Take for example the resolution calling for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. This resolution was voted on the same week as that on regulating arms trade. The four countries which voted against the resolution on nuclear abolition, approved by 168 states, were the DPRK, Equatorial Guinea, India and the United States. What brings this motley crew together? The DPRK was against it because the resolution condemned the recent nuclear test by Pyongyang. Equatorial Guinea might have entirely unrelated motivations for the vote. India was against it because of the call on all remaining non-members to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The U.S. has no interest in total abolition of nuclear weapons.

On the resolution calling for common international standards on arms trade, the U.S. was brazen enough to vote against it. But the idea was not acceptable to many important countries. China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Cuba, Venezuela, Egypt, Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia abstained from the vote. This list of 24 abstainees includes many U.S. adversaries, and they are all big exporters and importers of arms.

The objective of the resolution seems innocuous enough: That there should be agreed standards on the import, export, and transfer of arms. The arms trade takes away scarce resources from poor countries and accentuates conflicts. But these genuine concerns run against some real issues and principles like the right to preserve national sovereignty and self-defense. These rights are enshrined in the U.N. Charter. Anything that undercuts this is not acceptable to a large number of countries. Equally important is the principle of the freedom to trade, arms included within it. Given the concentration of the arms industry in a few countries and the impossibility for every country to achieve self-sufficiency in arms production, the right to import arms is central to many states. There are other views, like India's, which insists that the UN must differentiate between legitimate interstate trade and that involving non-state actors and terrorist organizations. India abstained on the resolution because it does little to curb illegal arms trade.

But in the final analysis, the idea that regulating arms trade or mandating bans on weapons transfers to conflict prone regions is unlikely to work as long as there is war. Multilateral arms control cannot substitute for generating stability and security in key regions. Ultimately, this is the domain of politics and foreign policy.

The U.S. and the U.S.S.R tried to negotiate such restraints during the final years of the detente. Both these approaches failed amidst the competition between different foreign policy interests and the enduring rivalry between Washington and Moscow. Liberals in the U.S. have more recently fought to curb the arms sales at the national level, during the Carter and Clinton Administrations.

The liberal claim that rules backed by sanctions will curb arms trade and create a better world endures despite the repeated failure of this view in the real world. Look now at the European Union, which talks about rules against arms transfers. A number of Western NGOs support the resolution. But while Europe talks of regulating the arms trade, it is also debating lifting its arms embargo against China. When Europe does indeed decide to put "interests" above "values" and decides to strengthen the military capabilities of China, neither India, Japan, and the U.S., nor many South East Asian countries will be amused. Most of these Asian countries will then turn to the U.S. to beef up their own military capabilities.

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