A New Era of Cooperation for the International Society? The Restriction of Illicit International Arms Trade via Digital Technologies

Table of contents

Introduction to the Bachelor Thesis

Introduction to the English School theory: “The anarchical society of order in World Politics”
Theory Part 1: The Nature of Order in World Politics
Theory Part 2: Does Order Exist in World Politics?
Conclusion

“A master institution of world society? Digital communication networks and the changing dynamic of transnational contention”
Introduction to the article
Conclusion
The role of communication in the evolvement of second-order societies.
Conclusion
How to apply this change of concept of the world society?

Analysis: The international conventional legal and illicit arms trade system and the problem with unrestricted gun trade
The global gun trade system from the industrial revolution to the modern arms trade.
Why is unrestricted gun trade a problem to world order?
Conclusions: Why is unrestricted gun trade a problem to world order?

Evaluation to the problem of non transparent conventional arms trade and possible solutions for a new era in world order
Evaluation of the arms trade system in world order
A new way of cooperation for states?
A new way of cooperation for states with blockchain solution to gun control

Conclusion
Closing remarks

Introduction to the Bachelor Thesis

The conventional arms trade legitimacy has not been seriously put in question in the international community, due to the natural right of every sovereign state to protect itself and secondly due to the fact that gun trade is a profitable business (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 4). The arms trade treaty of 2013 has been a first attempt towards a harder control on small arms trade, however today it can be stated that the attempt failed and it hasn’t achieve any real effects on the volume of sales in both legal and illicit conventional weapons, military defense systems and their parts, accessories or ammunition (United Nations 2018).

The five hypothesis that I make about the system of armitary trade prior to the analysis are the following:

- Guns are being produced and traded not solely for purposes of the defense industry in a political sense of security dilemma, but also for purposes of war making. Conflicts and wars profit certain groups in the international world order.
- Global gun trade is regulated not solely by the states foreign policy, but also by gun manufacturing corporations that try to influence the emergence of new conflicts in destabilized parts of the world. Business actors are mainly interested to increase their profits.
- Dominant states abuse arms trade over third world states as a tool of foreign policy, in order to have influence in domestic matters.
- New opportunities with digital technologies are not applied in the international society, due to the international society structure of sovereign states. This structure makes state cooperation in international order based on self binding norms with little or no consequences for the rule breaking country.
- The restrictions in arms trade volumes or restrictions for states to acquire armaments would lead to less new conflicts in the long term.

The goal of this Bachelor thesis is to provide a theoretical explanation of the recent world order with the English School theory, to present an ignored problem of rising numbers in arms trade deals and to present new ways of cooperation for states to solve the gun trade problem. The challenge of this thesis is to combine 3 areas, that don’t seem to match to each other, namely international relations, gun trade and new digital technologies to give a practical solution to one particular policy problem - unrestricted international gun trade. This paper will challenge orthodox ways of problem - solving approaches in international relations by focusing mostly on empirical evidence, rather than theory. It will combine international relations with the power of new digital technologies, including blockchain technology, to deal with international political and economic problems.

Introduction to the English School theory: “The anarchical society of order in World Politics”

Hedley Bull's “The anarchical society of order in World Politics” is often considered to be the founding study in the thought of the English School theory (Stahl 2014: 6). In this part, the basis of the English School theory is going to be summarized and partly applied for the twenty-first centuries world order. This theory has been chosen to explain the problem with the global arms trade and its future restriction opportunities, because the theory is centralizing the role of historical and political contexts (Dunne 2010 : 139). The methodological path chosen in this thesis was to compare historic patterns of the international order to find alternative ways of state cooperation to overcome unrestricted armitary trade. This theoretical framework of the English School thought is useful for the task of connecting historical events of the global arms trade and the development in information technology and to connect the dots of these completely different areas with world order, to be able to give a possible solution to the rising number of the complex unrestricted global arms trade transfers.

