War Profiteers

Interview: Why is the military industry a climate problem and what can be done to solve it?

Andrew — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 12:01:00 +0000

Liverpool dockyard. Image credit: Andrew Hall/Unsplash

19 Dec 2024

Author(s)

Andrew Metheven

Translated by

Natalia García (ES)

In December 2024, WRI staff member Andrew Metheven met with Khem Rogaly, a Senior Research Fellow at Common Wealth, a think tank that sets out to “reimagine ownership to repair past harms and secure a future of sustainable and shared prosperity”.

Khem has recently published a new report titled A Lucas Plan for the Twenty First Century, which sets out to understand how the UK could transition from military to civilian production. To do so, Khem interviewed trade unionists to understand how they see their role in the industry, and how they think such a transition could occur.

Andrew Metheven: To start with, it would be helpful to understand how you see the relationship between military spending and the climate crisis? Aren’t they two separate things?

Khem Rogaly: Military spending is a climate problem, and a massive, multi-layered climate problem. We can understand that in several ways.

Firstly, military spending means spending on military operations, infrastructure, and maintenance of military capacity, by a state. That has an emissions impact. Globally, the military sector is responsible for about 5.5% of emissions. If you take the UK for example, its military sector is responsible for more emissions that 60 countries. The emissions from not just maintaining the capacity to fight a war, but in the UK’s case – because its a large military spender, the 6th highest in the world – to intervene globally, has a big emissions impact.

About half of those emissions come from private industry, in the production of weapons for the British military. The other half comes from energy use, primarily fighter jets and warships. I’d really emphasise that fighter jets are an essential part of that, because they are burning jet fuel at a high altitude, which has a cumulative climate impact.

But that’s only maintaining military infrastructure – the second layer is fighting a war. The environmental and ecological impact of that is obvious too. We can see the most obvious example of that in Gaza now. The term “ecocide” was invented to refer to the American war in Vietnam, and the particular strategy that the American military took, to destroy the relationship of a people to their land. The same tactic is being used by Israel in Gaza, and has been done historically by the Israeli military, but they have accelerated the process since October 2023.

And the final aspect, beyond the ecological destruction that is both inherent to war and has now been adopted as a modern military tactic, is cold war. And I think the best way to frame this is that “cold war is a hot problem”. Basically because, you have geo-political competition – currently led by competition between the US and China – which results in greater military spending and the buildup of the military infrastructure which we’ve already discussed has an emissions impact.

In addition to this, there is economic warfare, and when we’re in a moment of climate crisis and the global economy needs to be decarbonised rapidly, and in a coordinated manner, that is another climate problem. Because what you have are decisions, like those taken by the Biden administration, to put tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles – a policy made to prioritise the interests of the American automotive industry over decarbonisation. To rapidly decarbonise the highest emitting sector in the US economy, you would need to expand public transportation, but you would also need to replace a lot of conventional vehicles with electric vehicles, and the country that is leading the manufacture of these vehicles is China. So there we can see that Cold War style competition is getting in the way of how US policy tackles the climate crisis.

AM: You’ve recently published a report called “A Lucas Plan for the Twenty First Century” - could you summarise what your new report outlines?

KR: The Lucas Plan was a proposal by trade unionists at a military company called Lucas Aerospace, which they published in 1976 to demonstrate that it was possible to convert production from military aircraft components to 150 different civilian products. The plan was extremely innovative, because within that set of products they were looking at converting production from aircraft parts to wind turbines and solar cells. So even in the mid-1970s they were aware of the ecological costs of industrial production and were designing early renewable technologies. It was innovative in another sense because they argued that they should be able to oversee the transition process. They felt, as the people undertaking production and doing the work they were best placed to understand what the transition would look like.

The other point that is important to make about the Lucas Plan is that its often held up as this single example, but really it was part of a long tradition of trade union organising within the military industries in the UK, Europe and US, which stretches back to the wake of the First World War. For example, in Barrow in Britain – at the shipyard that now builds nuclear submarines but previously made conventional warships – trade unionists came up with an alternative plan for a shift to civilian production in response to the devastation of the First World War. This agenda had another huge political resurgence in the wake of the Second World War.

So my report takes a degree of inspiration from the Lucas Plan and aims to explore how that transition could be feasible in today’s military industry in the UK. To do that I spoke to 21 workers within the UK military industry, and interviewed them about their experience of work and the feasibility of a transition.

There are three key takeaways I want to highlight.

1. The UK has maintained a much higher level of military spending than most European countries consistently over the past decades. The justification that’s often given to maintain a high level of military spending is that it’s necessary from an economic perspective, because there are communities across the country who are reliant on military production for good quality manufacturing jobs, and the wider economic benefits that are brought to their local communities from those jobs. My report shows that more than half of these jobs have been lost since 1980, that many of my interviewees had experienced highly insecure work, with hundreds of people fired on the same day. Even up to the present I heard about how a site was going to be relocating imminently, with the threat of redundancies. My interviewee there wished that there had been a transition because contracts with the Ministry of Defence can be highly variable.

2. On the feasibility point: what the interviewees showed, through their experiences, is that a transition is eminently possible. That was particularly stark in the naval shipbuilding sector, where I found four of the UK’s naval shipyards are already undertaking work in offshore renewables supply chains. There are close adjacencies between the skills needed to work on wind turbines, but also to fit out underground trains and to work on the production of public transport infrastructure. Interviewees spoke of the idea of the transition as if it were something normal and their companies would do take on civilian work when they deemed it beneficial. So it's feasible from a technological stand point.

3. For all of this to be possible it would require a reordering of state priorities, away from the level of military spending that we have at the moment. The reason for that is that moving production into a civilian market means you need to demonstrate that there is sustained market for the new products, so that jobs are secure. It was very clear from the interviewees, that they felt that there would have to be a reallocation of public investment towards civilian procurement in order to make that happen.

AM: In the report you’ve made it clear that “the UK’s military industries are viable only because of constant public investment”, and that resources should be redirected towards green industries, but in our current political climate the idea of a politician coming out and saying “we should cut military spending” feels like a career-ending move! What, in your mind, would this process look like?

KR: You can flip it on its head: the only heavy manufacturing sector in the UK that has the government as its main customer is the military industry. What that means is that the Ministry of Defence – along with the export partners that it approves - dictate what is produced in the British military industry. Through its procurement programmes the Ministry of Defence directs production. In the military sector you normally have more specialised production of a more limited set of products than the mass manufacturing line in something like the automotive industry, where you are producing a consumer good at a mass scale. So you have a broad base of people who are working on a few specialised products, that have skills that can be redirected. As I outlined in my report, there is an opening for the state to redesign its manufacturing base, and because its responsible for what’s made in this private industry it can also oversee a transition.

However, as you say, the political challenge is immense: politicians at the moment don’t want to oversee that transition, but its more to say that in political/economic terms it is definitely feasible, just as it is in technological terms. The thing I would add is that it’s important not to suggest it would be easy and smooth. A lot of the interviewees identified that the type of specialised work they’re undertaking has strict requirements that you don’t get in the civilian sectors. You’re making very hi-tech and bespoke pieces of kit, mostly for well funded global military powers, and they have exacting standards. That requires work. There would be a challenge in ensuring that the transition moves to something that is equally labour intensive.

