German arms manufacturer, Rheinmetall, prominently announces on its website that it is taking responsibility for a changing world. Shaking towards Zeitenwende (“a period of historical change”) in German politics after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, this “changing country” represents a major change in Germany’s traditionally restrained military posture. Just three days after the attack, the chancellor announced an investment fund of 100 billion euros to rebuild and modernize the German armed forces. This new situation has resulted in an official partnership between Rheinmetall and the professional soccer team Borussia Dortmund, a partnership that would have seemed unthinkable in Germany a few years ago.
Although the spirit of the current world order may be changing, the claim of “accountability” as a weapons manufacturer is a provocative declaration. What does ‘responsibility’ mean for companies that manufacture products whose purpose is to harm? Although not an entirely new question, especially among activist circles, this topic has been surprisingly underexplored in scholarly discourse. As a first step to address this gap, a group of researchers and practitioners specializing in the fields of international relations, sociology, economics and history recently gathered at the University of Bayreuth in Germany for a workshop entitled, (Dis)responsibility to arm: An interdisciplinary workshop on the responsibilities of (European) arms companies.. From our productive discussions, I came away with three key takeaways:
First, everything has changed and nothing has changed. The promise of freedom that accompanied the end of the Cold War is said to have ushered in a “golden age” of arms control. That included the (re)innovation of humanitarian arms control (HAC) norms that went up and other rights-based structures that seemed to be considered corporate social responsibility in the 1990s. As many security agreements concluded in the years following the end of the Cold War expire today, however, the structure governing global arms control, on the other hand, has changed significantly. On the other hand, Western states and arms companies have continued to authorize and export weapons to countries where there is a clear risk that they will be used for serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, casting doubt on the HAC’s initial ability to operate. as an active regulatory force.
At the level of arms control that has been written about, this account of recent history shows the tectonic plates that rumble under the liberal governing order today. For the HAC in particular, however, the evidence suggests that any commitment to a value-based arms control policy has become a matter of symbolic politics. Indeed, if we examine the Western world and corporate arms transfers as a continuation that preceded and succeeded the end of the Cold War, it is not clear that the “golden age” of arms control translated into responsible arms exports (normal) behavior. It may even help facilitate exports.
Such developments from within the Western arms production and transfer system challenge the liberal proposition that Western arms suppliers are *better* than competing suppliers in countries like China, Russia or Iran. Rather than a civilizational distinction that separates the human restraints of liberal democracies from the pure interests of non-democracies, political economy remains elusive.
At the same time, the world order is changing. Even if the general shift towards ‘responsible’ arms sales in the last few decades has been more of a debate than an asset, the world from many places will reshape the expectations of corporate actors and states involved in the arms trade. Especially given the ways in which the post-Cold War HAC focused on regulating North-South relations, these changes force a complex, data-driven and historically relevant approach to understanding responsibility in the (Western) system of production and transfer of arms. tomorrow.
Second, despite the great attention given to bringing control and commitment to the global arms trade in recent years, most of the scholarship has been directed at states as industry regulators, not at companies as producers, and co-facilitators, of the trade. This lack of academic research stands in stark contrast to NGO and activist campaigns challenging the arms trade, which, although not without its shortcomings, has been tracking and calling out both states. again companies in recent years and generations.
Why have scholars ignored the responsibilities of weapons manufacturers? More prominently, there is the claim that industry is special as a (military) instrument of national sovereignty. Closely related, national security reasons – coupled with economic and diplomatic priorities, and corporate confidentiality clauses – open the sector to secrecy, which prevents public access to information. Finally, given that the state acts as an industry regulator and director of arms exports, responsibilities are often directed at the state, where arms companies are considered ‘mere’ producers despite the active cooperation that often exists between the state and industry.
Aside from national security reasons, few of these arguments are unique to the arms sector. Secrecy keeps other sectors secret, and many different companies exaggerate private company strategies to escape liability demands. Yet even in the face of national security claims, the ‘unique’ concept begins to explain how arms companies have managed to escape scrutiny, not why academics have left the industry unscrutinised.
Given what is known about the arms industry and its long history, the answer to this question seems to be more political than intellectual. That does not mean that objective research is not warranted in this case, on the contrary. There is a serious lack of (academic) scholarship aimed at situating arms manufacturers within their historical and international contexts, particularly in the post-World War II era. But acknowledging the political roots of the scholarship gap, and the struggle of activists to advance it in the world of work, it may be that the strategy guiding that and the research being done on the arms trade needs to change. Which leads me to my third and final take on the limitations of exposing hypocrisy.
Except that Israel failed to meet any of the criteria set forth by the Biden Administration on October 13th letter calling for an improvement in the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, has had no effect on the continued supply of US weapons. While the UK has recently suspended some weapons export licenses to Israel, it is keeping the F-35 variant, and Germany has shown no signs of stopping its military aid.
These states have justified their authority in part by asserting their adherence to the principles of liberal democracy, mainly by seeking legitimacy derived from the consent of rulers. Although the secrecy and corruption associated with the transfer of arms reduces the strength of this social contract, the extensive regulations imposed to supervise the export of arms to these countries are evidence that the concern is to be seen as legitimate in this matter. Arms companies, therefore, rely on national security claims and the general leadership of the state to position themselves as honest actors, all the while deflecting their political responsibility by retreating into ‘just business’ when they are caught violating social norms.
Scholars have noted the systematic hypocrisy that often guides Western governments in their values-based arms control policies, with security and economic interests often overriding moral obligations despite rhetoric to the contrary. However, the blatant disregard for legitimacy and consistency in relation to Israel’s actions in Gaza breaks new ground, contributing to the pursuit of accountability in this sector. In particular, it means that the traditional “name and shame” strategy of exposing the ‘truth’ of state and corporate hypocrisy is no longer – or perhaps never – sufficient. Especially in the context of rising arms in a volatile global issue, where free countries and their corporate partners may find it easier to rely on national security arguments to justify deviations from their moral and legal boundaries, new research and activist strategies may need to be developed that provoke not just exposure but revelation. That is, if state and corporate power is ultimately wrong in making decisions to export weapons without significant and often brutal consequences for the working (Palestinian) people, simply exposing more hypocrisy may lead to little, or only symbolic, change.
Instead, or rather, how can research challenge the assumption that exists in many Western arms-producing societies that: a) arms manufacturers, states and the national community underwriting arms production and trade are somehow legally and morally isolated from the use of the product even when the harmful effects of the use of the product are well known in advance; and b) what was happening in Gaza was somehow acceptable. While the latter is beyond the scope of this article, an entry point to the former may be the task of exposing and debunking the underlying myths that underpin the arms trade itself. In order to foster an informed public debate, this requires a rigorous research agenda that investigates how contemporary shifts in power and norms shape state behavior, business practice and their delayed interactions in the justifiable claims and critical realities fueling the arms trade.
I am grateful to the participants of the (Dis)Arming Workshop for their productive insights and to B. Arneson for his helpful comments.
Further Studies in E-International Relations
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