Theory Part 1: The Nature of Order in World Politics

In 2018 most of the world’s countries are taking an active part in the international system. There are 193 sovereign states that pursue certain interests and spread their specific values (United Nations 2018). All of these states are fully sovereign and have equal representation in the UN General Assembly. These states are all participants in a single international system and more or less members of a single international society (Bull 2002: 14). They all have a certain degree of communication, cooperation or diplomatic agreements, but they don’t necessarily pursue the same set of common goals or values (Bull 2002: 13). The cooperation between all of the systems states is not necessarily oriented to long term permanence or assimilation in common goals (Bull 2002: 14). That means the international society in its full potential, is only present in specific regions, like in Europe with the European Union. Bull ends this part in stating that between the sixteenth century till the nineteenth century, all of the worlds states had been taking part in a single international system, but weren’t part of a single international society (Bull 2002: 14).

Historically, the international society has been bounded by a universally accepted culture, a common language or a universally shared understanding of the Universe (Bull 2002: 15). In our world order of 2018, it could be interpreted, that only one element is partly accepted - the common language usage. For instance, there are six official languages in the UN: English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish (United Nations 2018). These six languages have evolved as the major languages in the world, that helped to facilitate an easier communication between states in the world order (United Nations 2018). The emergence of theses commonly used languages made it easier to establish a common rule of law and common institutions (Bull 2002: 15). Logically, the nature of world order, follows the goal of preserving a stable state system (Bull 2002: 17). This is because of Bulls setting of elementary goals of all social life, namely the pursuit for peace, the pursuit of keeping agreements and the pursuit of keeping property possession stable (Bull 2002: 5). The other two principles stated above - the universally accepted culture and the shared understanding of the Universe, are in today's world order, in competition between the different cultural groups of the international society. It couldn’t be stated for instance, that the Islamic culture and the Western culture have assimilated to become a common one world culture. This doesn’t mean however, that we don’t have a global word order. Bull describes, that historically, the first global world order as a system of states, arose due to the emerging imperialistic expansion of the European states system all over the globe between the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries (Bull 2002: 20). The movement towards a global world order, resulted to a movement towards a closer cooperation on all levels of cooperation: political, social and economic (Bull 2002: 20).

This movement towards a closer cooperation in the political, social and economic levels is a key feature of the international society of today. In today's international society concept, states are still put in the center for the functionality of the world order (Hurrell 2009: 26). Towards the end of the chapter on the nature of world order, Bull counters this perception for the long-run, by stating that order did historically exist also without states (at least on a less than global scale) and that makes future world order also possible by other forms of cross cultural cooperation (Bull 2002: 20-21).

Theory Part 2: Does Order Exist in World Politics?

In the current international affairs we are used to think that world politics consists of both: domestic or international order (Bull 2002: 22). Some opposing scholars argue though, that international order doesn’t exist (Bull 2002: 22). The presented study of English School Theory by Bull, argues in favor of an existence of order in world politics (Bull 2002: 22). Bull begins his argumentation with overviewing the three competing traditions in the internationalist thought of ideas: the Hobbesian (realist) tradition, the Kantian (universalist) tradition and the Grotian (internationalist) tradition (Bull 2002: 23). The first tradition characterizes international relations as a constant area of war, where everyone fights against everyone (Bull 2002: 23). The second tradition: the Kantian, views the international political system as a peace oriented international society for all mankind (Bull 2002: 23). In the Kantian perspective, various conflicts of interest may arise only between certain individuals of the ruling class, but not between societies (Bull 2002: 24). The interest of all citizens for international politics is the same, keeping a peaceful cooperation (Bull 2002: 24). The third tradition: the Grotian, stands between the realist view and the universalist perspective (Bull 2002: 25). In the conclusion of Bull, the English School Theory is supporting the Grotian view. Bull states, that most of the worlds states recognise the status quo of the fundamental principles of international society, including the principle of sovereignty, the principles of international laws or conventions (Bull 2002: 40). Bull argues that the historic analysis of international order shows that international society was an element in world order that has been permanently in process of evolving (Bull 2002: 49). Bull states that from the fifteenth to the twentieth century there was solely an international system, but the idea for an international society was always present (Bull 2002: 39). Bull reinforces this reasoning, with the example that even with the setbacks of the two World Wars in the twentieth century, the international community reacted both times with the even stronger attempts to unite the international state system to a united society of states. (Bull 2002: 39).

