Many historians locate the origins of the Cold War to diplomatic tensions that occured prior to the end of the Second World War. To speak in very broad terms, this unease arose due to a myriad of ideological differences, oftentimes summed up as being a war between communism (the East) and capitalism (the West). According to the late Cold War scholar Fred Halliday, policies of containment such as the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan by the Western powers, along with the rise of communist parties in numerous eastern European countries and the 1949 Chinese Revolution, set the foundation for a state of open political hostility whose effects are being felt into the present day (Skarstein, 1985). One manifestation of this period of unease was the postwar arms race, more commonly termed the “nuclear arms race”.
(As mentioned before in the “About” page, it should be qualified that the map used in this visualization is based on current geopolitical boundaries and as such completely omits data points for the Soviet Union as well as other countries such as Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and North Vietnam.)
As shown above, the database predominantly contains global transactions that took place in the post-WWII era, barring a few entries from the 1940s. Toggling the filter for “year” on either map in Figure 1 shows that one of the earliest weapons transaction in the SIPRI trade registries database is dated 1943. Rather surprisingly, it records a purchase made by Switzerland from Sweden for 234 units of a piece of artillery described in the database as a “M/40 105mm”, delivered over the years 1950-1953. There is some ambiguity in the name of this weapon. Going by how it is classified in the registry, the “M/40” seems to designate a model known as the “M40 recoilless rifle”, with the “105mm” indicating the size of the internal caliber (and consequently, the diameter of the round it shot). However, this particular model had been manufactured in the US in 1955. Seeking further clarification in the formal .rtf file showed that the comments field for the same entry specifies “Swiss designation 10.5 Hb-46, more delivered before 1950”. Some online searching revealed a model that looked vastly different - the “Haubits m/40” - a type of howitzer manufactured by the Swedish company Bofors during WWII.
Notably, these two countries were among the few who were not officially involved with WWII, although there is much evidence showing that both of them had been involved with providing aid to the Allies. While it is likely common knowledge that Switzerland has remained well-armed despite its more than 200 year of neutrality, it is still a bit strange to see it be among the earliest data points in a registry of global arms transfer. Why did Switzerland need 234 units of this particular howitzer? And why is this the only record that the SIPRI was able to (as of March 22, 2019) find for 1943? What does its inclusion in the database say, knowing that it exists in the context of a lack of data-points for other heavy arms transfer that was most certainly occuring at the time - for example, as part of the Lend-Lease policy? Was this record only made public because it was of a transaction between two neutral states? It is notable that up to 1945, there are only a smattering of other records. In 1940, Brazil ordered naval guns and Battle-class destroyers from the US and UK respectively. In 1945, there were three other transactions. one being a purchase of 18 steam turbines by Spain (also a neutral country), and two others being purchases made by Australia for 2 Battle-class destroyers and 29 bomber aircrafts, all three of which (including the order for Brazil) were delivered in the 50s. On the one hand, it is clear that the SIPRI has different priorities when it comes to the type of data it tracks. Being a think-tank, it is likely to be more focused on contemporary states of affairs; furthermore, the database was intended to be used for the study of trends, and not as much for case-by-case studies.
