Arms sales continue to grow amid pandemic, SIPRI

STOCKHOLM - Sales of arms and military services by the industry’s 100 largest companies totalled $531 billion in 2020—an increase of 1.3 per cent in real terms compared with the previous year. This is according to new data released today by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

The arms sales of the Top 100 arms companies in 2020 were 17 per cent higher than in 2015—the first year for which SIPRI included data on Chinese firms. This marked the sixth consecutive year of growth in arms sales by the Top 100.

Arms industry weathers Covid-19 pandemic and economic downturn

Arms sales increased even as the global economy contracted by 3.1 per cent during the first year of the pandemic. ‘The industry giants were largely shielded by sustained government demand for military goods and services,’ said Alexandra Marksteiner, Researcher with the SIPRI Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme. ‘In much of the world, military spending grew and some governments even accelerated payments to the arms industry in order to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 crisis.’

Nevertheless, operating in the military market did not guarantee immunity to the effects of the pandemic. French arms manufacturer Thales, for example, ascribed a drop in arms sales of 5.8 per cent to lockdown-induced disruptions in the spring of 2020. Some companies also reported supply chain disruptions and delayed deliveries.

US companies continue to dominate ranking

The United States once again hosted the highest number of companies ranked in the Top 100. Together, the arms sales of the 41 US companies amounted to $285 billion—an increase of 1.9 per cent compared with 2019—and accounted for 54 per cent of the Top 100’s total arms sales. Since 2018, the top five companies in the ranking have all been based in the USA.

The US arms industry is undergoing a wave of mergers and acquisitions. To broaden their product portfolios and thus gain a competitive edge when bidding for contracts, many large US arms companies are opting to merge or acquire promising ventures. ‘This trend is particularly pronounced in the space sector,’ said Marksteiner. ‘Northrop Grumman and KBR are among several companies to have acquired high-value firms specialized in space technology in recent years.’

Chinese firms account for second largest share of Top 100 arms sales

The combined arms sales of the five Chinese companies included in the Top 100 amounted to an estimated $66.8 billion in 2020, 1.5 per cent more than in 2019. Chinese firms accounted for 13 per cent of total Top 100 arms sales in 2020, behind US companies and ahead of companies from the United Kingdom, which made up the third largest share.

‘In recent years, Chinese arms companies have benefited from the country’s military modernization programmes and focus on military–civil fusion,’ said Dr Nan Tian, SIPRI Senior Researcher. ‘They have become some of the most advanced military technology producers in the world.’ NORINCO, for example, co-developed the BeiDou military–civil navigation satellite system and deepened its involvement in emerging technologies.

Mixed results among European arms companies

The 26 European arms companies in the Top 100 jointly accounted for 21 per cent of total arms sales, or $109 billion. The seven British companies recorded arms sales of $37.5 billion in 2020, up by 6.2 per cent compared with 2019. Arms sales by BAE Systems—the only European firm in the top 10—increased by 6.6 per cent to $24.0 billion.

‘Aggregated arms sales by the six French companies in the Top 100 fell by 7.7 per cent,’ said Dr Lucie Béraud-Sudreau, Director of the SIPRI Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme. ‘This significant drop was largely due to a sharp year-on-year decline in the number of deliveries of Rafale combat aircraft by Dassault. Safran’s arms sales grew, however, driven by increased sales of sighting and navigation systems.’

Arms sales by the four German firms listed in the Top 100 reached $8.9 billion in 2020—an increase of 1.3 per cent compared with 2019. Together, these firms accounted for 1.7 per cent of the Top 100’s total arms sales. Rheinmetall—the largest German arms manufacturer—recorded an increase in arms sales of 5.2 per cent. Shipbuilder ThyssenKrupp, in contrast, reported a drop of 3.7 per cent.

