A new arms race
In a wide variety of opinion pieces, articles, reports and dialogues, TNI offered a trenchant critique of the new global arms race, which has been underway for the last several years and rapidly accelerated in 2022 in response to Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine in February. Work already in the pipeline took on new salience in the context of the war. In March, at a webinar attended by 125 people, we shared the findings of a new joint report, Fanning the Flames, which described how the European Union is fuelling a new arms race. The report examined the corporate beneficiaries of the precursor programmes to the Europe’s Defence Fund (EDF), which commenced in 2021 with an unprecedented budget of €8 billion. Among other things, the report detailed the companies’ involvement in controversial arms exports and nuclear weapons, as well as allegations of corruption. Fanning the Flames circulated widely on social media and received coverage in media across Europe, resulting in headline stories in France’s Mediapart, Spain’s El Diario and Italy’s El Domani.
We also showed how the massive increase in security spending continues to strengthen ‘Fortress Europe’ and the EU’s effort to externalise border control to third countries – Ukraine, among others – regardless of the devastating consequences of such policies. An article on the plight of an EU-funded migrant detention centre inside Ukraine inspired interviews with Al Jazeera and Der Spiegel, coverage in the African News Agency, and questions by parliamentarians in the Netherlands and Germany.
‘It is extremely concerning that migrants and refugees are still locked up in detention centres in war zones, with the risk of being attacked without any possibility to flee.’
– Tineke Strik, member of the European Parliament
In April, in the follow-up report, At what cost?, we showed how EU military and defence spending across various budget lines amounts to over €43 billion, while transparency, oversight and accountability remain sorely lacking. Presented in an online format, the report enables interested parties to more easily access information on the different European budget lines dedicated to defence spending – a critical tool for further research and analysis. In November, we made another vital contribution to the debate with Smokescreen, a detailed analysis of the increase in military spending across Europe since the outbreak of the full-scale war in Ukraine. The report showed that alongside of direct procurement of arms, European countries are investing huge sums of public money in research and development of new weapons – in other words, public money ultimately intended for the arms industry’s private profit. An op-ed based on the report was published in EU Observer and an interview to discuss the report’s findings featured on Talk World Radio. Among other results, our work helped influence a peace initiative underway in Brussels.
Myanmar
TNI’s long-standing work on Myanmar continued, despite extremely challenging circumstances. In 2022, we analysed why the present crisis in Myanmar is so profound and why the patterns of military rule, state failure and ethnic conflict are being repeated. TNI continued to support local partners, and published online commentaries on diverse topics, including land rights, international aid in the context of conflict, the gendered dynamics of drug policy, and impacts on poppy farmers of the decline in opium cultivation.
