ON THE USE OF TERROR WEAPONS VERSUS MODERN WEAPON SYSTEMS IN AN ARMS RACE BETWEEN DEVELOPED AND LESS DEVELOPED COUNTRIES

Kobi Kagan, Asher Tishler and Avi Weiss

Defence and Peace Economics, 2005, vol. 16, issue 5, 331-346

Abstract: Some of the most active arms races are taking place between developed and less developed countries. The inability of less developed countries to compete financially, as well as technologically, with developed countries may be forcing the former to acquire terror weapons (TWP). The Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and the events of 9/11 proved that the use of TWP is no longer a mere threat; there are several organizations and countries that will not hesitate to use them. This study develops a model of resource allocation in an arms race between a developed country that is characterized by state-of-the-art technology and high GDP, and a less developed country whose technological capability and GDP are much lower. The model is used to predict the optimal mix of weapons of the two countries that are engaged in the arms race. Applying the model to the arms race between Israel and Syria demonstrates its use.

Keywords: Arms race; Defense systems; Weapons of mass destruction; Developing countries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10242690500207316 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:defpea:v:16:y:2005:i:5:p:331-346

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/GDPE20

DOI: 10.1080/10242690500207316

Access Statistics for this article

Defence and Peace Economics is currently edited by Professor Keith Hartley

More articles in Defence and Peace Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().