Russian arms sales decline for third year in a row

The combined arms sales of the nine Russian companies ranked in the Top 100 decreased from $28.2 billion in 2019 to $26.4 billion in 2020—a 6.5 per cent decline. This marks a continuation of the downward trend observed since 2017, when arms sales by Russian companies in the Top 100 peaked. Russian firms accounted for 5.0 per cent of total Top 100 arms sales.

Some of the sharpest declines in arms sales among the Top 100 were recorded by Russian firms. This coincided with the end of the State Armament Programme 2011–20 and pandemic-related delays in delivery schedules. Almaz-Antey and United Shipbuilding Corporation saw their arms sales fall by 31 per cent and 11 per cent, respectively. Conversely, United Aircraft Corporation increased its arms sales by 16 per cent.

Another key development in the Russian arms industry was the diversification of product lines. Russian companies are currently implementing a government policy to increase their share of civilian sales to 30 per cent of their total sales by 2025 and 50 per cent by 2030.

Other notable developments in the Top 100

- Collectively, the arms sales of companies in the Top 100 based outside the USA, China, Russia and Europe totalled $43.1 billion in 2020—an increase of 3.4 per cent since 2019. This represents 8.1 per cent of the Top 100’s total arms sales.

- The arms sales of the three Israeli companies listed in the Top 100 reached $10.4 billion, or 2.0 per cent of the total.

- The aggregated arms sales of the five Japanese companies in the ranking were $9.9 billion in 2020, or 1.9 per cent of the total.

- Four South Korean companies were included in the ranking. Their combined arms sales amounted to $6.5 billion in 2020, a year-on-year increase of 4.6 per cent.

- Combined arms sales by the three Indian companies in the Top 100 grew by 1.7 per cent. In 2020 the Indian Government announced a phased ban on imports of certain types of military equipment to bolster self-reliance in arms production.

What Facebook whistleblower reveals about social media and conflict

What Facebook whistleblower reveals about social media and conflict

By Jane Esberg, Senior Analyst, Social Media & Conflict, International Crisis Group, 18 November 2021

Former Facebook employee Frances Haugen’s recent testimony before the U.S. Senate reasserted the platform’s role in propagating misinformation that feeds conflict offline. Facebook should do more to reduce the spread of harmful content by revamping its moderation capacities and modifying its algorithm.

The U.S. Senate recently heard testimony from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, who left the company’s civic integrity team with a trove of documents that she delivered to the Wall Street Journal. The leaked documents and her testimony support what many, including Crisis Group, have reported – that Facebook has exacerbated conflict in a number of places, and too often does not do enough to manage the fallout.

Haugen’s central criticisms in her testimony focus on Facebook’s algorithm, the particular set of rules that determine the content that users see, including where a post appears in the “news feed”. Facebook’s algorithm is designed to give users what the company believes is the best possible experience, to keep them coming back to the platform. Though few specifics are known, among other metrics the algorithm heavily weights user engagement, which includes actions like “liking”, sharing or commenting on a post. Problems arise because polarising content tends to perform well on such metrics, and thus get rewarded with a higher position on users’ feeds. This affects the substance of the content itself: in leaked Facebook research, some European political parties reported posting more negative content in response to a 2018 change to the algorithm that more heavily weighed user engagement. Facebook tries to mitigate this risk through what it calls “integrity demotions”, which push potentially harmful content lower on the news feed, and by boosting original reporting. For Haugen and other critics, these measures are not enough.

The debate over Facebook’s news feed algorithm has direct implications for conflict. Crisis Group’s work on Cameroon highlighted that by promoting polarising content, the algorithm may contribute to ethno-political tensions. Hate speech and other polarising content often spread on social media in Ethiopia, and Haugen has suggested that the algorithm may contribute to its reach. In an internal Facebook report leaked to the Wall Street Journal, a test set up to explore how the news feed operated in India found a “near constant barrage of polarizing nationalist content, misinformation, and violence”.