Conclusion

To sum up the first part of the nature of order in world politics, it is important to state that world order brings about a different understanding than just international order (Bull 2002: 21). International order is a closed political system, being closed of by socio-economic and other external influences (Bull 2002). The concept of world order on the other hand, is far-reaching, because the single groups influencing a world order are not just states, but fundamentally groups of individuals (Bull 2002: 21). Secondly, it is important to recapture, that the international system and the international society are different terms, in a sense that international society is a society with commonly working institutions, meaning a society of shared principles in judicial laws (Bull 2002: 14). The second part of the study introduces to the traditions of international thought, recaptures the historic events and their effect on the development of world order and provides some arguments proving the existence of an international society. The main finding of this part is that world order is proven by the behavior of states in the twentieth century in regards to keeping the the common rules of sovereignty, keeping the diplomatic representation system and respecting the important roles of the international organisations like the UN (Bull, 2002, p. 40). The world order of nowadays and the reasons for its formation can be interpreted in different ways, because of the numerous political, economical and technological factors of global society shaping the worlds structure in even contradictory objectives. The formation process will be better understood after the analysis of “A master institution of world society”(Lemke / Habegger 2017), as this article is able to explain the transformation in international political contention (Lemke / Habegger 2017: 297).

“A master institution of world society? Digital communication networks and the changing dynamic of transnational contention”

Introduction to the article

The theory described above, was presented in it’s basic concept, to give us an understanding of the world view by the English School theory scholars. This methodologic path was chosen, to give the reader an understanding of the elementary concepts of the English School theory, including the concepts of international society and world order. Despite, having the abstract theory described, we can see that the concepts stated are difficult to apply for to the central question of this thesis: “How could the legal and illicit international arms trade be restrained in the world order with new digital technologies?”. This is the case, due to the fact that the founding theory of the English School of international relations (Bull 2002), still keeps it’s notion that states are the main decision makers in international politics. With this orthodox assumptions about the world order, it is impossible, to explain the role of private players in armitary trade. Therefore it has been decided to use a reconceptualized version of the English School Theory by Tobias Lemke and Michael W Habberge, as the best suitable derivation of the original theory to give the most accurate answer to the question of the thesis. Even so, it is still important to keep in mind that this article is not a new theoretical concept, but rather an additional frame, which functions as an update to the real image of the current world. The following chapter is divided in three parts: The changed view towards global society, the explanation of new players in political contention and in the question how to apply this changes for empirical cases.

Changed perception of the world society through digital technologies

The English school theory doesn’t have a main article as it’s foundation (Stahl 2014: 36). This theoretical tradition is divided in two strands: the old strand and the new strand (Stahl 2014 : 36). The new generation of thinkers, has a different view towards the balance between order and justice for the international order (Stahl 2014: 39). Whereas the old generation with thinkers like Bull would prioritize order over justice in extreme situations to keep the stability of the world order, the new generation of thinkers sees the arising of global justice as an inconceivable variable to the concept of global society (Vincent 1986). This means, that whereas the old generation had a key role for the state as the main actor in global politics, the new generation of thinkers increases the role of non-state actors to the role of governments in their influence on international relations (Stahl 2014: 39). These changed assumptions to the nature of global society are shared by Tobias Lemke and Michael W Habegger in their article: “A master institution of world society” (Lemke / Habegger 2017). The scientists start the paper with stating a self critique, that the concept of world society still remains to be vague (Lemke / Habegger 2017 : 297). What is however agreed upon, is the orthodox assumption that world society is necessarily connected with international society in a normative sense (Lemke / Habegger 2017: 297). This is due to the domestic analogy set up by Hedley Bull, assuming that states are like a community of individuals that desire the national peace demands to be reproduced on a global level (Suganami 1986: 145). Lemke and Habegger reject here the orthodox notion that the world's societies intentions equal the international societies intentions (Lemke / Habegger 2017: 297). They describe the changed landscape of international communication with the expansion of social media platforms, that have led to a rapid increase of interaction capacity to non state actors (Lemke / Habegger 2017: 297-298). These social media networks have changed the political system in a qualitative sense, modifying the classical procedures of international political contention (Lemke / Habegger 2017: 298). This significant shift of the landscape in international communication affected all decision making parties, but mostly changed the game for the non state actors, who were from now on able to mediate new forms of mobilizations to influence various political projects of their interest (Lemke, & Habegger 2017: 297-298). The factors which enable new interaction capacity capabilities are outlined, namely: change of geographic outreach, change of communication or transportation technologies and change of social technologies, namely new forms of vis a vis communication between groups of people (Lemke / Habegger 2017: 304). The explanation of how intergroup relations have been changed via interaction capacity modification for the participation in political decision making, gives a new standpoint to the English School theory why the desires of world society and the desires of international society don’t potentially match each other (Lemke / Habegger: 2017).

