The pandemic doesn’t seem to have affected the global demand for weapons, according to a new report, which reveals the defense industry’s top 100 companies made $531 billion in 2020 – 1.3% more than in the previous year. 

Arms sales have been steadily growing for six consecutive years, and the economic hurdles caused by Covid-19 couldn’t reverse this trend, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) pointed out on Monday.

“The industry giants were largely shielded by sustained government demand for military goods and services,” with some countries even accelerating payments to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, Alexandra Marksteiner from SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Program said.

The US maintained its lead in the sector in 2020. There were 41 American companies on the list, with five of them occupying the top five spots since 2018. The total earnings of US arms manufacturers last year reached $285 billion, growing by 1.9% compared to 2019.

Chinese firms took second place, with total earnings of $66.8 billion, or 13% of the global arms sales in 2020. SIPRI attributed this success to Beijing’s military modernization program, which turned the local defense companies into “some of the most advanced military technology producers in the world.”

The 26 European weapons manufacturers showed “mixed results” last year, according to the Swedish researcher. The UK came third overall after China, with its seven companies in the Top 100 making $37.5 billion, which was a 6.2% increase from 2019. German firms saw their profits growing by 1.3% and reaching $8.9 billion, while the sales of their French counterparts fell by 7.7%.

The downward trend that began in 2018 continued for Russian arms manufacturers last year, the report claimed. The country’s nine companies in the Top 100 saw their sales decline from $28.2 billion in 2019 to $26.4 billion.

The setback could be explained by the conclusion of the State Armament Program 2011–20 and the diversification of the Russian defense industry, as firms were tasked with increasing their share of civilian sales to 50% by 2030, the authors said. They didn’t mention sanctions and pressure by Washington on countries that are looking to buy Russian-made arms among the possible reasons.

The reports by SIPRI “can’t be considered an objective source of information,” Russian military-industrial conglomerate Rostec said in response to the new figures.

“The Western analysts only rely on open sources and are unaware of the real picture,” it said in a statement. SIPRI also neglects the fact that most of the payments for Russian arms are being made in rubles, not dollars, while only being focused on profits, instead of counting the actual number of units sold.

Rostec’s earnings are steadily growing every year and production levels remain high, the statement insisted.    

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/542342-arms-sales-us-china-russia/

 

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The Medical Association for the Prevention of War is appealing to the Australian War Memorial not to renew its partnership with weapons giant Lockheed Martin when the current agreement expires in April this year. 

 

Since its foundation in 1981, the Medical Association for the Prevention of War has worked for ‘the redirection of the world’s resources away from war and towards peace, health and justice’, with a particular focus on the abolition of all nuclear weapons. It founded ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.

The AWM has accepted money from the following leading arms companies (and others): Boeing, Northrup Grumman, Thales, BAE Systems, and Raytheon in addition to Lockheed Martin, which is the world’s largest beneficiary of war with arms sales in 2020 of $58.2 billion.

The businesses of these leading arms dealers have raised major ethical issues. All six of them are involved in the production of nuclear weapons, which are now illegal under the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Australia is not a signatory to that Treaty, but it still means that production of the weapons is illegal under international law. Some of the companies have also been involved in massive arms sales to Saudi Arabia and other autocratic Middle Eastern Countries that have been accused plausibly of war crimes.

Lockheed Martin, whose customers include what MAPW research describes as ‘some of the world’s worst human rights abusers’, enjoyed sales to Saudi Arabia, for 2019 and 2020 alone, estimated to be US$900 million. In January 2022 CEO Jim Taiclet of Lockheed Martin highlighted the benefits of ‘great power competition’ in Europe to shareholders. And now, the benefits are pouring in, with the war in Ukraine.

It is worth noting that the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, which attacks China for its human rights abuses, lists Lockheed Martin and Northrup Grumman among its sponsors.

There is precedent for getting the weapons makers out of our Memorial. For many years, the AWM’s theatre was named BAE Systems Theatre. BAE is the same company that has been and remains a key supplier of the Saudi Arabian and UAE regimes that are causing human disaster in Yemen with their bombing campaign (in a conflict that seems to have been forgotten by Western leaders, including those in Canberra, who help fuel the war). In November 2016, Anzac Hall (which has since been demolished as part of redeveloping the Memorial) was used by BAE Systems for an address specifically promoting the company.

After advocacy from MAPW and others, BAE’s partnership with the AWM terminated in August 2020.