My suggestion, as a starting point, is to set up a state-holding company – not dissimilar to how Labour have setup a National Wealth Fund. The key difference is that it would acquire 100% ownership of sites, while the NWF is taking smaller equity investments. Through this company you could take over specific military production sites and guide their production towards the needs of public sector companies, like transport and energy companies, and use that as a sustained base of demand, coordinating with other companies within the public sector.

As an example, consider Harland & Wolff, which famously owns a Belfast shipyard and went into administration a couple of months ago. All four of its shipyards are at threat, and jobs are at risk. Trade unions are obviously trying to protect their workers, but the government, rather than taking those sites into public ownership as they easily could (because they are operating on contracts from the MoD primarily, as well as some production of products for off-shore renewables), is instead trying to entice a Spanish state-owned company to buy the shipyards. The UK government looking at paying that company £300m to sweeten the takeover. There is an alternative here: the government could save its £300m, take the site into public ownership, and use that ownership to oversee a transition towards renewable energy, public transport infrastructure, or other civilian projects that are urgently needed.

AM: What would you say to those who argue that we must maintain a strong military industrial base, in order to maintain the UK’s security and that of our allies? Wouldn’t this just benefit other companies in other countries?

KR: The UK is an outlier in the level of military spending it has maintained over the last decades – we spend more of our GDP than many comparable countries. Maintaining our level of military spending is not about security, and I say that because military spending, as it is currently formulated, doesn’t go towards national defence, or defending the British Isles from attack. The Government’s Defence Command Paper sets out that the British military needs to be a global force, that it needs to be able to intervene anywhere in the world, at any time, in any domain (land, sea, air, nuclear), and that it needs a constant forward presence beyond Europe. That means military bases in the Persian Gulf and across the world, but projecting British military power globally doesn’t serve British defence. Instead, as we’ve seen with the brutal consequences of British interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, or being a crucial supportive partner to Saudi Arabia or Israel, it has brutal consequences for the people who face these military interventions.

Another reason I would add, if you look at the procurement spending of the British military, which is now around £37bn each year – far more than Labour said was too much for the climate – often it’s completely wasted. It’s spent on projects that are delayed, overspent, get cancelled. If you look at the Ajax tank for instance, a £5.2bn project that has been eternally delayed and has injured the military personnel that have been testing it. So the idea that spending is the route to security is flawed from that perspective.

AM: The brutal one! How realistic do you think this is? Are there any signs of hope that this will occur?

KR: To be realistic, we’re living in a time of rearmament, through a moment of heightened geopolitical competition, of genocide in Palestine, of expanding wars in different contexts, so it feels very far away. Especially in Europe there is political pressure to increase military spending – a position that is supported by both major political parties in Britain.

In the British context, we have to be realistic about the fact that we haven’t cut military spending in real terms following the end of the cold war. We’ve actually maintained it. We’re not in the situation that continental European countries are, so the idea that we need to rush into massive increases in military spending just doesn’t stack up. I think before we touch on points of hope, it’s important to note that this kind of transition, or demonstrating that this kind of transition is possible, that building a coalition between antiwar movements, trade unions within the military industries, and climate movements is an essential way of undercutting the idea that military spending is necessary for economic reasons. I think it’s necessary, in those terms, as a counterweight to the industry, and to the military and foreign policy establishments that will promote constant increases to spending.

In terms of hope: there have been hopeful moments within trade union politics over the last year, that have indicated that within the military industry there are trade unions and trade unionists who want to build towards this kind of transition. The best example that I would give of that is the United Auto Workers in the US, a major trade union in the US military industry as well as automotive, who represent workers making armoured vehicles and munitions. In response to the genocide unfolding in Palestine they called for a ceasefire, but also mandated their members to explore transition away from military production, and towards a just transition. I think seeing examples like that is very hopeful.

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We need two tier approach to control military AI

Andrew — Thu, 27 Jun 2024 07:38:00 +0000

An artists impression of Airbus' Wingman

27 Jun 2024

Author(s)

Martin Broek

Translated by

Natalia García (ES)

This article was originally published on Stop Wapenhandel's blog. You can find it here.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is quickly becoming central in newly produced weapons, like fighter aircraft and sensors. Some reported examples from the first week of June alone:

Amnesty International reports the use of Elbit artificial intelligence technology by the Israel military in Gaza, used for a fast inventarisation of targets based on surveillance data provide by satellites. The technology is combat proven and available for export, according to the Dutch Minister of Defence, Ollongren.
In June 2024 Airbus signed a cooperation agreement with German AI startup Helsing to work on a futuristic unmanned aircraft dubbed Wingman. Hesling will provide its AI knowledge “including the fusion of various sensors and algorithms for electronic warfare.” The Wingman gets a number of tasks, from jamming and reconnaissance to “strike missions against ground and airborne targets.” It will deploy guided weapons during operations too dangerous to send a manned aircraft. Helsing is involved in both major European fighter aircraft programs. Closely connected is that Airbus also cooperates with NeuralAgent, another startup, to develop technology to automate and greatly reduce response times of an unlimited number of combat functions.
In April 2024 US DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) reported the first case of a dogfight (aerial battle between fighter aircraft conducted at close range ) between a manned fighter and an AI controlled aircraft. According to a US Air Force Test Pilot School Commandant the test showed that the DARPA project “moves in the right direction”.

Examples of military AI developments are numerous. The NGO Saferworld stated alarmingly that: “we are likely to start seeing ever-more advanced and potentially more lethal weapon systems,” and there is a “need to act – and act now,” because AI is “this generation’s Oppenheimer moment” referring to the early stages of nuclear weapon development, well-known now because of the recent Oppenheimer-movie. At that time realization grew that an explosive power was created that was able to destroy the world in a few strikes, and that this power had to be controlled.

Ongoing wars may however speed up the uncontrolled development of “Weapons that can decide for themselves whom or what to target — and even when to kill — (…) entering military arsenals” as phrased by Defense News, a major US military magazine. In the same article the concept “terminator problem” was introduced. The problem that if one state has a certain military technology, all others believe they need it too, to be secure — a situation that makes regulating AI difficult.

When you consider AI as a method to absorb information and make quick decisions – or even start actions with or without people in the loop – based on the gathered data and machine learned processes, then you understand the power and danger of AI. Being the fastest is one of the crucial components of having momentum in warfare. This is a basic insight in military strategy. More than two thousand years ago Chinese strategist Sun Szu already wrote the Art of War several advices on swift battle. Millennia after Szu tempo and time are still central elements in strategic thought. A version of the US Marine Force Manual on Warfighting e.g. states: “Success [in war] depends in large part on the ability to adapt—to proactively shape changing events to our advantage as well as to react quickly to constantly changing conditions,” and “Tempo is itself a weapon—often the most important.” In a report on tempo and reconnaisance forces, famous strategist Von Clauzewitz is cited from his On War: “men, time, and space as the key components of the essential activity in war, combat.”