Conflict zones present particular challenges to Facebook in reducing harmful content: understanding what constitutes misinformation is more difficult in regions with less media freedom; hate speech is often highly contextual; and the plethora of languages and dialects spoken by users make content moderation across the globe an enormous technical challenge.

But even with these challenges, Facebook can do better. Start with its moderation system. Harmful material is removed through a mix of human moderators, who review flagged posts, and artificial intelligence, including a hate speech algorithm. Though 90 per cent of Facebook’s users live outside the U.S. and Canada, the moderation system heavily favours the U.S. According to leaked Facebook research, only 13 per cent of the 3.2 million hours spent labelling and removing misinformation in 2020 focused on non-U.S. contexts.

Facebook also has significant gaps in its language capacities. Haugen reported that 87 per cent of the platform’s spending to counter misinformation is devoted to English speakers, despite representing just 9 per cent of users. Most of the platform’s Arabic-speaking content reviewers know Moroccan Arabic, for example, and so cannot always identify hate speech, violence and abuse in other regional dialects, according to a leaked Facebook document. As Crisis Group has noted, in Cameroon, moderators with an understanding of local dialects are important to correctly identifying inflammatory content. Many conflict-affected countries, particularly those with multiple languages and dialects, are left under-resourced.

The same language capacity issues arise in Facebook’s automated flagging of content. Facebook’s response to harmful language relies heavily on its hate speech algorithm, which it touts as identifying 97 per cent of this content ultimately removed from the platform. But this algorithm does not work in all dialects, according to leaked research. It covers only two of the six languages spoken in Ethiopia, for example. In Afghanistan, the platform took action on an estimated .23 per cent of hate speech, according to Facebook research, due to gaps in its language capabilities. In India, Facebook’s largest market, leaked research highlighted a lack of relevant language classifiers to flag content. (Importantly, this may not be the only reason such content was allowed to remain: the Wall Street Journal previously reported that political considerations affected decisions about whether or not to remove Hindu nationalist pages and content.) One leaked study estimated that Facebook took action globally on as little as 3 to 5 per cent of hate speech and less than 1 per cent of violence incitement.

Facebook has taken some steps to address these imbalances. Partnerships with NGOs give the platform greater insight into conflict contexts. (Crisis Group is a partner of Facebook and in that capacity has occasionally been in contact with Facebook regarding misinformation on the platform that could provoke deadly violence.) Facebook has also provided digital literacy training to aid in reducing the spread of harmful content. Facebook’s spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal: “In countries at risk for conflict and violence, we have a comprehensive strategy, including relying on global teams with native speakers covering over 50 languages, educational resources, and partnerships with local experts and third-party fact checkers to keep people safe”. Such efforts are useful, and should be expanded.

Improving the platform’s ability to reduce harmful content across languages and local contexts is a central component of reducing the potential for violence offline. This includes channelling more funding toward expanding moderation teams and addressing language gaps, which can help limit the flow of hate speech, misinformation and incitement to violence. For example, Facebook increased the resources dedicated to Myanmar after it publicly acknowledged its role in the Rohingya atrocities. Crisis Group research shows that in part because of this past experience, the platform moved quickly and aggressively to remove pages linked to the military junta after the February 2021 coup.

But content moderation alone will not be enough. Haugen’s testimony lays bare how Facebook’s algorithm is in some cases misaligned with reducing conflict. Making the algorithm less engagement-driven would not directly address the presence of harmful content, but it could make it less visible. Nor does this have to mean shifting to a chronological news feed, as Haugen recommended: Facebook made changes to the algorithm in relation to health and civic content in the spring of 2020, and in certain conflict-affected countries including Myanmar and Ethiopia. Changes could also target the “explore” feature, which prompts users to look at new pages or accounts they may be interested in – one way that Facebook is inadvertently still advertising pages linked to Myanmar’s military junta. Fully understanding the consequences of any algorithmic changes, particularly in developing contexts, would be greatly facilitated by Facebook disclosing its own research and sharing more data with outside experts.