Now, to support the MAPW’s current appeal to the AWM Director Mr Matt Anderson not to renew its partnership with Lockheed Martin, I have written to him in the following terms:

The AWM’s stated purpose is a solemn one: ‘to commemorate the sacrifice of those Australians who have died in war or on operational service.’ Lockheed Martin’s purpose is ruthlessly self-interested: to maximise profits from global arms sales. In part a war marketeer, its interests are inseparable from war, which it sees as an opportunity. This is as in the protracted human tragedy from which it profits in Yemen and now, in the war in Ukraine, which has caused its stocks to soar. The AWM’s connection with Lockheed Martin is a shocking affront to its stated purpose and represents a loss of principled direction.

Any member of the public who would like to learn more and write to the Director to say that corporations that profit from war have no place in our national memorial may readily do so.

MAPW, in its campaign Reclaim Remembrance, has provided information and suggested points for you to use or to shape by changing or adding a personalised comment. Just click here.

 

 

READ MORE:

https://johnmenadue.com/casting-lockheed-martin-out-of-the-australian-war-memorial/

 

 

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BY David Stephens

 

Senator David Shoebridge, a new Green from New South Wales, tabled a document in Senate Estimates on 8 November which showed just how keen the Australian War Memorial has been to oblige its corporate donors. 

The donor here was Lockheed Martin, in 2020 the world’s largest arms manufacturer by value of sales ($US58.2 billion), but which picks up “corporate responsibility” brownie points by donating small change to the Memorial ($727,000 from 2013-14 to 2019-20: Question on Notice No. 42, 2019-20 Supplementary Estimates, Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee).

Formally, the document (dated 2018) the Senator waved around was Lockheed Martin’s, obtained from the Memorial under FOI. Signed by the Memorial’s representative, it enables Lockheed Martin to say it is not making donations to a government body to influence its arms contracts with the Australian government – which are worth squillions. (Lockheed is competing, for example, with Northrop Grumman at present for a contract worth $2.7 billion, and that’s just one of many.)

As the Senator said, “The purpose of having this limitation on behalf of Lockheed Martin is so that Lockheed Martin is not seen to be making financial contributions to governments, or any agency or association associated with a government, that it’s also selling weapons to. It’s an integrity measure.”

What the Memorial’s officer signed was an “international contributions compliance certification form” – provided by Lockheed Martin – that said:

[t]he Recipient Organisation [the Memorial] is not an agency, organisation, association, or instrumentality of the Australian government, any political party in Australia or a public international organisation, and is not otherwise owned, in whole or in part, or controlled by the Australian government or any Australian political party or government official, or an official of a public international organisation. [Spelling slightly revised from the Hansard to match the original.]

There was more in the form about not using Lockheed’s donated money to “improperly influence” Australian officials or obtain an “improper advantage”.

Senator Shoebridge asked War Memorial Director Anderson to admit that the statement signed off by the Memorial officer was “plainly wrong”, in that the Memorial clearly was “an agency, organisation, association or instrumentality of the Australian government”. The Director pointed out instead that the Memorial had inserted words (in red, indeed) in the form: “The Memorial is a statutory authority of the Australian government, with an independent governing council”.

The Department of Finance two page “Flipchart of PGPA Act [Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013] Commonwealth entities and companies”, dated 15 November 2022, shows lots of statutory authorities, but the term “statutory authority” simply means “an Australian Government body established through legislation for a public purpose“. It is not defined in the relevant current legislation, the PGPA Act, which is written in terms of “Commonwealth entities” and divides all except 17 of the 190 entities listed into “corporate” or “non-corporate”. (The other 17 are companies under the Corporations Act.)

The Flipchart classifies the Memorial as a “Corporate Commonwealth entity”, one of 72 in that category. The category also includes the Australian National University, the ABC, the National Gallery, the National Library, and the National Museum, each of them with its own Act and similar words about the powers and functions of their governing Boards or Councils as are found in the Australian War Memorial Act 1980.

In essence, the Memorial representative who signed the form – and Director Anderson at Estimates – were using the generic but legally meaningless category “statutory authority” as a fig leaf to cover the Memorial’s paving the way for Lockheed. The fact that the Memorial can be called a statutory authority does not mean it is not at the same time a “Commonwealth entity” as on the PGPA Flipchart or, in Lockheed’s terms, “an agency, organisation, association or instrumentality of the Australian government”.

What fibs bureaucrats have to tell to cadge a dribble of funds out of donors. To complete the story, though, we need to mention that other evidence we have seen, dated 4 October 2022, is a letter where a Memorial officer admits (to someone not Lockheed but in reference to this case), “The ongoing relationship the Memorial has with Lockheed Martin would lead a reasonable person to understand the Memorial is funded by and a part of the Australian Government”.

