The below is an excerpt from our new report, “Tracing Corruption: Emerging Patterns in the Global Arms Trade” (World Peace Foundation and the Corruption Tracker, August 2025).
Corruption in the arms trade comes in many forms and is therefore notoriously difficult to define. To guide the Corruption Tracker (CT) case research, we adopt a working definition from Transparency International: “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain.” It has broadly been applied by much of civil society, academia, and governmental or international bodies, such as Europol, U.S. Office of Government Ethics, European Commission, and the World Economic Forum. In a lot of anti-corruption work, the Transparency International (TI) definition is a useful one. It does not reduce the scope of corruption to money exchanging hands, and allows a reasonably broad level of interpretation. As the basis for case selection criteria, it has been very useful for the CT. Cases are prioritized for research based on team capacity, the quality of data in the public domain, and topical relevance. While this means the data at our disposal is far from randomized, the CT is still the broadest existing database of corruption in the arms trade, and meaningful conclusions can be drawn from the data held.
By analyzing the cases and trends that have emerged from the CT over the years, patterns can be identified around how corruption operates within the arms trade. The findings from the CT highlight the limitations of current approaches that focus primarily on the process of corruption. This section will explain why TI’s definition falls short and proposes a new framework for analyzing corruption in the arms trade.
From Entrusted Power to Unquestioned Influence
The experience of the CT over the past five years has made it clear that this predominant framework for addressing corruption has some significant limitations. The first part of the problem is that corruption is sometimes treated as an unfortunate side-issue of the global arms trade. “Entrusted power” can be power that is given within the public sphere or within a corporation, but it implies a level of “trust,” a level of legitimacy for holding this power. In reality, in a largely western, privatized arms trade, executives oriented toward profit for their corporations are given a disproportionate amount of access to public power. Almost by definition, they are using access to public power and access to officials entrusted with power in the public space for private gain. Yet, business executives, lobbyists, and middlemen were never legitimately entrusted with this public power. Rather, they can hide behind official decision makers when things go wrong, concealing the role they play in creating the outcomes they believe will be beneficial to them.
These private actors are, in many cases, the instigators of corruption. An overemphasis on entrusted power can hide the systemic nature of abusing power for private gain that is at the heart of the relationship between a profit-oriented arms industry with unparalleled access to public power not entrusted to, but rather appropriated by them.
The second trend that CT data has shown is that, at least where the arms trade is involved, it is not sufficient to focus on purely “private” gain. The boundaries between government and corporate interests in the defense sector are often deeply blurred, particularly where national security and foreign policy objectives are concerned. In the arms industry, two major drivers emerge: the pursuit or reinforcement of strategic relationships and the generation of capital. The first (maintaining or strengthening geopolitical relationships) has been shown by Campaign Against Arms Trade as the primary factor behind arms export approvals in the UK, often overriding legal obligations to assess the potential harm caused by arms transfers. The second motivator, profit (whether through arms sales, shareholder profits, or bribes) drives much of the global arms trade.
In pursuit of these (often intertwined) goals, “private gain” is an insufficient lens through which to understand potential benefits obtained through corruption. A corrupt contract may be pursued not for personal enrichment, but to achieve a perceived benefit to national security, to a state or corporation, to an ideology, or to a political party. Crucially, pursuing a deal while bypassing due process, overlooking illicit practices, approving or ignoring irregular payments, or sidestepping oversight, constitutes corruption, even if the intended outcome is framed as serving the public good. It is essential to recognize that a moral or ideological agenda, such as believing you are supporting your country’s national interests, does not preclude individuals or institutions from being corrupt, and should not exempt them from accountability.
