Arms transfers result from economic and political motives, with the latter often dominating the former. While this is accepted knowledge for the post-World War II period, it seems not to apply earlier. Much existing research argues that in the interwar years, weapons were traded as purely commercial goods because governments had neither the ability nor willingness to control and direct arms transfers. We reassess this idea and argue that, while formal control was largely absent, governments could steer weapons shipments nonetheless because arms producers depended on them as main customers, sales agents, and financiers of their export business. Anecdotal evidence suggests that governments actively used this influence. To test whether interwar arms transfers were the result of political or commercial interests, we use newly collected, historical data on the small arms trade and inferential network analysis methods. Our results suggest that although economic drivers existed throughout the interwar period, political considerations were especially influential when international relations were hostile at the start and end of the period. This research contributes to our understanding of international economic relations between the world wars and of the drivers of arms transfers across time.

中文翻译：

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钱第一？国际武器贸易网络的战略和经济利益，1920 年至 1936 年

武器转让是经济和政治动机的结果，而后者往往压倒前者。虽然这是二战后时期公认的知识，但它似乎不适用于更早的时期。许多现有研究认为，在两次世界大战期间，武器作为纯粹的商业商品进行交易，因为政府既没有能力也没有意愿控制和指导武器转让。我们重新评估了这一想法，并认为，虽然基本上缺乏正式控制，但政府仍然可以引导武器运输，因为武器生产商依赖他们作为其出口业务的主要客户、销售代理和融资者。轶事证据表明，政府积极利用了这种影响力。为了检验两次世界大战之间的武器转让是否是政治利益或商业利益的结果，我们使用新收集的小武器贸易历史数据和推理网络分析方法。我们的研究结果表明，尽管经济驱动因素在整个两次世界大战期间都存在，但当国际关系在该时期开始和结束时处于敌对状态时，政治考虑因素尤其有影响力。这项研究有助于我们了解两次世界大战之间的国际经济关系以及不同时期武器转让的驱动因素。