Arms transfers cover the supply of military weapons through sales, aid, gifts, and those made through manufacturing licenses. Data cover major conventional weapons such as aircraft, armored vehicles, artillery, radar systems, missiles, and ships designed for military use. Excluded are transfers of other military equipment such as small arms and light weapons, trucks, small artillery, ammunition, support equipment, technology transfers, and other services.
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva, Switzerland, 1997. Data collected from the nations concerned, unless otherwise indicated. Acronyms: Amnesty International (AI); European Council of Conscripts Organizations (ECCO); Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC); International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHFHR); National Interreligious Service Board for Conscientious Objectors (NISBCO); Service, Peace and Justice in Latin America (SERPAJ); War Resisters International (WRI); World Council of Churches (WCC)
Military expenditures data from SIPRI are derived from the NATO definition, which includes all current and capital expenditures on the armed forces, including peacekeeping forces; defense ministries and other government agencies engaged in defense projects; paramilitary forces, if these are judged to be trained and equipped for military operations; and military space activities. Such expenditures include military and civil personnel, including retirement pensions of military personnel and social services for personnel; operation and maintenance; procurement; military research and development; and military aid (in the military expenditures of the donor country). Excluded are civil defense and current expenditures for previous military activities, such as for veterans' benefits, demobilization, conversion, and destruction of weapons. This definition cannot be applied for all countries, however, since that would require much more detailed information than is available about what is included in military budgets and off-budget military expenditure items. (For example, military budgets might or might not cover civil defense, reserves and auxiliary forces, police and paramilitary forces, dual-purpose forces such as military and civilian police, military grants in kind, pensions for military personnel, and social security contributions paid by one part of government to another.)
The number of draft-age males and females entering the military manpower pool in any given year and is a measure of the availability of draft-age young adults.
Armed forces personnel are active duty military personnel, including paramilitary forces if the training, organization, equipment, and control suggest they may be used to support or replace regular military forces.
Armed forces personnel are active duty military personnel, including paramilitary forces if the training, organization, equipment, and control suggest they may be used to support or replace regular military forces. Labor force comprises all people who meet the International Labour Organization's definition of the economically active population.
There is no evidence to suggest that Baku possesses or is pursuing biological weapons capabilities. Under a June 2005 Nunn-Lugar biological threat reduction agreement between Azerbaijan and the United States, Baku and Washington will work together to improve security and safety at the Azerbaijan central pathogen health laboratory and at the Baku Anti-Plague Station. In September 2005, 124 samples of 62 unique strains of causative agents of plague, anthrax, cholera, and other dangerous diseases were transported from Baku to the U.S. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, DC, where the strains will be studied jointly by U.S. Department of Defense and Azerbaijan medical researchers. The strains had been collected over many years from environmental, human, and animal sources in Azerbaijan and will be used to identify pathogens in possible future outbreaks. Azerbaijan acceded to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention in February 2004.
Although some intelligence estimates suggest that India possesses biological weapons, there is very limited open-source information available about a possible Indian biological weapon program. India has defensive biological weapon capabilities and has conducted research on countering various diseases, including plague, brucellosis, and smallpox. India also has an extensive and advanced pharmaceutical industry and is therefore technically capable of developing biological weapons. India ratified the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention (BWC) in 1974.
DEFINITION:
A description of the nation's situation with regards to the possession and manufacture of biological weapons of mass destruction
Azerbaijan is a founding member of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention. There is no evidence to suggest that Baku is pursuing a chemical weapons capability
After many years of denying the existence of a chemical weapon program, India disclosed in June 1997 that it possessed chemical weapons. Few details are publicly available concerning Indian chemical weapon stockpiles, although Chinese researchers suggest that India possesses 1,000 tons of chemical weapon agents, mostly mustard agent, located at five chemical weapon production and storage facilities. Under the terms of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which India signed in 1993 and ratified in September 1996, India must destroy 45 percent of its stockpile by 2004 and the remaining stockpile by 2007.