Conclusion

The shift of understanding intergroup relations and their influence on international affairs is a crucial modification of understanding the world society concept. During the time Bull published the English School Theory in 1977, there was indeed a very limited capacity for non state actors to take part in international political contention (Bull 2002). However, starting with the invention of the world wide web to the invention of social media and later blockchain technology, the world has witnessed immense breakthroughs in communication technology capacity that reshaped the coexistence of human beings. This change is notably important in the theorizing of international relations, as some of the assumptions of the world of the classical theories is outdated (Lemke / Habegger 2017). The first part of the article “A master institution of world society” by Lemke and Habegger, gives us an update with a full argumentation why we should re-conceptualize our view towards world society (Lemke / Habegger 2017). In the second part, the role of communication in the evolvement of second-order societies will be presented to have an understanding of how non state actors mobilize with each other to take influence on the global political contention (Lemke / Habegger 2017).

The role of communication in the evolvement of second-order societies.

When explaining the shift of interaction capacity in taking influence on political decisions, Lemke and Habegger state that the new communication technologies have created new transnational group identities, which consequently created so called “second-order societies” (Lemke / Habegger 2017: 309). Let's take an overview of how the interaction capacity developed. The first notable innovation to the masses was the arrival of Web 2.0, which started a new era of a widely available communication platform to publish content on the internet (Lemke / Habegger 2017: 308). The general population became accustomed to communicating more often with different unknowns via the Web 2.0. This facilitated the habit to post their positions, insights, judgements and other kind of thoughts or on the other hand comment on other people's articles, statements, experiences (Lemke / Habegger 2017: 308). The constant exchange between the peers had build a community of people who appreciated each other's work and helped each other to pursue some initiatives (Lemke / Habegger 2017: 308). This process resulted in the reduction of opportunity costs to take political action, because geographic borders have been overcome (Lemke / Habegger 2017: 308). This complex social dynamics build new groups of people, which pursue certain type of goals and derived from the mainstream world society (Lemke / Habegger 2017: 296). The developments of new information technology had reduced the complexity of getting in touch with similar thinking people and enabled the creation of multiple new group identities fighting for some certain causes (Lemke / Habegger 2017). In this way, the awareness of each other was increased significantly and the understanding of political contention became transnational (Lemke / Habegger 2017: 308).

Conclusion

The transformation to a digital society enabled new ways of cooperation for individuals, various groups and the general population to participate in global political contention. The new technologies, starting with the Web 2.0 to the newest forms of social media made new ways of group interaction possible, that haven’t been possible before in history (Lemke / Habegger 2017: 308). This has resulted in new tensions in between the world society member to a great diffusion of different interests in international relations (Lemke / Habegger 2017: 312). The diffusion between the formal hierarchical communication of the society of states on one side and the informal diverse communication of the world society on the other side results in new tensions to world order (Lemke / Habegger 2017: 312). This overlap between the two competing structures of communication is at best depicted by the continuing attempts by some states to restrict the usage of transnational digital communication networks (Lemke / Habegger 2017: 312).

How to apply this change of concept of the world society?

It is a matter of the point of view how to apply the new developments in the theory to specific problems of international relations. There are no clear guidances how to apply this thoughts of Lemke and Habegger, since this article is not a new theory, but rather an essay to challenge the outdated concept of world society. As this change of concept has direct effects for the methodological path chosen, the theory is going to be applied followingly:

1. The concept of international society set by Bull will stay untouched (Bull 2002).
2. The world society is used in the understanding of Lemke and Habegger (Lemke / Habegger 2017).

