Capabilities and Capacities: A Survey of South-east Europe’s Demilitarization Infrastructure (Special Report 15)

Aging, excess, and unstable stockpiles of conventional weapons and munitions pose dual threats of illicit proliferation and accidental explosion, which could cause humanitarian disasters and destabilize individual countries or regions as a whole.

The Regional Approach to Stockpile Reduction (RASR) is a long-term, coordinated, regional approach to address the threats posed by excess, unstable, loosely secured or otherwise at-risk stockpiles of conventional weapons and munitions in South-east Europe. RASR's ultimate goal is to contribute to regional security by working to prevent disastrous explosions and destabilizing diversions of stockpiled conventional weapons and ammunition.

In support of the 5th RASR Workshop this week in Durrës, Albania, the Small Arms Survey is releasing two new publications:

• The Special Report Capabilities and Capacities: A Survey of South-east Europe’s Demilitarization Infrastructure provides regional physical security and stockpile management (PSSM) stakeholders with a clear, concise, and comparative overview of South-east European capabilities and capacities for the demilitarization of surplus weapons and ammunition.
• An Issue Brief, Buy and Burn: Factoring Demilitarization into Ammunition Procurement, aims to increase participating states’ awareness of the future costs they will incur in disposing of the weapons and ammunition that they acquire today. It also profiles the options for reducing demilitarization costs in the future—including offsetting disposal costs in the purchase price and ‘design for demil’ technologies—and the impact this is likely to have on states’ retention of surpluses in the future.

Both of these reports are jointly published by RASR, the US Department of State's Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement, and the Small Arms Survey.

Available in ENGLISH

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