So, what the Memorial says depends upon to whom it is writing – sometimes it’s not Australian, sometimes it is. By the way, Kim Beazley, newly elected and appointed as the Chair of the War Memorial Council, former Defence Minister, former Ambassador to the United States, former Governor of Western Australia and promoter of its defence industries, was also from 2016 to 2018 a member of the Board of Lockheed Martin Australia. Another example of what has been called “the military-industrial-commemorative complex” or simply “the revolving door”.

 

READ MORE:

https://johnmenadue.com/the-war-memorial-plays-along-with-lockheed-martin/

 

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By Sue Wareham

 

What do we make of our own national war memorial inviting children to have a go at planning attacks on civilian infrastructure which amount to war crimes?

Pearls and Irritations recently drew attention to a current Australian War Memorial exhibition on the 1943 Dambuster raids over Germany and the Memorial’s failure to mention the huge civilian toll. However the Memorial’s history of glossing over the human and other costs of our wars is far worse than that. It extends to inciting children to regard these raids not as war crimes (at least from today’s perspective) but as an adventure.

Around a decade ago, the Memorial’s online “KidsHQ – Armaments” activities included a dam-busting feature, under the heading “Great Stories”. The preliminary information stated “The story of the Dam-Busters is a true life adventure. On the night of 16 – 17 May 1943 they destroyed two dams and damaged one with their ‘bouncing bombs’. The raid created chaos, killing about 2,000 people, and flooding hundreds of square kilometres. Fifty-three airmen died that night, almost half of the attacking force.” The activity challenged young readers with “See if you can bust the dam”, and so it proceeded to engage them.

What do we make of our own national war memorial not so long ago inviting children to have a go at planning attacks on civilian infrastructure which amount to war crimes? Was this a brief lapse of judgement on the part of a junior official that somehow escaped scrutiny? Have the AWM Council and Director taken action since then to affirm that war is not actually a game and should never be presented as such? One would like to think so, but the signs are not encouraging.

Before it closed due to COVID, and then the AWM redevelopment, the children’s Discovery Zone at the Memorial was little better. It contained various action stations, where children could “prepare for take-off” in a helicopter in Vietnam (but “please limit your time to two minutes per turn”, the sign said), or “play a game of cat-and-mouse” in a Cold War era submarine.

Children could also play in a First World War trench – absolutely authentic except for the absence of blown-off body parts, the terror that sent men mad, the constant shriek of shells overhead, the lice, the mud in which men drowned, and just about everything else that characterised trench warfare. To be fair, there was a panel (just one) about a health hazard from trench warfare – the fungal infection of trench foot (“Place your foot inside the box to see what it was like”).

In April – May this year, the AWM responded to questions in parliament from Senator David Shoebridge, on its children’s activities. The Memorial justified its approach by stating “Play activities are recognised by educators as vital for supporting learning and the healthy development of physical, social, and cognitive skills”, and it cited Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC):

• States Parties recognise the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts. 
• States Parties shall respect and promote the right of the child to participate fully in cultural and artistic life and shall encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, and recreational and leisure activity. 

Of course children have a right to rest, leisure, play and the rest of it, and education about war must be age-appropriate, but children should also be protected from propaganda about what war is really like. UNCROC refers to “the ideals proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations”, whose very first words are “We, the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war…”. Peace is a fundamental right of childhood. For the AWM to abuse the intent of the UNCROC like this is scurrilous.

Indeed, the Memorial is not only misleading children about the nature of warfare, it is encouraging them to regard military service as a responsibility. In November 2020, AWM Director Matt Anderson gave evidence (here, page 48) to the inquiry of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee into “Nationhood, national identity and democracy”. He stated that “We develop in young learners a deeper understanding of the connection between civic responsibility and military service by exploring the stories of Australians who have served.”

Setting aside the fact that such a purpose for the Memorial is not stated anywhere in the AWM Act, the Memorial’s approach is almost indistinguishable from it being a recruiting tool for the ADF. There follows then a need to greatly sanitise and – yes – glorify war, so that potential recruits are not scared off.

So, what will the redeveloped AWM hold in terms of children’s education? Judging by past performance, and the overall plans for the huge new space with plenty of gee-whizz weaponry on display, our children will be none the wiser about why wars occur, why they must be prevented and the steps that would help achieve this.

A half-billion dollar expansion that feeds a narrative of endless wars would be not only a national travesty, but a wasted opportunity to teach our children about peace.

The Medical Association for Prevention of War has asked the Memorial about the process by which the community – all of us – can have input into the new children’s galleries. We await their response.

https://johnmenadue.com/the-awm-children-and-war-crimes/

 

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WAR IS A KILLER.....

