Controlling weapons circulation in a postcolonial militarised world

Abstract

What are the politics of, and prospects for, contemporary weapons control? Human rights and humanitarian activists and scholars celebrate the gains made in the UN Arms Trade Treaty as a step towards greater human security. Critics counter that the treaty represents an accommodation with global militarism. Taking the tensions between arms transfer control and militarism as my starting point, I argue that the negotiating process and eventual treaty text demonstrate competing modes of militarism. Expressed in terms of sovereignty, political economy, or human security, all three modes are underpinned by ongoing imperial relations: racial, gendered, and classed relations of asymmetry and hierarchy that persist despite formal sovereign equality. This means human security is a form of militarism rather than the antithesis of it. Drawing on primary sources from negotiations and participant observation with actors involved in the campaign for the ATT, the argument challenges the idea that human security has scored a victory over militarism. It also complicates our understanding of the nature of the accommodation with it, demonstrating the transformation as well as entrenchment of contemporary militarism. The argument reframes the challenges for controlling weapons circulation, placing the necessity for feminist, postcolonial anti-militarist critique front and centre.

Feminist foreign policy as ethical foreign policy? A care ethics perspective

“…In seeking to distinguish between ‘moral’ and ‘immoral’ weaponry, we fail to recognize the wider structural effects of militarism (Wibben, 2018). As Paul Kirby has put it, ‘is there ever a conflict where arms flows could not be said to facilitate serious acts of gender- based violence – harms strongly correlated with, but not necessarily inflicted by, the deployment of weaponry?’ (Kirby, quoted in Stavrianakis, in press: 25). Much like ‘just war theory’, which can be used to justify ‘ethical warfare’, the ATT diverts our attention from the structural nature of militarism, and its complex relationship with the structures and institutions of global capitalism, transnational structures of racism and with the liberal international order.…”

EU peacebuilding’s new khaki: Exceptionalist militarism in the trading of good governed for military-capable states

“…Speaking to managerial personnel of the most funded projects and exploring the projects in detail illustrate a trend to secure state authority through assistant to migrants, counter-terrorism, deradicalisation, and youth programmes often independently of states' human rights record. These programmes operate under a human security or security-development nexus perspective, which, as Stavrianakis (2018) and Abrahamsen (2019) argue, have been a driver for sustaining states' monopoly of the means of violence and its coercive capacities. The first and third most funded projects relate to the Strengthening [of] operational capacities of the Turkish Coast Guard in managing migration flows in the Mediterranean Sea (contracts 406305 and 374782 in 2018 and 2016, respectively), totalling €50 million.…”

“…Its militaristic aspect comes from its commitment to seek peace through war and militaristic institutions (Basham, 2018). Liberal peace can be seen as a form of ‘liberal militarism’ (Basham, 2018; Stavrianakis, 2018). It features moral and legal justifications to restore and maintain international peace and order; technology-based preparations for war both in intervening and in intervened states with a modernising aim; and is intrinsically linked to security (Mabee, 2016; Stavrianakis, 2018).…”

“…Liberal peace can be seen as a form of ‘liberal militarism’ (Basham, 2018; Stavrianakis, 2018). It features moral and legal justifications to restore and maintain international peace and order; technology-based preparations for war both in intervening and in intervened states with a modernising aim; and is intrinsically linked to security (Mabee, 2016; Stavrianakis, 2018). These elements identify how EU peacebuilding evolution is co-constitutive of its own militarism.…”

China’s weapons transfer in the Western hemisphere

“…It was only after the end of the Cold War -and with the changes that emerged in the international security regime-that China gradually edged into picture, redrawing the global arms sales economy. 21 Beijing pushed its way into global arms transfer as its military capabilities proved able to challenge the balance of power in East Asia. 22 Initially, China did not mean to be a direct challenge to the world's top arms manufacturers.…”