small arms agenda remains almost exclusively reactive, responding mostly to the needs of the states that finance small arms diplomacy and fieldwork. NGOs and research institutes, tied to government priorities, have been unable to develop an independent voice. Activists have sought influence over small arms politics instead by broadening their agenda to include related social pathologies. This strategy, pragmatic in the short term, threatens the integrity and durability of small arms activism in the long run. It has allowed small arms activism to prosper without articulating the kind of goals necessary to sustain it. Instead of clear goals, the field has been guided largely by images, including art, represented in this essay by Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd's Non-Violence. To assure its health and influence, small arms activism, research and policy requires greater control over its agenda. Instead of relying on aesthetic inspiration and the tendency to broaden its agenda, the field requires deeper engagement with core concerns. This can only come through articulation of goals to explicitly reduce the role of firearms in human affairs. The place for such action is less in the United Nations and more through national campaigns, focusing on states, the only bodies that actually own and regulate guns.

Notes

1. David Biggs, ‘United Nations Contributions to the Process’, Disarmament Forum, No.2 (2000), pp.25–26.

2. One of the few authors who tried to arouse interest in small arms transfers before the fall of the Berlin Wall was Michael Klare, American Arms Supermarket (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1984).

3. The latter was especially important, establishing the precedent for international oversight of arms exports and national supervision through export licenses. The Treaty of Peace between the Allied and Associated Powers and Austria; Protocol, Declaration and Special Declaration, signed in St. Germain-en-Laye, 10 September 1919, was ratified by Austria, acknowledging its defeat in the war, but failed to come into effect with other countries. See Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, The Arms Trade with the Third World (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1971), pp.90–132.

4. Jo L. Husbands and Anne Hessing Cahn, ‘The Conventional Arms Transfers Talks: An Experiment in Mutual Arms Restraint’, in Thomas Ohlson (ed.), Arms Transfers Limitations and Third World Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp.110–125; and Keith Krause, ‘Controlling the Arms Trade since 1945’, in Encyclopedia of Arms Control and Disarmament, Vol.II (New York: Scribner's, 1993), pp.1021–1039.

5. The most systematic comparative study is David B. Kopel, The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy: Should America Adopt the Gun Controls of Other Democracies? (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1992). Also see Martin Killias, John van Kesteren and Martin Rindlisbacher, ‘Guns, Violent Crime and Suicide in 21 Countries’, Canadian Journal of Criminology (October 2001), pp.429–447.

6. In the United States, the best-documented country, 44 million new guns were sold to non-military customers from 1899 to 1945. During the years 1946 to 1998, sales more than quadrupled as 203.5 million new non-military guns were sold on its domestic market. Commerce in Firearms in the United States, February 2000 (Washington, DC: Department of the Treasury, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, 2000), pp.A3–A5.

7. The United Kingdom banned private ownership of automatic rifles after the 1987 Hungerford massacre, but crime reports leave no doubt that they are back. ‘Journey of AK47 from War Zone to a Killing in the Shires’, The Times, 27 August 2005.

8. Elli Kytömäki and Valerie Yankey-Wayne, Implementing the United Nations Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons: Analysis of the Reports Submitted by States in 2003 (Geneva: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research and Small Arms Survey, October 2004), pp.48–73, 87–99.

9. Ibid., pp.120–138.

10. Report of the Open-ended Working Group to Negotiate an International Instrument to Enable States to Identify and Trace, in a Timely and Reliable Manner, Illicit Small Arms and Light Weapons, A/60/88 (New York: United Nations, 27 June 2005).

11. Keith Krause, ‘Multilateral Diplomacy, Norm Building and UN Conferences: The Case of Small Arms and Light Weapons’, Global Governance (April–June 2002), pp.247–263.

12. Small Arms: Report of the Secretary-General, S/2005/69 (New York: United Nations, 7 February 2005).

13. Helen Hughes, ‘Small Arms: Monitoring the UN Action Programme’, in Verification Yearbook 2004 (London: Vertic, 2005), pp.131–133.

14. Small Arms Survey 2004 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p.12.

15. Jofi Joseph, ‘The Proliferation Security Initiative: Can Interdiction Stop Proliferation?’ Arms Control Today (June 2004); and Container Security, GAO-03-770 (Washington, DC: US Government Accounting Office, July 2003).

16. Taming the Arsenal: Small Arms and Light Weapons in Bulgaria (London: Saferworld, March 2005); Living with the Legacy: Small Arms and Light Weapons in Republic of Serbia (London: Saferworld, March 2005).

17. The change in priorities can be dated with some precision between two academic conferences. At a workshop on the arms trade at Columbia University in November 1993, small arms issues were barely mentioned. At a similar conference at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in February 1994, they were the dominant topic. The conference papers are collected in Robert E. Harkavy and Stephanie G. Neuman (eds.), ‘The Arms Trade: Problems and Prospects in the Post-Cold War World’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol.535 (September 1994); and Jeffrey Boutwell et al. (eds.), Lethal Commerce (Cambridge, MA: The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1995).

18. Suzette R. Grillot and Molly E. Hanna, ‘Exposing the Small Arms Movement’, unpublished manuscript, 2005; and Aaron Karp, ‘Small Arms and the Revenge of the State’, Contemporary Security Policy (August 2001), pp.121–129.

