The Social Networks of Small Arms Proliferation: Mapping an Aviation Enabled Supply Chain

A complex network of dealers, brokers, financiers, and traffickers continue to funnel large quantities of small arms and ammunition into African conflict-zones despite the presence of United Nations arms embargoes. Weapons are often transported from arms producing countries in Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet States to remote locations in Africa by civil aircraft. This thesis will focus on the process by which weapons are bought and sold and the illicit nexus of arms brokerage and transportation networks that facilitate the deadly trade. This supply chain will be presented as the “anatomy of an arms deal” which can be further described using the statistical tools and measures of social network analysis. Selected case studies of proliferation events into the West African state of Liberia will be used to construct networks that can be compared to the supply chain model and possibly suggest additional points of intervention to halt this deadly trade.