DEFINITION:
A description of the nation's situation with regards to the possession and manufacture of chemical weapons of mass destruction
The Russian Gabala Radar Station, also known as Lyaki, continues to operate as an early warning system to detect missiles launched towards the former USSR from the south. The site does not officially have the status of a Russian military facility, but continues to be operated by Russian military personnel.
For almost two decades, India has sought to develop and deploy ballistic and other missiles. User trials of the Prithvi-1 (150 km-range) and Prithvi-2 (250 km-range) ballistic missiles have been completed; both variants have been "inducted" into the Indian Army and Air Force respectively. India's Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) announced in September 2002 that the naval variant of the Prithvi (Dhanush) has completed sea trials and is ready for "induction." Five tests of different versions of the intermediate-range Agni ballistic missile were conducted between May 1989 and January 2001. Limited series production of the Agni-TD-I (1,500 km-range) and Agni-II (2,000-2,500 km-range) has commenced, and the Indian Army is raising a missile group to take possession of the missiles. In January 2003, DRDO conducted a second test of the single-stage, solid-fuel, 700-800 km-range version of the Agni. This new missile has been dubbed the Agni-1; it will be the likely successor to the Prithvi-series, which will henceforth be used in a battlefield support role. India reportedly will test a 3,500-4,000 km-range variant of the Agni (Agni-III) by the end of 2003. 'Development flight-trials' of the supersonic cruise missile BrahMos/PJ-10, which India is co-developing with Russian assistance, are likely to continue through 2003, with serial production expected to begin in 2004. However, India's sea-launched ballistic missile, Sagarika, is not expected to become operational before 2010. India is not a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR); in November 2002, it rejected a draft of the International Code of Conduct (ICOC) on ballistic missile proliferation on grounds that it is discriminatory and interferes with the peaceful uses of space technology.
DEFINITION:
A description of the nation's situation with regards to the possession and manufacture of missile weapons of mass destruction
There are no known nuclear reactors, research facilities, or uranium mines on the territory of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan does possess a low-level radioactive waste storage facility, Izotop Industrial Complex, and several former Soviet military sites allegedly contaminated with radioactive substances during the Soviet era. See Radioactive Waste in Azerbaijan for more information. Azerbaijan is party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has an Additional Protocol with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
India embarked on a nuclear power program in 1958 and a nuclear explosives program in 1968. Following a test of a nuclear device in May 1974, and five additional nuclear weapon-related tests in May 1998, India formally declared itself a nuclear weapon state. New Delhi's stock of weapons-grade plutonium is estimated to be between 240-395kg, which depending on the sophistication of the warhead design, could be used to manufacture 40-90 simple fission weapons. According to Indian government sources, India is capable of building a range of nuclear weapon systems ranging from "…low yields to 200 kilotons, involving fission, boosted-fission, and two-stage thermonuclear designs." India is not a member of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
DEFINITION:
A description of the nation's situation with regards to the possession and manufacture of nuclear weapons
No weapons of mass destruction or related delivery systems were located on the territory of Azerbaijan--a nation with a Turkic and majority-Muslim population--when it regained its independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In spite of a long-standing conflict with neighboring Christian Armenia over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, Azerbaijan has not sought to develop WMD capabilities and is a signatory of a number of international accords, including the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), and the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC).
India regards its nuclear and long-range power projection programs as instruments for maintaining strategic stability in the Asia-Pacific region. These capabilities support New Delhi's claims to great power status, while also demonstrating that India's technical prowess is equal to that of developed countries'. Meanwhile, India continues to reject the existing nuclear nonproliferation regime on the grounds that it perpetuates an unjust distinction between a small group of states that are allowed nuclear weapons, and the rest of the world's states that are denied this right. India has also been highly critical of the nuclear weapon states' failure to meet their nuclear disarmament commitments.
DEFINITION:
An overview of the nation's situation with regards to the possession and manufacture of weapons of mass destruction