This is the first issue of International Relations that focuses on studies of arms stransfers. This volume will mainly examine current trends of research on arms transfers in Japan.
In recent years, international arms transfers have reflected the structural change in the post-cold war international system. The interactions among various actors become more complex and opaque. The attributes of these interactions can be classified into the following three different forms of arms transfers phenomena.
The first is a divergent dynamics which mostly occurs in the Third World. The divergent phenomenon includes a rapid spread of sophisticated weapon systems, a multiplication of new indigenous weapon producers as well as arms suppliers, and the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and relted high tecnologies.
A second attribute of the interaction tends to prevent sensitive military technologies from diffusion. Convergent interaction is developing in the industrialized nations, which must regulate proliferation of WMD, Nuclear Weapons, and Ballistic Missiles to the Third World. This concentrated direction will formulate an export control regime at the global level.
A third type of interaction is the globalization of multilateral collaboration in industrial activities. The implications of the interdependence in arms productions can be considered to evolve into the transnationalization or multinationalization of arms transfers issue.
The concept of arms transfers is controversial and vague, but should be discussed. Whether to interpret the outline of it in a narrow or broad sense, it will bring the different approaches for analysis, or distinct conclusions may arise from multiple interpretations. The concept also can be used in dual theoretical contexts. First, it is used as a high politics issue area, thus it implies political, security and foreign policy issues. Second, it is possible to describe it as a more practical low politics issue area, with increasing arms trade or arms sales since early 1970s.
Finally, the social functions of arms transfers must be argued. The discussion of this question inevitably involves certain value or normative judgements. It will have dual functions, namely positive eufunctions and negative dysfunctions.

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The European Union launched the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) in 1999, which was constructed within the framework of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The EU learned lessons from the two ethnic conflicts in the Balkan Peninsula in the 1990s and realized that the EU could not play any significant role in post-cold war conflict resolutions without reliable and autonomous military means. This realization was the main incentive for the EU to start ESDP.
Decision-makers in the United States were afraid of the development of an autonomous ESDP because they thought that it would mark the beginning of the decoupling of transatlantic relations and feared that NATO might be marginalized as a consequence.
This article focuses on the consequences of ESDP to see if it might compete with NATO in the foreseeable future and harm transatlantic relations. This was accomplished by comparing the military dimensions of the emerging ESDP with NATO: goals and missions, mechanisms of operational planning and force planning, and procurement policies.
The goals and missions of ESDP are vaguely defined as the “Petersberg missions”: humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping tasks, and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking. There is intentional ambiguity concerning the high end of the tasks, but missions of ESDP surely are far less robust than those of NATO.
The institutions and mechanisms of ESDP's operational planning and force planning are carefully managed within the framework of mutual cooperation with NATO. The so-called “Berlin-plus” arrangement was introduced to avoid unnecessary duplication of the assets and capabilities of both organizations. This arrangement functioned well in ESDP missions in Macedonia (2003) and Bosnia (2004-present). Likewise the EU-NATO Capability Group was established to coordinate and harmonize the EU's military capabilities with those of NATO.
European procurement cooperation is necessary for EU members to improve their military capabilities. The newly established European Defense Agency is expected to smooth the various national obstacles for the common procurement and institutionalize procurement cooperation among EU member states. In order to obtain full interoperability with the U. S., transatlantic procurement cooperation is essential. EU-U. S. procurement cooperation, however, is a delicate issue because the U. S. keeps strict regulations on exporting sensitive technologies, even to its European allies.
Consequently, in military and defense terms, there seems to be no serious danger of ESDP inflicting damage on transatlantic relations and marginalizing NATO. Rather they would reinforce each other and one might say it even constitutes a unique division of labour: the EU would concentrate its abilities on the lower end of crisis management while NATO would be engaged in the higher end of the intervention ladder.
This article takes the position that the sharp political rift of Euro-Atlantic relations after the Iraqi war will not go further. On the contrary, steady and quiet mechanisms for mutual cooperation in military dimensions between ESDP and NATO are being established behind the harsh political battle-ground, and this trend will continue in the near future.