From another angle, the International Committee of the Red Cross recently pointed at the dangers of speeding up wars, the escalation risk and the mistakes which may be the results. They propose slowing it down.

AI is a tool to enormously expand the speed of military action and therefore the terminator problem is even more connected with AI technology than with normal weaponry. It will be hard to convince powerful nations to refrain from the advantages of AI and to commit to limitation and control.

Despite this, over 140 countries came together to talk about the dangers and the need to control AI, in an April 2024 Vienna Conference called: ‘Humanity at the Crossroads: Autonomous Weapons Systems and the Challenge of Regulation’. Both NGO Saferworld and military magazine Defense News refer to this conference, and the second source expands somewhat on the larger than expected upswing (1,000 delegates). But also reports on a major barrier to reign in the technology, now still in its infancy stage but quickly developing: “Much of the Global South (…) now seems interested in restricting the technology,” according to Austrian Foreign Affairs diplomat on arms control Alexander Kmentt, but – and here lays the crux, “though little could be achieved without buy-in from the major global powers.”

“Do we really think that in the middle of a battle between China and the U.S., someone is going to say: ‘Hold on, we can’t let the machine do that’?” Natasha Bajema, a researcher at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, asked, referring to the allure of what she described as war moving at machine speed. The appetite for more autonomy in weapons, fanned by combat in Ukraine and Gaza, has drowned out long-standing calls for limits on AI in military applications. When the development of Cold War 2.0 with China is included, the situation becomes even grimmer.

The Austrian conference shows there is interest and some space for debating control. And this space should be taken in this moment in time. But one can be sure that sound results will be much harder to reach – or even impossible – when world politics slides back into a situation of confrontation between the superpowers. Control of AI needs a two tier approach. The first involves specialists, diplomats and politicians who are debating and proposing control on different aspect of AI. Vienna showed this is not a fata morgana. But without easing the Cold War atmosphere of the current geopolitical situation one can be sure these efforts will be chopped off by military needs to be quicker and thus more decisive than the opponent. Meetings will add to the possibilities for exchange between opposing parties and may introduce small steps which may be the start of larger diplomatic gains. Since Vienna, the US and China started talking on AI (“not aimed at any substantive outcomes”). Those minimal steps may lead to towards potential more substantial policy and contact between adversaries.

The road towards Cold War 2.0 will inevitably lead to more uncontrolled AI-weaponry. Arms control, especially in this important field of autonomous warfighting, is not a technical issue alone, but also connected to the power politics of this world. And lets be clear in the field of peace and security the military policy has the overhand (underlined e.g. by the fast growing military expenditures), included on arms control, peace and diplomatic solutions answering military conflict. Let’s not fool ourselves, in a world of confrontation, control of this dangerous technology will fail.

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The Broken Rifle War Profiteers Front Page

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Sex, power & play at Europe’s largest arms fair

Andrew — Mon, 03 Jun 2024 11:53:00 +0000

03 Jun 2024

Author(s)

Nico Edwards

Translated by

Natalia García (ES)

Disclaimer: none of the people displayed in the photos are present in the text and should not be thought of as complicit with the sexual harassment discussed in the text.
This piece was originally published on The Disorder of Things, available here: https://thedisorderofthings.com/2024/03/08/sex-power-play-at-europes-largest-arms-fair/

Global headlines are once again seized by the outbreak of armed conflict, detailing indescribable suffering and destruction. War, it feels, is everywhere and always. To some, this means business. Many of the facilitators and profiteers of armed conflict globally attended the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) in London, September 2023.

What follows is a personal story, but what it tells us about enduring systems of power and harm goes far beyond my person. That weathered feminist truth that the personal is always also political rings true still. What I experienced in the world of “defence men” – the global war elite – attending DSEI as a white woman, was highly demonstrative of the social, political and economic forces that enable and perpetuate armed violence. The personal behaviours of militarised business masculinities hold clues as to why decisionmakers keep hurtling toward global war at the expense of both people and the planet.

Setting the scene: a playground for phallic force

Happening in London biannually, DSEI is one of the world’s biggest and most important arms fairs. I went there to research military sectors’ pivot toward environmental sustainability and how to “green” warfare – a key emerging feature especially of European and North American propaganda. The event oozed of hubris. Rob, an American war simulations expert and my main interlocutor, confirmed he’d never seen such a galore of impressive weapons tech exhibitions. Indeed, several arms company reps told me affirmingly: business is booming. Spread across 100,000 sqm. Rob and I were among almost 40,000 participants from all over the world. Including the usual array of repressive, human rights abusing regimes or states involved in active warfare.

You don’t have to be a polemicist to catch how DSEI is but one big bonding ritual for predominantly white men in suits enacting their obsession with force. DSEI puts the global war elite’s drastic detachment from the real-world needs of people and planet into sharp relief. Inside the fair, “defence” and “security” materialise as glaring euphemisms for military-industrial might and titillating experiments in how to model the future of warfare in line with Hollywood fantasies of high-tech battles between good and evil. Rather than signal a dedication – however deceptive – to keeping people safe, the event felt like an inferno of white men in suits blatantly driven by that boyish excitement for tech, kinetics, heroism, beauty, sex and money. And yet, there are enough of these men in power across the globe to make it seem as if they are the realists responding to real threats.

Norwegian Kongsberg, marketing sustainability, DSEI 2023. Credit: Nico Edwards

Sex in The marketplace of war

In 1985 Carol Cohn shared her canonical experience of the construction of exactly that chimerical “hard-nosed realism” among white male American “defence intellectuals”, with its dangerous claim to “cool-headed objectivity” and “hyper-rationality.” Besides the rationalisation of war as a techno-strategic calculation, Cohn was struck by the men’s explicitly sexualised relationship to nuclear weapons and warmaking. The creation of the atomic bomb and the doctrines around its use, Cohn found, were rife with phallic imagery, competitive male sexuality and the promise of sexual domination.

Four decades later I wrote in my DSEI diary that “8 out of 10 of my encounters with different military sector actors at the fair have been outright sexualising. Even worse, I am constantly forced to participate in my own sexualisation – to allow it to continue, to play along with it.” I had never properly read Cohn’s piece, which became so foundational to feminist approaches to war and global politics. Yet reading her after my visit to DSEI I realised that not much had changed in the “rational” world where war is theorised, bought and sold.

I headed to DSEI having abandoned gender as an analytic, attempting in the past years to break away from the gender straightjacket as a woman security scholar. I emerged with a rabid need to dust off the generations of feminist writers who had already experienced just that: toxic masculinity as the enduring bedrock of war and militarism.

Rob is a useful entrance into my experience of attending the fair as a woman. We wouldn’t have met if he and his arms tech friends at the designated DSEI pub had not deemed me fuckable and thus worth approaching to invite to their table. They never used that exact word, but to me it’s the term that comes closest to their myriad ways of alluding to sexual intercourse, sometimes gentle and indirect, sometimes rough and definitive.

Rob introduced me to everyone he thought could help me with my research, and invited me to socialise on and off the event grounds. While becoming my “friend”, he felt the persistent need to explicitly mark me as a sexual object: constantly commenting on my being a young woman added with different adjectives for attractive added with the key details of being blonde, blue eyed and Swedish. A trope that in his world, and he assumed for all other men at DSEI too, was particularly enticing.

