ABSTRACT
Although US domestic policies are trying to restrict sales of relatively small, "old-tech" weapons at home, it is ironic that US foreign and defense policies are expanding sales of large, "high-tech" weapons abroad. While gun control at home may contribute to improved domestic security, increased foreign sales of advanced weapons create serious hazards for security and stability abroad. As a practical matter, the arms trade cannot be terminated, but it can be selectively controlled. The essence of a practicable control regime is to focus prospective controls on only those weapons whose proliferation would seriously destabilize regional arms balances. Developing such a selective control system would require agreement among the "big five" suppliers—the United States, Russia, China, France, and Britain—to establish a joint "market stabilizing mechanism." The proposed MSM would enforce prohibition against only the sales of specific high-leverage weapons through a system of penalties and rewards that has been developed and described in recent and ongoing work at RAND.
