ABSTRACT
One enduring aspect of the "old" world order that will seriously complicate as well as influence the emergence of the "new" one is the international market for conventional, but often technologically advanced, arms: aircraft, tanks, artillery, surface-to-air missiles, surface-to-surface missiles, and naval ships. In the last years of the 1980s decade and the start of the 1990s, the volume of transactions in the international arms market was between $45 billion and $50 billion annually. It is possible that this enormous volume will decrease in the years to come. The ensuing competition may be further abetted by potential arms importers in the Middle East and elsewhere. In the absence of effective means of stabilizing regional military balances, potential arms buyers in the Middle East and elsewhere may actively seek arms imports from second-tier suppliers to substitute for weapons systems that may become harder to obtain from first-tier suppliers.
