![]() Patrick Brogan in World Conflicts (The Scarecrow Press, 1998), reports that between 20 and 30 million deaths have occurred in the 85 wars since 1945. They are today's real weapons of mass destruction. These weapons have fueled dozens of intrastate and local conflicts around the globe - killing, injuring, and displacing millions of people, primarily women and children, from Albania to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the same time, the proliferation and criminal misuse of small arms and light weapons are posing increasing threats to national and regional security. The change in the international security landscape from a few episodic large-scale interstate wars to frequent small-scale intrastate conflicts has occurred at a time when international norms, export control regimes, and treaties to control or eliminate weapons of mass destruction are making substantial progress. Since the end of the Cold War, interest has turned to small arms and light weapons primarily as a result of the dramatic increase in the number, duration, and destructiveness of intrastate conflicts, many of which called for costly U.N. Why the Recent Increased Interest in Small Arms and Light Weapons? Register of Conventional Arms, and are thus an intermediary category between "small arms" and "major weapons."Ĭompared to complex major weapon systems, small arms and light weapons are more widely produced and available, relatively easy to conceal, and require little maintenance, logistic support, and training to operate. Light weapons fall just below the seven categories of large weapons reported to the U.N. A typical list of light weapons could also include heavy machine-guns, hand-held under-barrel and mounted grenade launchers, man-portable air defense systems (such as shoulder-fired anti-aircraft guns and missiles), anti-tank guns and recoilless rifles, portable anti-tank and rocket launcher systems, and mortars of caliber below 100 mm. They include some man-portable firearms and their ammunition, light artillery guns and rockets, and guided missiles for use against armored vehicles, aircraft, or fortifications. Light weapons are usually heavier and larger than small arms and designed to be employed by a small team or crew of infantry personnel. ![]() Not included in this list are hunting rifles, civilian handguns, and weapons considered as collector's items such as museum pieces and other weapons preserved for historical purposes. A typical list of small arms includes self-loading pistols, rifles and carbines, sub-machine-guns, assault rifles, and light machine-guns. While there is no universally accepted definition of small arms, the term is commonly viewed as encompassing man-portable firearms and their ammunition primarily designed for individual use by military forces as lethal weapons. The issue of controlling anti-personnel landmines has followed a separate course and is not dealt with here.īroadly speaking, small arms and light weapons include a wide variety of lethal instruments, from handguns to man-portable air defense systems. This article surveys recent efforts to examine the issues and to develop and establish appropriate and effective international controls over small arms and light weapons. These weapons are small arms and light weapons (SA/LW), such as landmines, assault rifles (like the AK-47), and machine guns. Since the United Nations Secretary-General issued a supplement to his 1995 Agenda for Peace on the subject (January 1995), increasing attention has been given to the weapons that are actually producing the horrors witnessed in Africa, the Balkans, and other parts of the world. ![]() Most arms control efforts since World War II have been devoted to nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction or to heavy conventional weapons. You are in: Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security > Bureau of Political-Military Affairs > Bureau of Political-Military Affairs Releases > Bureau of Political-Military Affairs Fact Sheets > 2001 Fact Sheetīackground Paper: Can Small Arms and Light Weapons Be Controlled?
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