Arms modernization in Asia: an emerging complex arms race

Abstract

�Asia is rushing to arm itself as never before� (Sikes 1990); �Southeast Asian countries have recently gone on a military spending spree� (Clad and Marshall 1992); the People�s Republic of China is also now engaged in an �arms buying spree� (Tai Ming Cheung 1992); �Asia�s armories are bulging � conventional arms abound, and more are flooding in� (Economist, 20 February 1993, 19); and there is a �new Asian arms race� underway which �bodes ill for a region already racked by ancient animosities and border disputes� (Clad and Marshall 1992). These quotations from press reports in the early 1990s reflect the concerns that were widespread among strategic analysts at that time regarding the sustained build-up of modern conventional weapons systems in Asia, which had been underway since the mid-1980s. I argued then that it was misleading to characterize the robust weapons acquisition programmes as an �arms race�, but that they could be better explained in terms of defence modernization and the new requirements for defence self-reliance in the region (and especially the maritime dimension) (Ball 1993�94).