In the midst of all the criticism, it is easy to lose sight of the many positive benefits of social media for conflict-affected countries. Facebook has helped in the organisation of mass protest movements. It has allowed users to share information about human rights abuses in conflict zones. It offers an alternative source of news in countries where the media is heavily regulated by the state. But the downsides have been substantial. With more resources, research and reform, Facebook could reduce them.

Overkill: Reforming the Legal Basis for the U.S. War on Terror

International Crisis Group, Report No 5/United States, 17 September 2021

After the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. Congress passed a use of force authorisation that successive presidents have used to expand military action ever further. As part of our series The Legacy of 9/11 and the “War on Terror”, we argue that Washington should enact a new statute that promotes transparency and narrows the war’s scope.

What’s new? The U.S. government is conducting a formal review of its counter-terrorism direct action operations – ie, those that involve kill or capture. But it is not clear that the review will shed light on key questions about the effectiveness of militarised counter-terrorism efforts or recommend major changes.

Why does it matter? The so-called global war on terror deserves greater oversight. Since the 11 September 2001 attacks, the U.S. has waged war upon numerous jihadist groups in a dozen or more countries. Decisions to change the conflict’s scope are often taken unilaterally and in secret by the executive branch.

What should be done? The U.S. needs better rules for the war on terror. Congress and the Biden administration should cooperate on a new, more specific authorisation that requires greater deliberation, transparency and accountability for decisions about the war’s scope. This process could help winnow unnecessary components of the war.

Executive Summary

Within days after al-Qaeda attacked the United States on 11 September 2001, the U.S. Congress enacted the 2001 Authorisation for Use of Military Force (AUMF), enabling President George W. Bush to use military force against the operation’s planners and those who aided and harboured them. But, over time, that law became more than just the basis for waging war upon al-Qaeda and the Taliban. As the U.S. expanded operations against jihadists from the Philippines to Niger, successive presidents chose not to seek additional authority from Congress, relying instead on increasingly strained interpretations of the AUMF. These interpretations allowed the executive branch to determine the war’s scope outside the full set of checks and balances that Congress is supposed to supply. This practice should stop. The Biden administration should work with Congress to update the AUMF by replacing it with a statute that promotes transparency and accountability, and that narrows the war down to those efforts necessary to meet a genuine threat.

The U.S. war on terror took shape during Bush’s first term. While the Bush administration is remembered for egregious abuses committed at that time, including the rendition and torture of suspected enemy combatants, its legacy also includes certain enduring structural decisions. One was to seek from Congress a broad use of force authorisation that would allow the executive branch to place military action at the centre of its counter-terrorism strategy. The resulting statute – the 2001 AUMF – contains no termination date or geographic boundaries, and grants the president authority to determine which countries, groups or individuals will be subject to the use of force. The second such decision was to detain certain individuals captured in the conflict at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Thus, the administration set in motion litigation that became a proving ground for increasingly expansive theories about which groups and individuals the AUMF covered. The government sometimes pressed these theories into service to justify lethal operations.

When he took office in 2009, President Barack Obama sought to distinguish himself from President Bush, but he was only partly successful. He banned abusive interrogation techniques and decreed that he would close Guantánamo within a year – an ambition that went unfulfilled. Yet Obama did not reverse the war’s course. Indeed, on his watch its footprint expanded. Borrowing theories honed while defending Guantánamo habeas corpus cases (which it continued to do even as it sought the facility’s closure), the administration claimed that groups like al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (Yemen) and Al-Shabaab (Somalia) were “associated forces” of al-Qaeda and therefore covered by the AUMF.

Obama’s lawyers also argued that the AUMF authorised war with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), even though ISIS was known to have split with al-Qaeda. But even as they drew more power from the AUMF to prosecute the war, senior officials wanted to keep a tight grip on operations. They created a framework of safeguards aimed at protecting civilians and ensuring senior-level coordination around strikes.