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The United States has consistently pursued missile defense since the end of the Cold War. Although some states, such as Russia, continue to oppose it, the U.S. allies and partners, previously cautious or critical, have largely come to terms with it. Why and how has this change taken place? This paper highlights the importance of a change in the balance between the previously prevalent norm and the counter-norm. Since the rise of the “rogue” threats, “deterrence by punishment,” which as an orthodox norm used to make missile defense highly controversial, has been challenged more than ever by “deterrence by denial” as a counter-norm, with the balance tilting toward the latter. This normative change has contributed to the gradual proliferation of missile defense in the post-Cold War world.

Besides, the United States has tried to make use of the counter-norm to mitigate the concerns of other states on strategic implications of missile defense. In proceeding with its Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) programs with higher priority given to Theater Missile Defense (TMD), the Clinton administration tried to ease other states’ concerns by limiting the application of deterrence by denial strictly to the rogue states, albeit largely in vain. When extending the application to the strategic level, as a response to the growing rogue threats rather than potential competitors such as Russia and China, the following G.W. Bush and Obama administrations reinforced and supplemented the counter-norm with the concepts of a “new strategic framework” and a “new triad,” and later the vision of a nuclear-weapon-free world. Missile defense has come to be expected to contribute to reducing reliance on nuclear weapons or promoting burden sharing between the United States and its allies. Although these efforts to mitigate the concerns have produced little effects on emerging competitors, they have made missile defense more acceptable to the U.S. allies and partners. Each state had each motivation for accepting missile defense, but the counter-norm has helped various expectations of the concerned states converge around it.

As a whole, this paper tries to illuminate a largely overlooked aspect that norms can play important roles in promoting not only the creation of and the compliance with arms control agreements and regimes, but also proliferation of arms. This aspect, though tends to be neglected, is by no means surprising in that states, which want to maintain stable relations with potential competitors, often require normative justification especially for an inherently controversial and provocative means to national security.

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This article traces the US policy toward the Atlantic Alliance since the end of the Cold War. The US has initiated and has led the transformation of NATO in political and military terms in order to adopt it to a changing strategic environment and to make the Alliance serve US interests.
As for military transformation, the US has promoted the enhancement of interoperability with its highly sophisticated forces and to narrow the gap between the US and NATO allies by introducing various initiatives including “Prague Capabilities Commitment, ” as well as “NATO Response Force.”
The successive US Administrations took the lead in the eastward enlargement of the alliance and of launching “out-of-area” crisis response and peace support missions in the Balkans and Afghanistan. NATO is currently training Iraq security forces on the spot and supporting the African Union's mission in Darfur.
Longstanding disagreement in the Alliance between the Atlanticist countries and France and its followers, which attaches importance to developing “autonomous” EU military capabilities, has been a structural problem. The US has been suspicious of the development of the ESDI (European Security and Defence Identity) and ESDP (European Security and Defence Policy). Besides this, the problem between Turkey and Greece has made cooperation between NATO and the EU less easy.
The US war on terror divided the US Allies. Immediately after the 9.11 attacks, NATO invoked its article five of the collective defence clause in order to help the US. However, the US did not use NATO military assets but organized a coalition of the willing, which caused disappointment and concern among its European Allies. In their view, for Americans, NATO is one of the tools and is not important. On Iraq, there were notable differences between the US and the UK on one side, and France and Germany on the other side.
Another example of differences is the “Global Partnerships” initiative. The Global Partnerships was a US initiative which would institutionalize cooperation with Japan, Australia and other democratic countries in order to cope with terrorist threats and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Some countries were concerned about “Global NATO” which might dilute the core mission of collective defence. Finally, it was not institutionalized, but bilateral cooperation with these countries was realized.
Another future difficult agenda for striking out cooperation in NATO will be the US missile defence project in Czech Republic and Poland.
Although there has emerged different positions on various issues in the Alliance, for the US, the NATO will continue to be important since its European Allies and Canada shares the same values and interests. In order to cope with terrorist threats, the US needs allies. However, the military credibility of its peace support operations in relation to terrorist threats will depend on their success in Afghanistan.

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