Political Commitment and Signaling in the International Arms Trade

The politics of the international arms trade is a consequential yet undertheorized component of international relations, particularly with respect to our understanding of how individual states make their arms trade partnership decisions. To build upon the existing arms trade literature, this dissertation examines the international political dimensions of state-level arms trade decision-making in the post-Cold War era. Using illustrative cases of major arms acquisition decisions made in Norway, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar, I employ the canonical rationalist bargaining theory framework to resolve certain state-level arms acquisition behavior that is puzzling from a purely economic and national security-based perspective. First, I explore the United States' enduring post-Cold War dominance of the international arms market through the lens of Norway’s 2008 decision to purchase the American F-35 fighter jet over the Swedish JAS 39 Gripen fighter jet in a direct competition between the two aircraft. Next, I examine the tendency of certain states to amass stocks of major weapons in excess of what is required to meet genuine national security needs, as well as the costly and inefficient decision of certain states to purchase operationally redundant major weaponry from multiple international arms suppliers. To resolve instances of what I term major conventional weapons ``abundance” and ``redundancy,” I examine the emergence of these two phenomena in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar in the post-Cold War era. To resolve each of these three puzzles, I both theorize and demonstrate that international political considerations are often decisive in driving state-level arms trade decision-making. Specifically, I demonstrate that states engaged in the international arms trade are often motivated primarily by the need to overcome the significant credible commitment problems inherent to the buying and selling of major weapons, and by their desire to use major arms transfers to send costly and credible signals to outside audiences. When viewed in this political light, I also demonstrate that states often use major arms transfers as a deliberate foreign policy tool to manage international political relationships, which can lead to counterintuitive outcomes. Taken together, these findings shed considerable light on how the contemporary international arms market works, and on the centrality of international political considerations to our understanding of state-level arms trade decision-making. These findings also carry significant lessons and insights for principals in industry, government, and defense.