BAE Systems Eurofighter Typhoon, DSEI 2023. Credit: Nico Edwards

Rob and others with him were utterly unable (or perhaps unwilling) to bond with me solely on the grounds of social or intellectual chemistry. That is, beyond the possibilities of sexual pursuit. Be it his own pursuit, or through offering me up to other men as potential game. My collective sexualisation became a bonding mechanism for a majority of the men I met, even as a conversation topic among these men about but above me, while I was sitting at the same table or standing by the same stall. Like the Australian pavilion reps bonding with the Turkish ammunition producers over my (Swedish blonde) appearance. Or a British Army Vet making plain to an Australian General that he’s well above the legal sex age (“well in my rights to consent to sex, if you know what I mean”), so much so that he could be my dad.

I remember going to the fair assuming that my unknowing-girl look, a young woman looking lost and not talking the lingo, would discredit me. That it’d make the white men in suits not bother taking the time to talk. I left having learnt the opposite. Instead, my allure as a woman out-of-place, offering that potential of sex yet not being reducible to “a booth babe” – the only other mainstreamed role for women to take at arms fairs, who “you can’t have a proper conversation with” (Rob’s words) – made me at once interesting and non-threatening to engage. Instead, I became someone to be confined in, to banter and boast with, letting off steam about the ridiculousness and grandeur of their trade. Had these men not felt drawn to sexualising me and had I not played along, I wouldn’t have gathered half of the information I got – even regarding sustainability.

Attending DSEI in a female body I became a razor-sharp crystallisation of just how palpable a socialising force that sexism remains in 2023, and how it’s reached a climax in the world of war. I became a literal bodily inscription of unhinged entitlement among white men belonging to the 1%. The following are actual quotes and examples of the things said to me by some of the men I met during DSEI. Men that see it fit to “compliment” you as DSEI’s equivalent to a booth babe. Dehumanise you through calling you a “render”, a “simulation” of “the ultimate woman.” Men that stop you on the exhibition floor for a personal chat only to tell you that you’re a vessel for the “reproduction” of their “virus”. Men that tell you to stop talking as your Swedish accent will make them orgasm – “or wait, please don’t stop, I just won’t hear you properly, and when my eyes roll back into my head you’ll know what’s going on.” That tell you to keep eating the slices of pizza bianca with cum-looking cheese “just like that” as it demonstrates how you’d take a large-size penis in your mouth “and you have to swallow it.” Men that equate you with a candy, something edible, something to be acquired and tasted. That relegate you to the status of a babe albeit with a brain. What do you take away from a world that reduces you to the state of “fuckable Swedish blonde” in more manners of speaking than you can recount?

On the last day I described my experiences to Rob, aghast at how grown men were not embarrassed behaving like lads-on-tour among their high-level sector peers. Hearing this, Rob and his drone engineer friend laughed and rolled their eyes, confirming the opposite: these men want to be seen “chatting up the blonde.” In this world that doesn’t take away points, it gives you social capital, especially the higher up the hierarchy ladder you get. The men watching “were probably jealous.”

Sig Sauer firearms stand, DSEI 2023. Credit: Nico Edwards

War, weapons, money, women

My time at DSEI made one thing glaringly obvious: how these men’s entitlement operate along a spectrum of power and privilege that range from money, weapons, credibility and capital, to women, girls and the feminised body as a vessel for their pleasure and status. Their self-proclaimed right to my body is the same as their entitlement to trading in the global distribution of life and death.

The chauvinism and power plays that rage inside the world of defence men expose women and other feminised identities (womxn) to remarkable forms of sexualised and other violence in peace and war-time. These norms pin womxn to the enduring categories of virgins and madonnas, wives and mothers, crones and whores. Or, as per my DSEI experience, desirable vs. not desirable.

As a white Scandinavian woman, I can’t speak to what forms of racism a woman of colour would experience in this space. Or what forms of discrimination would make themselves known to gender nonconforming or disabled persons in my position. But from the raging sexualisation, infantilisation and exotification that met me as a white, blonde and blue eyed, able-bodied Swedish cis-woman, I have a hunch of what systems of denigration, desire and harm that would crystallise in the encounter with womxn not fitting with this normative category. After all, we learnt long ago that the principles of valuation and entitlement that informs those tropes around the fuckable Swedish blonde belong to the same grid of power, exploitation and exclusion that feeds racism, ableism, homo- and transphobia.

But the violent consequences of this power grid, and the norms it sustains, are far from only affecting womxn. They are also the norms that force men into the inhumane roles of sexual predators, soldiers and martyrs. That mould men into dutiful patriots. That demand that they relinquish their right to a life free from the use and reception of violence – sacrificing their sense of humanity, their vulnerability and emotional sensitivity, and their access to intimacy beyond sexual domination.

Yet, the fact remains that most of the men attending DSEI are not those suffering the real-life consequences of their trade nor their toxic masculinity. While their entitlements wreak havoc across the world, the architects and entrepreneurs of global war instead operate in an alternative reality. A reality upholding those “rational systems” that Cohn identified in the 80s, which still dictate politics for much of the world despite the glaringly obvious truth: that there’s nothing rational about war or society’s disproportionate investment in it. An alternative reality, where, to the profiteers of death, war is but a videogame, weapons but toys, and women but prey.

Welcome to hell

Less than a month after my visit to the fair, this surreal subworld demonstrated the indescribable suffering generated by its application to real life: to real people, real dreams, real ecologies. Ongoing horrors in Gaza and Ukraine are far from the first epicentres in which the desires of the global war elite are culminating in civilian flesh and blood, soils and aquifers. They will not be the last.

DSEI Diary- Saturday Sep 16

11:44

… I left DSEI with one realisation weighing heavier than the others, etched into my skin despite my mind’s fervent attempts to stop living in the body that DSEI confined me to and get back to intellectualising, to doing my research – that the people profiting from plunging this planet toward apocalypse still live in an alternate playground reality of sex and power, enacting their fantasies of phallic force, heroism and wealth upon the world with full impunity while homosocialising over their proximity to violence and money, drinking vodka from glass-skulls (no-joke) invigorated by the message flashing all around them in an eerily truthful reference to the reality of their trade: WELCOME TO HELL.

Bofors Test Center, offering vodka and candies with the text Welcome to Hell, DSEI 2023. Credit: Nico Edwards

Author information

Nico is a PhD Candidate in International Relations at the University of Sussex (UK), researching militarism and ecological injustice. She is also an Advisor to Scientists for Global Responsibility, Associated Researcher with the World Peace Foundation and author of the new report Resisting Green Militarism: Building Movements for Peace and Eco-Social Justice.