This setting of rules will allow to apply the change of concept to the case of unrestricted global arms trade. In the next chapter the system of global arms trade is going to be outlined and the problems of unrestricted gun trade are going to be presented.

Analysis: The international conventional legal and illicit arms trade system and the problem with unrestricted gun trade

The second part of the bachelor thesis analyses the case of the legal and illicit international arms trade in the current world order. In this part, the situation of gun trade in the twenty-first century and the actors taking part in the trade of guns will be described. Further, the arguments, why the rising number of trades is a threat to the international society will be outlined. The third part is going to look for opportunities in cooperation with digital technologies for the international society.

The global gun trade system from the industrial revolution to the modern arms trade.

Before we begin with various indicators of the global arms industry market of today, I set to depict the various actors taking part in the armitary trades historic evolution, as this is common for the English School Theory of thought to begin with the historic perspective (Bull 2002). This clarification should give us a clearer understanding of the complexity in the development of the gun trade system during the twentieth century (Stohl / Grillot 2009). Historically, till the beginning of the industrial revolution, gun trade was a matter of solely the state, but with innovations in metallurgical skills as well as innovations in steam power, the industrial revolution build up the capitalist economic system, which made the way for private actors to enter the defence industry (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 14). During this time, the privately run new gun manufacturers, that arose with their new technological innovations, saw an opportunity in the capitalist economic system to profit from entering this newly established market (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 14). The breakthrough in the gun trade came in 1854, when the British state started the purchasing of machinery from the private firm “William Armstrong” (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 14) and so in the consequence, other companies from the British state demanded for the competition to become open for the whole of the market players (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 14). This action by the British state resulted in a critical situation, as other competitors demanded to enter the market, which in the end made the British state decide to get back using their state arsenal and not buy any further equipment from private actors (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 14). Nonetheless, the change in the procedures of arms trade was done and resulted in the change of trading procedures for the entire international order (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 14). The British government's action to sell some of their surplus arsenal to other states made an impact in the first industrialized major gun trade transfers between states (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 14). This example set by the British state, has been followed internationally, with various countries opening their arsenal to sales in the international market and in this sense encouraging gun trade export (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 14). The aim of the governments to encourage the manufacturing of guns and exporting them internationally was due to a new opportunity to gain power in the international society by increasing military advantage for states, if maintaining high volumes of export and reinvesting in the research of new gun production (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 14). From 1854 till the first World War of 1914, the international gun trade made it’s systematic change from a pure defense industry to a private enterprise dominated gun trade market (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 14). Because of the terrifying outcomes from the World War I, states got back to a tighter control over the manufacturing of armitery (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 14-15). The post World War I policy in governmental control on the arms trade hasn’t however reduced the volume of trade in armitary, actually it did not have any visible positive effects on the rising numbers of international transfers in military equipment during the whole of twentieth century (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 15). This switch from the private sector dominance in the market to a tight governmental control is the first major trend of a switch to a modern armitary trading system (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 16). Up until the World War II, states evolved as the primary promoters of exports (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 16). As the pressure leading to the World War II has been rising, the governments became proactive in establishing funds for weapons manufacturers to conduct new research for military technology innovations (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 16). Gun trade and technological developments in military became a symbol of prestige (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 19). Apart from governmental support in the form of funds for research programmes to develop new guns or military defense systems, states enforced legal procedures to licence private companies in their gun production, in order to gain more control of the gun trade procedure and use it for foreign policy purposes (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 17). States and private corporations established public-private partnership agreements to simplify the procedures of cross-border gun trade (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 17). Leading to the World War II and especially with the emergence of the Cold War era gun trade volumes reached unseen numbers (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 17). This trend of exponential growth in volumes of trade is the second feature of the modern arms trade of the twentieth century (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 17-19). One of the possible explanations of the trend in the growth of military dominance in the modern era is the seeking of power in the international system, the seeking of overcoming security dilemma with the upgrading of guns and the economic growth opportunities (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 18). This is especially evident with the emergence of the Cold