President Donald Trump, who followed Obama in 2017, promised another about-face, but he, too, failed to make especially dramatic changes to the structure he inherited. During his campaign, Trump claimed that he would both adopt a gloves-off approach to the war on terror and curtail U.S. military entanglements abroad at the same time. To the relief of many, he did not make good on his threats to reintroduce the interrogation techniques Obama had banned. Nor did he entirely jettison the idea of an overarching policy framework to help set uniform standards and safeguards for the use of force in counter-terrorism activities. He did, however, rescind Obama’s framework and put his own in its place. In reality, the tempo of U.S. counter-terrorism activities worldwide, especially in Africa, including engagement in “advise, assist and accompany” operations with partner forces, appeared to pick up under his watch.

As for the Biden administration, which took office in January 2021, the decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan marks a major shift in the war on terror, but it is uncertain whether further significant changes will follow. An ongoing counter-terrorism policy review appears to be looking to identify middle ground between the Obama-era safeguards for military action (which operators found rigid and cumbersome) and Trump’s more operationally permissive approach. Certainly, the recent revelation that a Kabul drone strike intended for ISIS wound up killing an aid worker and other civilians militates in favour of reinstating the strongest possible safeguards. But whatever the review accomplishes on that front, some participants have suggested that it may avoid looking at more fundamental questions, such as whether Washington’s military response to jihadist groups is properly calibrated to the threats the U.S. is facing, and whether the benefits of these military actions outweigh the costs.

On the subject of legal reform, there are similarly reasons to believe that the administration lacks interest in contemplating major change. It has signalled its willingness to discuss with Congress a refresh of the 2001 AUMF, but it shows no sign of prioritising progress in this direction. Instead, it has said it is waiting for Congress to make the first move and has sent signals that its preference may be simply to recodify its authority rather than make the kinds of serious reforms that would encourage broader debate about the war’s appropriate contours. Under the circumstances, it seems entirely possible that the moment will pass without any legislative reform at all.

That would be a mistake. It is beyond the scope of this report to assess whether and where military force has been or continues to be a necessary and effective tool for countering jihadist threats to the United States. Still, these issues are clearly of enormous consequence to the U.S., its partners and the countries where they are operating and, overall, Crisis Group’s work on the ground in many of the areas affected suggests that a rethink is very much warranted. Yet, at the moment, there is little pressure on the Biden administration to offer satisfying answers, in part because the executive branch has become habituated to making critical decisions about the war unilaterally and behind closed doors.

There is a better way. The Biden administration should expand its policy review to examine where and against whom force is a necessary and effective instrument. It should include a review of “partnered” operations in support of proxy forces. The administration should also engage Congress. Rather than wait for the legislature to make the first move before pursuing the thorny but vital challenge of updating the 2001 AUMF, it should reach out to reform-minded members and begin the process itself. In formulating a replacement, the administration and Congressional counterparts should correct the features that have allowed the 2001 AUMF to survive for two decades, becoming a seemingly bottomless well of executive authority. The new authorisation should be specific about where and against whom force is permitted, make clear that “associated forces” can only be added by a further act of Congress, and require reauthorisation after two or three years to prevent the war from proceeding on autopilot and ensure that new generations of political leaders can be held accountable for its continuation.

Congress is not always a brake on war-making. It did, after all, enact the 2001 AUMF, not to mention authorising the Vietnam and Iraq wars. Still, if U.S. political leaders are to learn the lessons of past conflicts, then the law needs to create a framework for them to do so. A major overhaul of the 2001 AUMF is the best way to proceed in the struggle against transnational jihadism. After twenty years, there is no time to waste.

Washington/New York/Brussels, 17 September 2021

For the full report, visit: https://www.crisisgroup.org/united-states/005-overkill-reforming-legal-basis-us-war-terror