Controlling Munitions Stockpiles: How to Stop the Inadvertent Arming of Insurgencies
| Published date | 01 February 2013 |
| Author | Geoffrey D. Stevens |
| Date | 01 February 2013 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-5899.2012.00189.x |
Controlling Munitions Stockpiles:
How to Stop the Inadvertent Arming
of Insurgencies
Geoffrey D. Stevens
Colonel, US Army
After the fall of the Gadhafi regime in Libya, the fact
that 20,000 highly portable air-defense missiles were left
unsecured and subject to looting for months, came as
little surprise as similar events have unfolded during
recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. The sizeable
stockpile of air-defense missiles in Libya consisted
mainly of older SA-7 and SA-14 shoulder-fired, man-por-
table air-defense weapons (MANPADs), and also included
at least 480 more modern and sophisticated vehicle
mounted SA-24s (Sengupta, 2011; Tigner, 2011). By
December 2011, roughly 5,000 of the missiles were
secured by US and British teams (Shapiro, 2011; Sanders,
2012, p. 6), with the status of some 15,000 still undeter-
mined. Though the older MANPADs, in the hands of a
trained terrorist can bring down commercial airliners,
1
the SA-24s can also effectively target modern military
aircraft.
Equally significant and largely overlooked in post-
Gadhafi Libya is the threat to regional security posed by
the large unguarded stockpiles of less sophisticated
Explosive Remnants of War (ERW) such as landmines,
rockets and artillery projectiles. One need only look to
the protracted Improvised Explosive Device (IED) cam-
paigns that emerged in Afghanistan and Iraq to see the
consequences of large stocks of unsecured military
munitions falling into the hands of would-be insurgents
or terrorists following initial hostilities. This article
explores recent security challenges posed by uncon-
trolled conventional munitions stockpiles in post-conflict
regions and recommends solutions.
Afghanistan
We learned during the early stages of Operation Endur-
ing Freedom that vast quantities of unsecured ERW lay
throughout much of Afghanistan, in addition to the mil-
lions of buried landmines remaining from previous con-
flicts. For logistical and operational reasons, however,
relatively few forces were initially deployed to secure
and destroy the munitions.
2
By the spring of 2002, the Al Qaeda and Taliban forces
that escaped early hostilities reemerged, employing rock-
ets on improvised launch systems, and IEDs constructed
with ERW against coalition forces and the local populace.
The coalition eventually deployed additional Explosive
Ordnance Disposal (EOD) forces, but only after vast
caches of munitions lay unsecured throughout the coun-
try for several months.
While international teams began in 1989 to address
the colossal landmine problem in Afghanistan (Lohr,
1989), they did little to reduce the large abandoned
Soviet stockpiles of munitions that remained. The delays
in controlling or destroying these munitions contributed
significantly to Al Qaeda and Taliban destabilizing
efforts.
Iraq
Sadly, the experience gained in Afghanistan was still too
fresh to be incorporated into preparations for Operation
Iraqi Freedom. Although initial plans addressed the secu-
rity requirements of Saddam’s massive weapons arsenal,
the measures were inadequate, resulting in widespread
failure to control Iraqi conventional munitions stockpiles
(US Government Accountability Office, 2007, p. 7).
The invasion plan focused on speed and surprise
employing a smaller ground force, and assumed that
capitulating Iraqi security forces would be available to
secure munitions storage facilities. However, with the
order to disband the Iraqi army in May of 2003, the
Coalition Provisional Authority invalidated that critical
assumption. The already stretched coalition forces sim-
ply lacked the capacity and thus, left several large
stockpiles of ERW unsecured for months (US Govern-
ment Accountability Office, 2007, pp. 8–9). The US even-
tually paid contractors over US$280 million to dispose
of the remaining munitions in Iraq, but not before
those seeking to threaten security had ample opportu-
nity to pilfer weapons of their choosing (Zahaczewsky,
2006).
Global Policy Volume 4 . Issue 1 . February 2013
ª2013 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2013) 4:1 doi: 10.1111/j.1758-5899.2012.00189.x
Practitioner’s Commentary
118
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