War system between the United States and Soviet Union (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 19). At this historic era arms trade became an effective foreign policy tool of government to impact the strategic behavior of specific states in the bipolar world order of Western capitalistic alliance on the one side and the Soviet communist alliance on the other side (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 47). A breaking shift for the system of arms trade during the Cold War was the declaration of the Nixon Doctrine in 1969 (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 10). Richard Nixon, the president of the United States, stated that the United States would help in assistance friendly regimes by shiping of military equipment instead of sending troops (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 10). This comment of the president, that the US would ship armitary to a foreign country, without sending US soldiers, opened a new era for foreign policy and war making, but also impacted the international armitary trade (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 10). The Nixon doctrine made a procedure of how to directly influence sovereign countries, without directly intervening and without taking any responsibility or associated risks of warmaking (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 10). This changed the system of armitary trade in a sense, that the exporting country lost the control of who receives the military support in the importing country (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 10). Till the end of the Cold War in 1991 with the collapse of the USSR, the security dilemma between the two poles and the competition of ideological systems affected the upgrading of armitary to a whole new level for all the international society members to and reached at times a critical state (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 23) Another trend that came in effect during the Cold War era was the change of gun recipients from the developed world to the countries of the developing world (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 22). This historic development resulted in a rise of more countries upgrading their arsenal, that haven’t participated in the market significantly and continued to do so after the end of the Cold War. Starting from 1991, the new world order with the victory of the capitalistic superpower United States, and the collapse of the superpower Soviet Union, had tremendous destabilising effects on the world order, but also on the international trades in military equipment (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 23-24). During the destabilized nineteen-nineties, the warmaking practices switched from intrastate wars of two foreign superpowers supporting local parties in the ideological competition, to a practice of inter-state wars, where the wars were between state and nonstate actors (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 23). This systematic change of participating actors in warfare, had changed the competition in the market for gun manufacturers (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 23). From now on, similarly to the systematics of the era between the industrial revolution and the World War I, the private-public sector partnership of the armitary industry had less trade boundaries of where to ship armaments (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 23-24). The international armitary market system liberalized and so did the behaviours of the trading actors, which ended up in the practice that business was done with historic rivals and also in the fact that deals were made between state and nonstate actors, which made the market even more difficult to follow and understand (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 23-24). This procedures of a wild gun trade market had significant destabilising effects to the world order as a whole (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 23-24). As a result of the liberalisation in the market, new companies, that didn’t consider themselves being in the defense industry, entered the defense industry (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 38). This came up partly due to new global economy trends and also due to new digital technology that had developed in the commercial sector (Stohl / Grillot, 2009: 38). In the post Cold War era, global arms sales have fallen and consistently tended to fall till the year 2003 (SIPRI 2017). This trend can be explained due to the situation of international order, where several conflicts were going to an end and various economic crisis emerged, causing a decline in arms trade transfers globally (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 24). However, after the events of the 11th of September 2001, the situation had changed completely and arms transfers began to grow constantly (SIPRI 2017). SIPRI estimates, that the total value of new global arms trade in 2015 to have reached US$91.3 billion (SIPRI 2017). This growth in military expenditure in armitary trade has doubled in value, since the high peaks of US$45 billion in 1982 (Stohl / Grillot 2009: 17). In 2016, the global military expenditure value reached US$1686 billion equal to 2.2 percent of the global GDP (SIPRI 2017). The new upgrading trends in military expenditures is reaching unseen peaks in value, which can be interpreted in direct new threats to the society of states as a whole. The international arms trade, as we have seen in this historic overview, is a profitable complex global market, consisting of the legal trade and the illegal trade of conventional weapons, weapons systems and their parts, accessories as well as ammunition, between state, non state and private actors, that in it’s basis depicts a lack of transparency, as countries tend to hide their activities in the market with the providence of inaccurate information of countries military expenditures (SIPRI 2017). The systematics of gun trade is hidden behind the concept of national security, that allows state and market players to constantly protect sensitive information of their activities in trade, hiding the full picture of their trading activities behind a facete and therefore providing desinformation to the general public (SIPRI 2017). This trends in the evolution of the gun trade system in the twentieth century are threatening the peace of the world order as a whole, therefore a systematic argument why arms trade upgrading has a direct influence for the destabilization of world order will be introduced as an argument in the next chapter (Stohl / Grillot 2009).

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