The Regional Approach to Stockpile Reduction (RASR) initiative encourages nine affected South-east European governments to develop a pro-active, coordinated, regional approach to secure and destroy excess stockpiles. The RASR initiative's aim is to prevent disastrous explosions and misuse of conventional weapons and munitions.

Dynamic Disposal: An Introduction to Mobile and Transportable Industrial Ammunition Demilitarization Equipment compiles unclassified information gathered by the Small Arms Survey at the NATO Support Agency's conference on Mobile Equipments for Ammunition Demilitarization (MEAD) in Capellen, Luxembourg, on 31 May 2012.

Every year, several hundred individuals die or are injured as a result of unplanned explosions involving poorly maintained and badly managed ammunition stockpiles. While it is difficult to provide an accurate measure of the direct and indirect impacts of these explosive events on lives, livelihoods, housing, the environment, and development, the costs and consequences—in terms of health care, direct and indirect income loss, material damage, explosive ordnance disposal (EOD), and environmental damage—are certainly severe.

Aging, excess, and unstable stockpiles of conventional weapons and munitions pose dual threats of illicit proliferation and accidental explosion, which could cause humanitarian disasters and destabilize individual countries or regions as a whole.

Buy and Burn: Factoring Demilitarization into Ammunition Procurement, compiled by the Small Arms Survey in support of the RASR Initiative, aims to increase participating states’ awareness of the future costs they will incur in disposing of the weapons and ammunition that they acquire today.

Many states view surplus weapons and ammunition as ‘money in the bank,’ securing them for future need or future resale. A new Small Arms Survey Special Report for the Regional Approach to Stockpile Reduction (RASR) Initiative—Significant Surpluses: Weapons and Ammunition Stockpiles in South-east Europe—critiques this perspective by assessing Southeast Europe’s (SEE) weapon and ammunition stockpile: its volume, value, and costs to national defence budgets.

South-east European Surplus Arms: State Policies and Practices profiles the policies and procedures put in place by the South-east European countries operating within the RASR Initiative to address their surplus small arms and ammunition. The first section reviews the international and regional political frameworks for addressing surplus and then examines available policy options.