The Capture of Global Systems
In some cases, anti-corruption work itself has been left open to capture by those who use it to bolster colonial frameworks and support political agendas. As Anna Stavrianakis has explained, there is a “basic asymmetry” in the dynamics of the arms trade, where the vast majority of weapons are produced in the Global North, and exported to the Global South. This dynamic itself is both a legacy and a driver of colonialism. Historically, there has been disproportionate focus on ‘buyer’ countries in the anti-corruption field, and not the “seller” countries or the vast multinational corporations who instigated the deals. The crucial point that is often missed is that corruption cannot occur without the participation of both the seller and the buyer. The disproportional focus on the Global South perpetuates supremacist colonial narratives about corruption and development.[i]
Trends shown by the CT evidence support Stavrianakis’ point and demonstrate the involvement of Global North arms-exporting countries in corruption scandals. More than 4 in 5 of the CT cases involve a NATO member and 69% involve at least one Global North country selling to one or more countries in the Global South.[ii] However, when this data is compared to the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), the most widely used global corruption ranking in the world, two different pictures emerge. The CPI ranks countries by perceived levels of public sector corruption amongst experts and businesspeople. 86% of CT cases involve a seller country that has been ranked in the 30 least corrupt countries by the CPI. The CT case “Green Horizon: Fueling the Conflict in South Sudan,” for instance, tells the story of retired Israeli Defense Forces Major General Israel Ziv allegedly leveraging his connections with South Sudan’s Defence and Agricultural Ministries, the Israeli Ministry of Defense, and Trafigura, a commodity trading company, to orchestrate the sale of $150 million in weapons to both theSouth Sudanese government and its opposition. While South Sudan is ranked as the mostcorrupt country in the whole world, Israel, led by a government mired in corruption scandals, and the registered country of many businesses that are involved in corrupt arms deals, enjoys its place in the bottom 30. Ranking based on perceptions, even those of experts, falls foul of a range of biases and misses significant hard evidence.
One of the more concerning aspects is the limited scrutiny applied to the companies that get involved in corruption. For instance, Transparency International’s Defence Companies Index (DCI), which assesses the levels of public commitment to anti-corruption and transparency in the corporate policies and procedures of 134 of the world’s largest defense companies, diverges from some of the evidence in our database. The companies most frequently featured on the Corruption Tracker – BAE Systems (8 cases), Leonardo (5 cases), and ThyssenKrupp (5 cases) – are ranked relatively favorably by the DCI. Leonardo is listed as the least corrupt arms company on the Index, while BAE and ThyssenKrupp both rank as “B”, indicating a “high” commitment to anti-corruption and transparency. This raises questions about the reliance on self-published data and the extent of due diligence undertaken regarding a company’s external public record. Without a more rigorous assessment process, such rankings may inadvertently limit the impact of anti-corruption efforts, and in some cases, risk undermining them.
Towards a Systems Lens: The Capture of States and Systems
The arms trade is one of the best vehicles for corruption. It operates under a veil of national security-imposed secrecy and involves huge sums of money for often long-term, complex projects. In the West, the culture of militarism that underpins the arms trade has infiltrated not just the military-industrial complex but our bureaucracy, our media, and our academic institutions. This culture prioritizes the interests of national security over global access to safety and basic human rights. This produces the perfect storm of conditions for Klitgaard’s formula for corruption: corruption = monopoly + discretion – transparency.[iii] The corruption involved in the arms trade is more than an unfortunate side effect; it is woven into the very fabric of how the trade operates, even driving the making of war itself.
Rather than focusing on the process of corruption, the evidence in the CT database, as laid out here and throughout the rest of this report, supports a systems approach, utilizing an adapted framework of state capture. State capture refers to “the corruption of all levels of a state to the point where procurement and policy decisions are influenced to benefit the corrupters, facilitated by the systematic destruction/dilution of state oversight mechanisms that threaten this process.”[iv] As explained by Elizabeth Dávid‑Barrett, this framework shifts the focus away from the corrupted and onto the corruptor. More common anti-corruption approaches focus on the entrusted party, such as a politician, for withholding services until a bribe is paid. The CT has shown that the significance of this has been overstated. The creation of a captured system begins with industry, and the systemic impacts far outweighs the significance of the corruption of individuals. Dávid‑Barrett also describes three pillars of state capture: improper influence over the formation of policy; improper influence over the implementation of policy; and the disabling of accountability mechanisms. This improper influence and disabling of accountability is evident across various CT cases, such as the release of US military aid to Egypt, and the growing use of Deferred Prosecution Agreements detailed in the final section of this report.[v] In this case, however, the reach of the arms trade far beyond individual states could be more appropriately termed “global systems capture.”
A Systems and Cultures Approach
The work of the CT highlights worrying trends in the arms trade that warrant an expansion to the traditional definitions of corruption. The aforementioned limitations to “entrusted power” and “private gain” are exacerbated by the need for a systems approach, highlighting the capture of society, its institutions, and even predominant cultures. The arms trade and the governments and institutions that participate in it have become captured through not just traditional corruption, but a corruption of mentality.