 

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Why does Kim Beazley, chair of the $550 million Australian War Memorial upgrade, appear to hide his board roles at multinational weapons companies sponsoring the project? Who else is involved? Elizabeth Minter and Michelle Fahy go digging.

Australian War Memorial Council website makes no mention of chair Kim Beazley’s roles with multinational weapons companies Luerssen and Lockheed Martin and is very coy about another Council member’s full-time role with French weapons multinational Thales, which has just been referred to the National Anti-Corruption Commission.

A recent report by the national auditor general into the development of the Australian War Memorial found serious deficiencies. Steps were taken to dodge ministerial oversight; conflicts of interest were not adequately documented and declared; known conflicts were not adequately managed; key personnel did not declare prior employment with tenderers; and there were deficiencies in the quality of advice to the minister.

One draft contract for $1.05 million was split into two contracts with the same supplier, with both contracts being signed on the same day. Another contract under an official order for a maximum value of $319,572 was later varied upwards to $999,999—one dollar under the $1 million threshold required for ministerial approval.

The Australian War Memorial’s purpose is to commemorate the sacrifice of those Australians who have died in war or on operational service and those who have served our nation in times of conflict. It was designed as a place of quiet reflection and contemplation.

Military Disneyland

However, thanks to long-running sponsorship deals over the years with global weapons manufacturers, including BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin and Thales, the AWM is being transformed into a military Disneyland, which boastfully celebrates combat triumph with displays of military hardware and exhibitions.

We now honour our dead in a place sponsored by the companies that are so handsomely rewarded financially by the wars that kill our citizens.

In its report, the Auditor-General further noted that an entity’s culture will be determined by the “tone at the top” set by its leadership, noting that the AWM’s Council members and Senior Executive Service officers declare interests annually.

However, the Auditor-General stated that “AWM did not undertake any specific probity planning or review its processes for Council and staff to reflect the increased probity risks arising from the scale and volume of the procurement activities relating to the $498 million development project.”

Kim Beazley’s many roles

Should the public be told, for example, that Labor luminary Kim Beazley, the chair of the War Memorial Council, which is responsible for the conduct and control of the Memorial’s affairs, is an adviser to Lockheed Martin and that he was also on the board of Lockheed Martin Australia for almost two years (2016-2018) in between his roles as ambassador to the US and Governor of WA? Lockheed Martin manufactures the lethal F-35 fighter jet that Israel is using to drop bombs on Gaza.

Beazley’s 349-word profile on the website of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), where he is a distinguished senior fellow, similarly contains no mention of his roles with Luerssen Australian and Lockheed.

ASPI’s mission is to contribute an “independent voice to public discussion” and “bring alternative sources of advice”  to “key strategic and defence policy issues”. Beazley writes regularly for ASPI, including this article on naval shipbuilding earlier this year, but he and ASPI neglected to mention that he is on the board of Luerssen Australia, which has the $3.6 billion contract to build offshore patrol vessels for Australia’s navy.

Why is there no mention of Beazley’s close engagement with these multinational arms companies in his 350-word profile on the AWM website? Beazley’s profile mentions his role as Governor of WA, his dedication to federal politics for nearly 30 years, his ministerial portfolios, his Companion of the Order of Australia honour, his advocacy for Indigenous people and the community, his educational achievements, his US ambassadorial role, his roles in academia, and his distinguished fellowships, all of which indicate a lifetime of public service.

The media release announcing Beazley’s role as Council chair on 2 December 2022 also omitted his Lockheed Martin and Luerssen roles.

Conflicts of interest

Also, why wasn’t the public told for a long time that another member of the War Memorial Council is a Key Account Manager with the French multinational weapons manufacturer Thales?

Daniel Keighran, a Council member for eight years, has been employed for at least five years by Thales, a sponsor (corporate partner) of the War Memorial and one of the top handful of suppliers to the Defence Department in Australia.

Thales was last week referred to the National Anti-Corruption Commission after the national auditor-general released yet another excoriating report into procurement by the Defence Department, finding evidence of “unethical conduct”. Thales received a $1.2 billion contract to run two Commonwealth-owned munitions facilities in 2020 despite an assessment that found its bid was “deficient”, “high risk” and did not offer value for money.

Until recently, there was no mention in Keighran’s Council profile of his Thales role, as is evident from a snapshot taken on February 22, 2024, by the Wayback Machine, which takes snapshots of websites over the years.

While the Council has since updated Keighran’s profile, his full-time employment at Thales is still only obliquely referred to as a ‘current association’.

https://michaelwest.com.au/game-of-mates-the-australian-war-memorial-and-the-military-industrial-complex/

 

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