@article{THESIS,
      recid = {5965},
      author = {Flanagan, Siobhan},
      title = {“Finders Keepers”: Weapons Leakage from US Military  Foreign Security Assistance},
      publisher = {University of Chicago},
      school = {M.A.},
      address = {2023-06},
      number = {THESIS},
      abstract = {In this paper I study the question: under what conditions  and through which mechanisms does United States military  foreign security assistance (mFSA) during active conflicts  lead to weapons leakage to insurgent and terrorist groups?  To answer this question, I formulate an explanatory theory  of weapons leakage, or the unintended proliferation of  weapons meant for mFSA, and complete three case studies as  a plausibility probe of the proposed theory. These cases  include Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion (1979-1989),  Afghanistan during the Global War on Terror (2001-2021),  Iraq since 2003, and the war in Ukraine (2022...). I  conclude that weapons leakage to insurgent and terrorist  groups during active conflicts is most likely to occur  under the condition of a "fragmented US proxy war," which  contains six potential mechanisms that facilitate weapons  leakage: lack of intelligence on the actors receiving mFSA,  lack of direct control over mFSA weapons provided, lack of  reliable weapons-tracking post FSA, reliance on unstable  foreign governments, poor oversight and unreliable weapons  tracking systems, and corruption resulting from  counterinsurgency and counter-terrorism efforts. },
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/5965},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.5965},
}