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This chapter examines the global defense industry’s function in light of states’ national security. It retraces the global context and dynamics of the defense industry. It identifies, applies, and discusses three mechanisms by which the defense industry serves national security. First, the industry provides access to military goods, technologies, and services. Second, when exporting weapons, the industry creates dependencies and interdependencies with the importing states. Third, the industry can enhance status and national pride. The chapter finds, however, that most states’ defense industries struggle to significantly contribute to national security, the U.S. industry being a notable exception. The chapter argues that there is an ethical dimension to this because, even when defense industries contribute to national security to a limited degree, they still profit by producing tools to kill. To address this issue, the calls for a renewed research agenda on how the defense industry contributes to security.

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This introductory chapter sets the scene for the book, providing an overview and a through-line for the myriad themes discussed in the substantive chapters and the conclusions drawn in the final chapter. This chapter marvels that more academic work has not been devoted to the ethical issues in this morally fraught sector. There exists a tension, it argues, between a weapons industry whose existence is necessary for national defense and the malevolent purposes for which those arms are sometimes used. Scholars’ reluctance to engage these issues parallels a broader human tendency to eschew such matters, perhaps because we would prefer not to think about what our collective responsibility may be for wrongdoing committed in times of war, in what are often far-off lands. But with modern, truly global defense industries, such ethical issues become harder to ignore.

Since the adoption of the UN Charter, states have concluded numerous international disarmament treaties. What are their core features, and are there any trends in their design? This article discusses the five global disarmament treaties, namely the 1971 Biological Weapons Convention, the 1992 Chemical Weapons Convention, the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions and the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It first considers how a broad set of prohibitions of activities with respect to specific weapons has evolved over time. Then, it analyses the treaties’ implementation and compliance support mechanisms as well as their procedural aspects regarding entry into force and withdrawal. This article finds that a pattern has developed over the last two decades to outlaw all and any use of weapons by disarmament treaty, without first instituting a prohibition on their use under international humanitarian law (IHL). It also finds that reporting obligations, meetings of States Parties and treaty-related institutions are generally created, either directly by treaty or by subsequent state party decisions. Finally, there is a tendency to make the treaty’s entry into force easier, and the withdrawal more difficult. It is argued that these trends arise from states’ attempt to establish more easily disarmament treaties, design more robust disarmament treaties and more effectively protect civilians. The article concludes by reflecting whether these trends form the basis of a new branch of international law—international disarmament law—and discusses them in the context of emerging weapons and technologies.