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Under the Radar: Twenty years of EU military missions

Andrew — Mon, 20 May 2024 10:39:00 +0000

General Aherne greets Somali Soldiers as they return from a training mission in Uganda

20 May 2024

Author(s)

Josephine Valeske and Niamh Ní Bhriain, Transnational Institute

Translated by

Natalia García (ES)

Among the issues that may sway voters during the upcoming EU parliamentary elections is the Union’s public embrace of war politics, which has been at the forefront of events in Brussels during the previous five-year cycle. Far from public view, however, the EU has, in fact, been driving a war agenda for decades. For the past twenty years, the EU has been deploying military-mandated missions overseas that have gone virtually under the radar and generally evaded public scrutiny. The Transnational Institute’s new report ‘Under the Radar: Twenty years of EU military missions’ sheds light on these missions.

In 2003, the EU deployed its first-ever foreign mission to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. In the 20 years since then it has undertaken more than 40 operations across Europe, Africa and Asia with 24 currently active, 13 of which are civilian, 10 of which are military, as well as one hybrid mission. The number of active military missions has doubled from five to ten since 2018. Similarly, the common costs (roughly 10-15% of the total costs) of these missions have almost doubled since 2019 and stand at €150 million for 2024.

While the official rhetoric suggests that the military missions are aimed at increasing stability in the respective countries, in reality the EU is driven by its own interests and the development of these missions and their deployment exemplifies a colonial logic, focused on controlling access to crucial raw materials, important trade routes, securing profits for the military-industrial complex, and the EU projecting itself as a ‘hard power’.

While the EU’s overseas missions are relatively small in terms of personnel and presented as low-level interventions, their impact over the previous 20 years has, at best, had no impact in resolving conflict, or served to exacerbate it. Our research shows that the EU chooses to prioritise short-term goals over addressing the root causes of violent conflicts. Furthermore, there is no standard methodology to assess the effectiveness of EU missions, and evaluations as well as the decision-making process to launch new missions appear to take place in an ad hoc manner. Even the EU admits that it has achieved few of its stated aims.

The Sahelian region, where the EU has deployed seven military missions over the last two decades, is a case in point. The competition for access to resources and raw materials seems to be the key driving force behind the EU’s focus on the Sahel region. Since the EU began deploying such missions, coups d’état have become commonplace, not only in the countries where there are EU missions but also in neighbouring states. Clearly, the EU presence cannot be held solely responsible for these events but it certainly raises questions about its stated aim of preventing conflict and strengthening security, especially since some of these missions provided financial support to the armed forces involved in the coups. In 2020, the Malian national security forces, which received training and finance from the EU, were responsible for the killing of hundreds of civilians. The military missions in both Mali and the Central African Republic (CAR) have been partially suspended since the end of 2021 – but not because of the well-documented human rights violations perpetrated by state forces, but because it was discovered that the Russian state-sponsored private military Wagner Group was highly active in both countries, raising concerns that soldiers trained by the EU might join the militia and cause reputational damage. The partnership mission in Niger ended less than a year after it started because the new military government ordered European, French and US forces to leave the country.

The EU’s most recent mission in the Red Sea, launched in response to Houthi disruption of shipping lanes to bring pressure to bear on Israel’s assault on Gaza, is a further example of the EU protecting its own interests while projecting itself as a reliable actor in the Western axis of power. It is noteworthy that the only concrete action the EU has taken in relation to Gaza was the deployment of this mission, which has done nothing to address Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinian people.

Despite its poor track record in bringing about peace and stability, the EU has forged ahead with deploying its missions, eager to defend its economic interests and present itself as a relevant actor on the global stage. The EU’s two Somali-focused missions operating on land and patrolling coastal waters have indeed contributed to exacerbating the problems that they were mandated to alleviate, and culminated in driving people from their livelihood of small-scale fishing directly into the hands of non-state armed groups. This is far from an exceptional case: While ‘terrorism’ is often cited as the justification for US and EU military presence in the Sahel, evidence suggests a reverse causality – military interference provokes non-state armed groups, which in turn is used to justify further militarisation.

The problems that the EU claims to be addressing with its missions – instability, insecurity and violence – are often deeply rooted in the consequences that stem from European countries’ colonisation of Africa. It is often unresolved territorial questions related to borders drawn up by the colonial powers, or power structures that prevailed following the liberation struggles of the 1960s, land and ocean grabs to control natural resources, as well as local economic consequences – such as extreme poverty – of a deeply unequal global trade system that drive insecurity. The EU will never be able to resolve problems on the African continent, or anywhere in the world, by deploying military missions. Claiming that it can do so is a further example of the colonialist mindset which often dominates the corridors of power in Brussels. Were the EU to be genuinely concerned about crisis situations in other countries and eager to deploy peacekeeping troops, it could use its leverage and do so within the UN system rather than acting outside, or on the margins of multilateralism. Moreover, it could address the deeply uneven power dynamics between the EU and the Global South that serve to protect European interests and lead to the impoverishment of these countries.

The profiteers who reap the financial benefits of these missions include the arms companies, which benefit from the contracts for the purchase of weapons, as well as the border and military-industrial complex more broadly that stand to gain much from insecurity and war. Moreover, oil and gas companies, as well as mineral investors and large-scale fishing companies, also saw the opportunity to secure and increase their profits.

The logical conclusion after 20 years of such missions is that the EU should finally bring these to a close, and focus its efforts on diplomacy, strengthening democracy, and working within the existing multilateral structures.

The full report can be found here: https://www.tni.org/en/publication/under-the-radar

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Front Page The Broken Rifle War Profiteers

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Central African Republic Mali

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War profiteer profile: Norinco

Andrew — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 09:04:00 +0000

A VT-4 battle tank on display at the IDEX arms fair. Photo: Mztourist, CC4.0

22 Apr 2024

Translated by

Natalia García (ES)

Norinco (formerly the China North Industries Corporation) is China’s biggest arms company, and ranks 7th on SIPRI’s list of the world’s 100 biggest arms companies. Found in 1980, Norinco manufactures a wide range of military hardware for the Chinese military, and for other armies and police forces around the world. Norinco is 100% owned by the Chinese state.

As an indication of the size of the company, Norinco reported revenue in 2023 of over US$82 billion, and employs 216,300 people. In 2017 it was estimated that 27% of Norinco’s income came from arms sales.

Norinco produce a huge range of different weapons and equipment used by military and security forces: rifles, pistols, grenade launchers, rocket launchers, machine guns, mortar systems, tanks, armoured vehicles, and a wide range of weapons and equipment designed for crowd-control and riot policing. As well as manufacturing arms products, Norinco also has interests in resource extraction, construction, chemical engineering, import and export, and opto-electronics. A research paper produced by SIPRI in 2023 highlighted the fact that the company’s opto-electronics have military applications as well as civilian.

Transparency International have rated Norinco as “very low” in its assessment of their commitment to transparency.

Exports

Norinco has also focused on the production of battle tanks for export, with the Thai military recently acquiring the VT-4 battle tank manufactured specifically for export. Military equipment designed by Norinco is also manufactured under license around the world: Iraq has recently started to manufacture VN22 armoured vehicles.

In 2023 it was reported the company’s products were being used by the Russian military in Ukraine, including rifles, body armour and drone parts.