19. Stefan Brem, ‘Too Much Too Soon? NGOs and Middle Powers in Need for More Coordination on Small Arms Activities’, in Kenneth R. Rutherford et al. (eds.), Reframing the Agenda (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), ch.3.

20. Silvia Cattaneo and Keith Krause, ‘A Voice for Whom: Legitimacy and Advocacy in the International Action Network on Small Arms’, unpublished paper, March 2004.

21. Global Action to Stop Gun Violence: Second Biennial Meeting of States 11–15 July 2005: Report (London: IANSA, 2005), p.5.

22. In a field crowded with overheated rhetoric, a uniquely persuasive examination of the role of art in warfare is Peter Paret, Imagined Battles: Reflections of War in European Art (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1997). On the impact of Guernica, see Gijs Van Hensbergen, Guernica: The Biography of a Twentieth-century Icon (London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2004), and Russell Martin, Picasso's War: The Destruction of Guernica, and the Masterpiece that Changed the World (New York: Dutton, 2002).

23. Denise Chong, The Girl in the Picture: The Story of Kim Phuc, the Photograph, and the Vietnam War (New York: Viking, 2000). The belief that the photo contributed to end of the war is challenged in a widely reproduced essay by Ronald N. Timberlake, ‘The Myth of the Girl in the Photo’ <http://www.warbirdforum.com/vphoto.htm>, November 1997. The role of war photography in general is examined more systematically in Frances Fralin, The Indelible Image: Photographs of War, 1846 to the Present (New York: Abrams, 1985), and Jorge Lewinski, The Camera at War: A History of War Photography from 1848 to the Present Day (London: Allen, 1978).

24. ‘Shooting Gallery: An Introduction to Guns in Contemporary Art’, Small Arms Survey 2005: Weapons at War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp.143–157.

25. Reprinted in Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd, Stil är bedrägeri [Style is Deception] (Värnamo, Sverige: Area, 2004), p.39.

26. Günter Grass, ‘Der Knoten im Revolverlauf’ (Chancelrey Garden speech, 22 August 2005), Günter Grass Stiftung Brmen <http://www.guenter-grass.de> Eckhard Fuhr, ‘Die Gnade der totalen Niederlage’, Die Welt, 23 August 2005.

27. A useful summary of these accusations is Marjorie Ann Browne, The United Nations and ‘Gun Control’ (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 7 April 2005). Also see the allegations by Wayne R. LaPierre in his debate with Rebecca Peters, King's College, London, 12 October 2004. Transcript available at <http://www.iansa.org/action/nra_debate.htm>.

28. One of the most sophisticated articulations of this perspective is David B. Kopel, Paul Gallant and Joanne D. Eisen, ‘Microdisarmament: The Consequences for Public Safety and Human Rights’, University of Missouri at Kansas City Law Review, Vol.73, No.4 (2005), pp.1–45.

29. This refrain was a common theme of national reports to the First Biennial Meeting of States to Consider the Implementation of the United Nations Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects, New York, 7–11 July 2003, available at <http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/databases.htm>.

30. Among the most influential works on political framing are George Lakoff, Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, second edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002); and George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, second edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).

31. Paul Eavis quoted in ‘UN Arms Plan Misses Mark, Anti-gun Network Says’, Reuters, 12 July 2005. Also see Richard Norton-Taylor, ‘UN Arms Trade Deal Toothless, Say Critics’, The Guardian, 14 July 2005. International Small Arms Action 2005 (London: Bite the Bullet, 2005), pp.11, 315.

32. Missing Pieces: Directions for Reducing Gun Violence through the UN Process on Small Arms Control (Geneva: Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, July 2005), pp.9, 118

33. A useful assessment of the latter is Olivia Bosch and Peter van Ham (eds.), Global Non-Proliferation and Counter-Terrorism: The Impact of UNSCR 1540 (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2005).

34. Claire Applegarth, ‘Divisions Foil NPT Review Conference’, Arms Control Today (June 2005).

35. Steve Smith, ‘The Contested Concept of Security’, in Ken Booth (ed.), Critical Security Studies and World Politics (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005), pp.55–58.

36. Mortality in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Results from a Nationwide Survey, Conducted April–June 2004 (New York: International Rescue Committee, December 2004). A similar methodology is applied more rigorously in Les Roberts et al., ‘Mortality Before and After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq: Cluster Sample Survey’, The Lancet, 29 October 2004, pp.1857–1864.

37. The transformation of arms trade studies is a theme of Keith Krause, Arms and the State: Patterns of Military Production and Trade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

38. Notably Missing Pieces: Directions for Reducing Gun Violence through the UN Process on Small Arms Control (Geneva: Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, July 2005).

39. This theme has been developed in the annual stockpiles and transfers chapters of The Small Arms Survey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, annual).

40. Abigail A. Kohn, Shooters: Myths and Realities of America's Gun Cultures (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp.136–139.

41. For an example, see Aaron Karp, ‘Dunblane and the International Politics of Gun Control’, in Stuart Nagel (ed.), Policymaking and Peace (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2003), ch.8.