Publications

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BICC brief 3 “Coping with Surplus Weapons: A Priority for Conversion Research and Policy.” Many weapons are decommissioned due to disarmament agreements such as the START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) and the CFE (Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe), the end of violent conflict, which resulted in peace contracts, or due to cuts in defense budgets. Some weapon categories (conventional weapons systems in Europe) experience sharp reductions whereas others, chemical weapons, for instance, are totally decommissioned. It is only in the past few years that the question of ‘what to do with these surplus weapons’ has become a serious problem and has thus turned into a greater challenge for conversion.