Policing equipment

Equipment, vehicles and weapons manufactured by Norinco are used by police forces across the world. For example, there is evidence of extensive use of vehicles manufactured by Norinco in Venezuela, including VN-4 armoured personnel carriers, water cannon, and “murciélagos” – vehicles with large mobile barriers attached, allowing police forces to block and control the movement of crowds.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, tear gas manufactured by Norinco has been identified in Hong Kong, where huge volumes of tear gas were used against pro-democracy demonstrators in 2019-2020. Norinco’s NF01 and NF-11 CS tear gas grenades have also been used by Iraqi police against protesters.

Chinese grenades seen too: the thrown Norinco NF-11 CS gas grenade and NF01 37mm CS gas grenade, the latter of which can be fired by Norinco NARG 38 launchers (Or maybe even Iranian 38mm TPT launchers). Yet to conclusively ID launchers seen recently, but the former is likely pic.twitter.com/dL36Wp44lV

— Cᴀʟɪʙʀᴇ Oʙsᴄᴜʀᴀ (@CalibreObscura) January 21, 2020

NARG 38 grenade launchers have also been identified being used by police officers against protesters all over the world. There is evidence of these single-shot weapons being used against protesters in Iraq, Kenya, Cambodia, India, Guinea, Serbia, Georgia, and Vietnam.

Cambodian police officers have been photographed armed with QB97 rifles (an export variant of Norinco’s QB95 rifle), and the same rifle is understood to be used by military and police bodies across Asia and Africa.

Mining

In 2015, Amnesty International published a report claiming that Norinco was among a number of Chinese and Canadian companies to profit from serious human rights abuses and illegal activity around the Monywa copper mine complex in Myanmar. In 2010 a subsidiary of Norinco entered into a partnership with UMHEL, a company owned by the Myanmar military, to operate the Sabetaung and Kyisintaung (S&K) and the Letpadaung copper mines. Amnesty argued that the company’s operations could lead to thousands of people being evicted from their land as the mining operation expanded, and that communities that oppose expanding mines have been targeted with harassment and arrests.

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China

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Norinco

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War profiteer profile: Alsetex

Andrew — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 17:04:00 +0000

French police armed with a Alsetex Cougar tear gas launcher. Image: Pierre-Selim via Flickr CC2.0

19 Feb 2024

Translated by

Natalia García (ES)

Alsetex is a French company, owned by the Etienne Lacroix Group including various types of non-lethal munitions and crowd control equipment. Products manufactured by Alsetex include tear gas grenades, stun grenades, riot control agents, and a range of related launchers.

According to the Registre du Commerce et des Sociétés, the company was first registered in 1973, in 2022 Alsetex had a turnover of €34m, and in 2021 had a staff of 182 people. The company does not maintain a very visible online presence, but does market their products at a number of arms fairs around the world. For example, they have been registered to attend: Milipol Paris (France), IDEX 2023 (UAE), Eurosatory (France), Milipol Qatar, World Defence Show 2022 (Saudi Arabia), and Defence Services Asia (Malaysia).

Equipment and weapons manufactured by Alsetex have been observed being used by police and security forces in a number of locations around the world, including those with significant human rights concerns, and targeting nonviolent protesters. For example, there is evidence of Alsetex weapons being used in: Senegal, Burundi, Lebanon, France, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bahrain, Benin, Madagascar, Ghana, and Liberia.

The company’s Cougar launchers have also been photographed in 2014 being used in a training session by American soldiers who are part of the SPMAGTF Crisis Response – Africa.

Launchers

Senegal

Among a number of other African countries, Alsetex’s Cougar launcher has been identified being used by security forces in Senegal on a number of occasions, as recently as February 2024.

In May 2023, the French journalist Maxime Sirvins tweeted a number of images showing members of the Senegalese police holding Cougar launchers, as well as dozens of spent GM2L tear gas canisters manufactured by Alsetex in 2021.

On retrouve déjà le célèbre lanceur Cougar qui permet de tirer des grenades de 56mm.
Il est fabriqué par la société française Alsetex 🇫🇷https://t.co/DFUe3PpN93 pic.twitter.com/gfDGl2TRvK

— Maxime Sirvins (@MaximeSirvins) May 24, 2023

More recently, footage shared by Al Jazeera clearly shows riot police firing canisters from a Cougar launcher at a group protesting the delay in an election in February 2024. The footage can be seen here at 0:19 seconds.

Lebanon

Cougar launchers and tear gas grenades manufactured by Alsetex have also been identified being used by Lebanese security forces against people taking part in the “You Stink” movement in 2015.

Vehicle-mounted

Cougar launchers can also be mounted on vehicles, such as the Berliet VXB-170 armoured vehicle. The VXB has been used in France against the Gilets Jaunes.

Grenades

France

It is perhaps unsurprising that Alsetex’s products have been widely used by the French police. There is significant evidence of the company’s equipment being widely used against social movements like the Gilets Jaunes.

The GLI-F4 grenade contains 10g of CS gas and 26g of TNT high explosive, and have been classified as weapons of war in the French Internal Security Code. Despite this, they have been used extensively against civilians in France, with a reported three thousand such grenades – including some expired stock – being used against the Notre-Dames-des-Landes ZAD in April 2018.

There are a number of documented cases of GLI-F4 grenades causing life-changing injuries, including the loss of hands and limbs. The sound created by a GLI-F4 grenade exploding is around 165db, enough to cause hearing damage to those in close proximity.

In France, the GLI-F4 has been replaced with the GM2L grenade – also manufactured by Alsetex - which doesn’t contain TNT. However, critics described this as a “fake gesture”.

And there are significant concerns about the impact of its use from groups like Physicians for Human Rights. The GM2L is still an explosive grenade with 10g of CS powder, and produces 160db at 10m.

The #GM2L is an explosive grenade, with 10g of pure CS powder, and 160dB at 10m.
Explosive grenades pose a risk of life changing serious injury, or death. The GM2L is not suitable for crowd control - use should immediately be suspended. Tracking? @ElluinA @Desarmons_les https://t.co/xPAegJILSN

— Omega Research Foundation (@Omega_RF) December 10, 2020

Democratic Republic of Congo

Amnesty International has also reported in 2012 that 900 GM2L grenades were exported to the Democratic Republic of Congo, alongside other equipment manufactured by Alsetex (72 56mm Cougar Multi-light grenade launchers, 80 FAR smoke grenades, 720 GENL stinger grenades, 800 BDBE 40mm low velocity kinetic defence rounds).

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Front Page War Profiteers War profiteer companies

Countries

France Senegal Ivory Coast Congo, Democratic Republic of Bahrain

Police militarisation theme

Who profits? Equipment, training and tactics

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SAE Alsetex

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War profiteer profile: Société d'Application des Procédés Lefebvre (SAPL)

Andrew — Mon, 23 Oct 2023 11:19:00 +0000

Lebanese police officers fire on protesters. Image: @mgdowney via Twitter

23 Oct 2023

Translated by

Natalia García (ES)

We are grateful to the work of Stop Fuelling War, who provided much of the information used in this profile.

Société d'Application des Procédés Lefebvre (SAPL) is a French company that specialises in the manufacture of weapons and equipment for use by law enforcement, including “non-lethal” weapons, ammunitions, aerosols, shields and silencers. They also provide training in the products they manufacture. 60-70% of SAPL’s income comes from the French government, but SAPL also exports to a number of other countries. In 2022, the company reported income of €2.7m.

