German arms producer Rheinmetall prominently declares on its website: Fulfilling responsibility in a changing world. gesture towards Zeitenbende (“Historical turning point”) This “changing world” in German politics following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marks a dramatic change in Germany’s traditionally restrained military stance. Just three days after the invasion, the chancellor announced a €100 billion investment fund to rebuild and modernize the German army. This new environment also makes possible an official partnership between Rheinmetall and a professional soccer team. Borussia DortmundThis was a collaboration that would have been unthinkable in Germany just a few years ago.
While the winds of the modern world order are indeed changing, the claim that we are “taking responsibility” as a weapons manufacturer is a provocative statement. What does ‘responsibility’ mean for companies that manufacture products whose essential purpose is to cause harm? Although not an entirely new question, this topic has been surprisingly underrepresented in academic discourse, especially within activist circles. As a first step toward bridging this gap, a group of critically oriented researchers and practitioners across the fields of international relations, sociology, economics, and history recently gathered at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, for a workshop entitled: () Disarmament Responsibility: Interdisciplinary Workshop on Responsibility of (European) Arms Companies. From our productive discussions, I took away three key takeaways.
First, everything has changed and nothing has changed. The liberal promises that came with the end of the Cold War are said to have ushered in a ‘golden age’ of arms control. These included: (Re)vitality Humanitarian arms control (HAC) norms rose to prominence in the 1990s alongside ostensibly rights-based frameworks such as corporate social responsibility. In the years since the end of the Cold War, a number of security agreements have been signed. no longer exists But today, the architecture that governs global arms control has, on the one hand, changed dramatically. On the other hand, Western countries and arms companies have continued to approve and export weapons to countries where there is a clear risk that they will be used to commit serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, calling into question the viability of HAC’s original weapons. It acts as an effective regulatory force.
At the level of arms control, this account of recent history reflects the tectonic plates churning under today’s liberal governing order. However, with regard to HAC more specifically, there is evidence that the professed commitment to values-based arms control policy has been primarily a matter of: symbolic politics. If you actually look at arms transfers from Western countries and corporations, exists along a continuum It is not clear whether the “golden age” of arms control that preceded and succeeded the end of the Cold War translated into more responsible (conventional) arms export behavior. It might even be so. Helps promote export.
These continuities within the Western arms production and transfer system challenge the liberal proposition that Western arms suppliers are qualitatively *better* than competing suppliers from countries such as China, Russia, and Iran. than distinction of civilization What is consistently positive about separating the humanitarian constraints of liberal democracy from the pure self-interest of non-democratic others is that political economy.
At the same time, the global order is also changing. Even if the normative shift towards ‘responsible’ arms exports over the past few decades has been more discursive than material, emerging arms exports multipolar world It will reshape expectations of corporate actors and states participating in the arms trade. Especially given the way HAC has focused on control since the Cold War. Inter-Korean Relations GovernanceThese changes force a more complex, data-driven, and historically coordinated approach to understanding the responsibilities of future (Western) weapons production and transfer systems.
Second, despite considerable attention over the years to imposing control and accountability on the global arms trade, most scholarship has been directed toward states as regulators of the arms industry, and not toward corporations as producers and co-facilitators. of trade. The absence of academic research stands in stark contrast to NGO and activist campaigns challenging the arms trade. disadvantageWe have been tracking and calling both states. and company recent years and across generations.
Why haven’t scholars paid attention to the responsibilities of weapons manufacturers? What stands out most is the claim that the industry: exceptional As a (militarized) instrument of national sovereignty. Closely related national security justifications, along with economic and diplomatic priorities and corporate confidentiality provisions, trap the sector in secrecy and impede public access to information. Finally, given that the state acts as a regulator of the industry and overseer of arms exports, responsibility generally lies with the state and arms companies are categorized as ‘mere’ producers. active partnership This often exists between countries and industries.
Despite the national security rationale, few of these claims are specific to the weapons sector. Secrecy shrouds other privileged sectors in secrecy, and various corporations strategically exaggerate the public-private dichotomy to avoid demands for accountability. But national security claims notwithstanding, the logic of ‘exceptionalism’ only begins to explain how arms companies have been able to avoid scrutiny, and does not explain why scholars have underestimated the weapons industry.
Given what is already known about the arms industry and its long history, the answer to this question seems to be more political than intellectual. This does not mean that targeted research is not warranted in this case, quite the opposite. There is a significant lack of (academic) scholarship aimed at critically situating arms manufacturers in historical and transnational contexts, especially in the post-World War II era. However, acknowledging the political roots of the scholarship gap, along with the struggle of activist campaigns to make progress in the world of practice, the strategies that dictate what and how research on the arms trade is conducted may need to change. This leads to the third and final implication about the limits of exposing hypocrisy.
Despite Israel failing to meet any of the criteria laid out on Oct. 13 by the Biden administration.Day A letter calling for improvement in the humanitarian crisis in Gaza; there were no results For the continued supply of American weapons. Britain recently suspended some arms export licenses to Israel. F-35 exceptionand Germany showed no signs This means we will stop military support.
These states justified their authority in part by adhering to liberal democratic values and, in particular, by asserting legitimacy derived from the consent of the governed. secret and endemic corruption The measures that accompany arms transfers reduce the strength of this social contract, and the extensive regulations put in place to supervise arms exports from these countries evidence the states’ concerns about being perceived as legitimate in this matter. Arms companies then rely on national security claims and the normative leadership of the state to position themselves as ethical actors, while avoiding political responsibility by retreating to being ‘just a company’ when caught violating social norms.
Scholars paid attention to the following: organized hypocrisy This tends to drive the values-based arms control policies of Western powers, where security and economic interests often take precedence over ethical commitments, despite statements to the contrary. But the explicit abandonment of concerns about the legitimacy and consistency of Israel’s actions in Gaza breaks new ground with implications for the pursuit of accountability in that area. In particular, this means that traditional ‘naming and shaming’ tactics of exposing the ‘truth’ of state and corporate hypocrisy are no longer, or will never be, sufficient. New research and activist strategies may be needed in the context of increasing armaments, especially in a changing world order where it may be easier for liberal states and their corporate partners to rely on national security discourses to justify deviations from their own moral and legal boundaries. . Not only exposure revelation. In other words, if the power of the state and corporations ultimately determines the decision to export weapons, Significantly noticeable and brutal recurrence Having consequences for the affected (Palestinian) population and simply exposing more hypocrisy may lead to little or symbolic reforms.
Instead, or rather simultaneously, how can research challenge widespread assumptions in many weapons-producing Western societies? a) Weapons manufacturers, states and national publics responsible for arms production and trade can be legally and morally dissociated from the use of their products, even when there are harmful effects. The directions for using the product are mostly known in advance. and b) what is happening in Gaza is somewhat acceptable. The latter is well beyond the scope of this article, but the entry point for the former is fundamental myth It’s about sustaining the arms trade itself. To foster a more informed public debate, there is a strong research agenda that examines how current changes in power and norms are shaping state behavior, corporate practices, and the intertwined interplay of justification claims and material realities that fuel the arms trade. You need it.
We thank the (Dis)Arming Responsibility workshop participants for generative insights and B. Arneson for helpful comments.
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