The company was formed in 1983 by Jean Lefebvre, following a patent that for a design for a less-lethal bullet in 1979. The Lefebvre family had a long history of manufacturing weapons. The company remains under the control of members of the same family. The company manufactures its products in Gauville in northern France, where it also has its head offices.

SAPL has exhibited at a range of arms fairs, such as Milipol Asia-Pacific and Milipol in France in 2022.

Controversies

In September 2023 SAPL was fined €150,000 (including €75,000 suspended), having exported grenades between 2012 to a number of countries – including those with troubling human rights records – without respecting French customs obligations. It is understood that the exports were worth €715,000 and went to ten countries, including Japan, Congo, Togo, Saudi Arabia and Madagascar.

The company is also under investigation following accusations for suspected bribery of foreign public officials over the last decade, with a verdict expected in March 2024.

Lebanon

Amnesty International has reported that SAPL equipment has been identified as being used by Lebanese security forces against peaceful protesters in 2015 and 2019. Amnesty said that SAPL Gomm-Cogne ammunition calibre cartridges were identified in videos shot during the protests. The french publication Libération shared Facebook images from people in Lebanon, which appear to show cartridges marked with SAPL’s logo.

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France Lebanon

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Police militarisation theme

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War profiteer profile: Cheddite

Andrew — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 15:54:00 +0000

Mass protests in Myanmar were met with deadly force by the state security forces

04 Oct 2023

Cheddite is a French-Italian company with headquarters in Livorno, Italy and Bourg-lès-Valence, France. They are one of the world’s largest manufacturers of empty shot gun shells and primers. In 2021 they reported a turnover of €58.4m, and a net income of €4.5m The company was established in 1901, manufacturing explosives for use in mining and quarrying, and moved into the production of shotgun shells and primers in the 80s.

As well as fully completed shotgun shells, Cheddite also shells and primers to other companies who, in turn, add their own gunpowder and projectile before selling them on. The projectile can take many forms, from a large number of small spheres made out of metal or rubber, to single large projectiles, sometimes called “slugs”, which can be made from a wide range of materials. The company advertises its products as for use by hunters. However, a number of times the company’s products have been identified as being used by oppressive regimes against protesters.

Use for oppression

There are at least two examples of Cheddite shotgun shells being found following extreme violence by oppressive regimes, targetting protesters: in Iran in 2022, and Myanmar in 2021. In both cases arms embargoes were meant to restrict the movement of weapons and equipment.

Iran

An EU Council regulation passed in 2011 is meant to stop the “export, directly or indirectly, [of] equipment which might be used for internal repression" in Iran, including "firearms, ammunition and related accessories". Despite this, Cheddite cartridges were found in multiple cities as police forces tried to stop mass protests. Hundreds of people were killed during the protests by the authorities, including many from gunshot wounds.

An investigation by The Observers for France24 identified photos of Cheddite cartridges being widely shared on online Iranian hunting forums since 2013. It appears the cartridges were filled and sold in Iran by a company called Shahid Shiroudi Military Industries, identifed by the brand name Shahin.

Myanmar

After images of Cheddite shells were photographed in Myanmar during protests against a military coup in 2021, Italian investigators tried to understand how the shells arrived there. It appears they may have used a Turkish company YAF, - itself owned by ZSR Patlayici Sanayi A.S. - as an intermediary.

Twitter posts appear to show spent Cheddite shotgun shell casings retrieved from the ground in Myanmar, alongside images of what appear to be ZSR rubber bullets (though it is not clear from the photos if the photos are showing the same shell).

Myanmar Military Terrorists fired the guns to disperse the protest in Pathein around 11:30am this morning.

Is CHEDDITE Italy made? ?#WhatsHappeningInMyanmar #Mar10Coup https://t.co/pGygxvMg2t

— Hane Latt_29 (@MannyMontana29) March 10, 2021

A man holding @cheddite_italy
cartridge used by #MyanmarMilitaryCoup Security Forces during cracked down on Protestors today in Sanchaung, Yangon, #Myanmar. @EUMyanmar
What is your role in #Myanmar ?Wait and See? Source @IrrawaddyNews
Burmese Edition #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar pic.twitter.com/QJLQKTGdHZ

— Khun The Great (@KhuntheGreat) March 2, 2021

However, Cheddite has previously owned shares in YAF, which Italian journalists claim “would have allowed the Anatolian company to produce and market Cheddite-Yaf branded cartridges on its own”.

Researchers from Amnesty International also tweeted about the relationship between Cheddite and ZSR in 2021, at the time of the protests against the coup.

Cheddite, a Franco-Italian company, isn't manufacturing these shotgun shells. Instead, they supply the brass to ZSR, a Turkish company, which then adds the casing and rubber bullets and sells the complete product. Here's a tweet w/ both the cart's & box: https://t.co/gfw6cbMqBA

— Brian Castner (@Brian_Castner) March 11, 2021

Senegal

In May 2023, activists in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, collected at least 50 shotgun casings used by the Senegalese security forces to crackdown on anti-government protesters. At least 23 deaths were documented by Amnesty International.

Des cartouches sans marquages/logo ont aussi été utilisées massivement.

Les cartouches viennent de la marque franco-italienne Cheddite qu'on retrouve entre autre en Birmanie et en Iran. 🇫🇷🇮🇹 pic.twitter.com/TsHIGkEcGp

— Maxime Sirvins (@MaximeSirvins) May 24, 2023

Programmes & Projects

War Profiteers War profiteer companies

Countries

Myanmar Iran France Italy Turkey Senegal

Theme

Police militarisation

Police militarisation theme

Who profits? Equipment, training and tactics Repression of protest

Companies

Cheddite

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War profiteer profile: Wagner Group

Andrew — Wed, 12 Jul 2023 15:53:00 +0000

Russian mercenaries providing security for the President of the Central African Republic Photo: Clément Di Roma/VOA, public domain

12 Jul 2023

Translated by

Natalia García (ES)

Content warning: this article makes references to sexual violence, torture, and other details that some readers may find upsetting.

The Wagner Group is a Russian paramilitary organisation founded in 2014 by former GRU officer Dmitry Utkin and businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, and has been described as “one of Russia’s most influential foreign policy tools”. At its founding Prigozhin had close business ties to the Russian president Vladamir Putin, while Utkin has close ties to the Night Wolves, an ultra-nationalist and white supremacist motorcycle club. Since its founding, Wagner Group has become known for its readiness to use extreme levels of violence and brutality during its operations. The group has pushed hard for access to resource rich areas of Africa, in some cases accepting mineral extraction and logging rights in exchange for its military services. These operations have been immensely profitable. For example, in 2018, oil companies connected to Prigozhin were reportedly offered a 25% stake in any oil fields that Wagner Group managed to seize from ISIS in Syria. By 2020, one of these companies generated $134 million in gross sales and $90 million in profit from these Syrian oil fields.

Until recently, Wagner Group has operated relatively discreetly around the world, with involvement recorded in Syria, Libya, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Venezuela, Mozambique, and Ukraine. As well as direct involvement in conflict, the company also provides military support, training, and security services for politicians and at mining and other key sites. The Wagner Group has become well known for its active role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, where it has played a pivotal role in some of the military activities taking place there.

The Wagner Group doesn’t appear to exist as a single entity, but rather as a “sprawling network of interacting companies”, as according to the Financial Times. Putin has said that the Russian state fully funds the Wagner Group, telling a meeting of Russian defense officials that the state paid “more than 86 billion rubles (approximately $940 million) to the Wagner Group”.

This profile will focus on Wagner Group’s activities outside of Ukraine.

Libya

The Wagner Group is involved in several conflicts across Africa, providing an array of services to Libya, Sudan, South Sudan, Mozambique, and the Central African Republic. In Libya, Wagner Group supported Khalifa Hiftar’s Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF) in a 2019-2020 assault on Tripoli, laying land mines and booby traps, weapons that have been banned under international law because they are not able to discriminate between civilians and military personnel. Evidence collected by the BBC suggests that the Wagner Group played a key role in laying anti-personnel mines in the area.

Central African Republic

In the Central Africa Republic, Wagner Group has profited from extractivism and logging operations, after around 1000 Wagner mercenaries entered the country in 2016 to defend the government of President Faustin-Archange Touadéra. Wagner Group were given unrestricted logging rights, and control of the Ndassima gold mine. A woman who’s husband worked at the mine told NBC News that he and several others were killed after refusing to leave when Wagner Group mercenaries arrived to violently take over the mine. Others said that the group specifically targetted civilians to terrorize them, before taking over the mine. Since 2021 the mine has seen extensive development, with sophisticated processing equipment installed. Analysts have said there is evidence of a long-term plan for significant resource extraction that might be worth $100 million a year.

In 2023 there were reported clashes between the rebel group Coalition of Patriots for Change and Wagner forces, with Wagner sustaining relatively heavy casualties after an ambush. Rebel factions have started fighting together to protect their mining interests as Wagner was tried to secure access to mining sites.

Mozambique

In 2019, CNN reported on Wagner Groups operations in Mozambique, where the group was contracted to support the Mozambique army in counter-insurgency operations in its northern province. The deployment of 160 Wagner Group contractors took place a month after a visit by the Mozambique president Filipe Nyusi to Moscow. The group arrived on Russian An-124 transport planes, at least one of which belonged to the Russian airforce. A number of Russian companies are competing with other international groups to exploit Mozambique’s natural resources, including liquified natural gas and diamonds. It has been reported that the Wagner Group’s fighters withdrew and were replaced with troops from Rwanda after the Wagner Group failed to contain the insurgency.

Mali

A United Nations report published in May 2023 details the massacre of up to 500 civilians, believed to have been perpetrated by the Malian security forces and members of Wagner Group. The attack occurred in the village of Moura in the Inner Niger Delta region of Mali. Dozens of armed troops were dropped off by helicopters. Over five days, hundreds of people – the vast majority unarmed civilians – were killed.

Syria

The Wagner Group was first sighted in Syria in 2016, with between 1000 and 1600 employees in the country. The company has been responsible for securing oil and gas wells seized by other Russian companies, and serving as “shock troops” in the Syrian state’s offensive on Palmyra in 2016. It is thought hundreds of Wagner Group fighters were killed in the 2018 Battle of Khasham, when US airstrikes hit pro-regime positions near the towns of Khasham and Al Tabiyeh.

In 2021, three NGOs - the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM) and Russian rights group Memorial – launched a legal case against Wagner on behalf of a Syrian torture victim.

In 2017, a video showing the brutal torture and murder of Hamadi Bouta, a Syrian Army deserter, by members of the Wagner Group was released. The footage showed Bouta being killed with a sledgehammer, beheaded, then set on fire. Wagner Group has since made the sledgehammer a key part of its branding, including images of a sledgehammer in its logo, and on t-shirts and other merchandise.

Venezuela

In 2019 it was reported that members of Wagner Group travelled to Venezuela to act as body guards for the president Nicolás Maduro. The deployment occurred as Russia and the US backed different sides of a conflict over control of Venezuela; Russia support Maduro, while the US threw its weight behind opposition leader Juan Guaido.

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War profiteer companies War Profiteers Front Page

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Russian Federation Libya Syria Mozambique Central African Republic Mali Venezuela

War profiteer profile: Accuracy International

Andrew — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 09:44:49 +0000

An Accuracy International AXMC long range sniper rifle. Photo credit: Rex Allen via Unsplash

28 Mar 2023

Translated by

Natalia García (ES)

Accuracy International is a British company based in Portsmouth, specialising in the production of high-end, hand built, precision sniper rifles and associated equipment. The company was founded in 1978 by professional sports shooters, but the weapons are now used around the world by military and police units. In 2017 the company was reported to have around 80 employees.

Weapons manufactured by AI were used in 2009 by British soldiers to kill two Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, at a record-breaking distance of 2,475 meters. The weapons have also been used extensively in other conflict zones, including states accused of human rights abuses.

As well as the British company, Accuracy International also has an American division, which manages distribution in the USA. In 2014 the company was present at the Urban Shield arms expo targetted towards police units from across the world.

AI Arctic Warfare

The AI Arctic Warfare is a bolt-action sniper rifle introduced in the 1980s, and designed for use in extremely cold conditions, but has been used extensively around the world, including a number of NATO member states, Azerbaijan, Bandladesh, Indonesia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, and Sri Lanka, among others.

Uses around the world

In October 2020 the investigative reporting website Bellingcat published a report on the use of Accuracy International weapons around the world. The evidence collected by Bellingcat used information from Campaign Against Arms Trade, Freedom of Information requests and geolocation and facial recognition technology to identify:

Arctic Warfare rifles appear to have been used by Saudi forces operating in Yemen. Saudi Arabia has been heavily critcised for human rights abuses in Yemen.
AI sniper rifles being used by Turkish forces in Afrin in Syria in 2018, in an operation that was condemned by Human Rights Watch as having “failed to take necessary precautions to avoid civilian casualties”.
The use of AI sniper rifles by Russian forces in Ukraine, including Crimea, in 2017, and in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine.

A sniper rifle which appears to have been manufactured by Accuracy International has been identified in use by Syrian special forces in 2015, with some experts speculating that the weapon may have been transferred from Russian to Syrian forces.

Accuracy International weapons are known to be used by the Indonesian forces involved in the “Damai Cartenz” operation in West Papua. Reporting by Rory James in 2023 identifies a series of posts on Instagram by Indonesian soldiers holding AI weapons have tagged conflict hotspots in the central highlands of West Papua. A post on the official Instagram accounts for the Yonif Raiders – an Indonesian unit notorious for human rights abuses – states that members of the unit are being trained with AI weapons, including practising “techniques for executing targets”.

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Countries

United Kingdom Saudi Arabia Yemen West Papua United States of America Syria Ukraine Russian Federation

Theme

arms trade small arms Police militarisation

Police militarisation theme

Equipment, training and tactics Who profits?