One thing the CT makes apparent is that the misuse of public funds by any means should be seen as an inherent part of the corruption of the system. Moreover, the “behind closed doors” decision making that has become de rigueur in areas of national security should be considered a corruption of the democratic process. While arguments can be made for some secrecy in decision making, the access granted to industry representatives is starkly contrasted with the lack of accountability or recourse for the public to remove bad actors from office.
This national-security-imposed secrecy strengthens, and is strengthened, by a broader culture of corruption that underpins every facet of the global trade in arms. The prevalent mentality in much of the civil service is that corruption is “just how it’s done.” Civil servants are particularly vulnerable to social norms and these norms can “lead civil servants to engage in corrupt behaviours or to block efforts to prevent, investigate or sanction corrupt practices.” This means that even amongst those not accepting bribes, corrupt practices go unchallenged and even encouraged. In fact, in 2023 the House of Commons Defence Committee described the apparent culture of the UK defense procurement system as “institutionally averse to individual responsibility.”
The culture of militarism further entrenches this.[vi] The so-called “security” culture is dominated by a small group of individuals, with a culture values. These values only make it harder for whistleblowers to speak out, and when they do, they often face hostility and stonewalling. The corruption involved is not just an incidental & unfortunate side effect, but in fact a huge driver of the arms industry. The Saudi–Spain case, which will soon be released on the CT database, where the bribes paid on the deal amounted to more than double the original value of the deal itself, demonstrates how many parts of the industry become more about trading bribes, with arms just a handy conduit to do so. And yet, conduits or no, real weapons are involved, with real violent impacts, either through their direct use or through fostering a violent militarized world order.
In conclusion, the need for a whole systems approach is not an academic one. Using the lens of state capture is vital to tie corruption into the other overarching concerns about the arms trade. The capture of global politics by the arms industry leads directly to the creation of violent policy agendas and budget priorities. In both seller and buyer countries, this violence is felt in police powers and in political choices made to fund warfare over welfare amidst growing inequality and climate breakdown. Beyond those countries, the war and devastation that these weapons wreak are felt by very real individuals, families and communities who suffer at the hands of this deadly trade.
As mentioned above, the narrower definition of corruption has its uses, and is applied in our own case research. But work on corruption in the arms trade that stops at this definition would be in danger of misrepresenting the nature of the trade.
Even applying TI’s definition, our cases demonstrate that oversight isn’t working, but they also demonstrate the need to question who the system is working for. Ultimately, the failings demonstrated by this report are generating vast profits and other benefits for a small, select few. It is the real people of the world who are losing out. We must not lose sight of the moral corruption underpinning this all. If the CT shows anything, it is that there is no benefit in fighting for a less corrupt and more efficiently run arms trade. The accountability we advocate for must at its core penalize harm wreaked on society at all levels.
This essay is an excerpt from “Tracing Corruption: Emerging Patterns in the Global Arms Trade” (World Peace Foundation and the Corruption Tracker, August 2025). Read the full report here: https://worldpeacefoundation.org/publication/tracing-corruption-emerging-patterns-in-the-global-arms-trade/
[i] See further discussions in Elitza Katzarova, “From Global Problems to International Norms,” Crime, Law and Social Change 70 (2018): 299–313; and Gabriel O. Apata, “Corruption and the Postcolonial State: How the West Invented African Corruption,” Journal of Contemporary African Studies 37, no. 1 (2019): 43–56.
[ii] Global South as used here is defined by the Finance Centre for South-South Cooperation. Finance Centre for South-South Cooperation, “List of South-South Countries,” accessed July 15, 2025, http://www.fc-ssc.org/en/partnership_program/south_south_countries.
[iii] Robert Klitgaard, “International Cooperation Against Corruption,” Finance & Development, International Monetary Fund 35, no. 1 (March 1998).
[iv] Rhona Michie et al., “Shadow World Investigations: Tracking Corruption in the Arms Trade,” in Open Source Investigations in the Age of Google, ed. Henrietta Wilson et al. (World Scientific, 2024), 329.
[v] See also, for example, Valentina Azarova, “Strategic Litigation Against the Arms Trade,” in Monstrous Anger of the Guns, ed. Rhona Michie et al. (Pluto Press, 2024), 188–206, on the power of lobbyists in drafting the Arms Trade Treaty and the erosion of national and international accountability mechanisms; and Samuel Perlo-Freeman, “From Revolving Door to Open-Plan Office” (Campaign Against Arms Trade, 2024), https://caat.org.uk/app/uploads/2024/09/OpenPlanOffice_FINAL.pdf, on the unfettered access to government decision-making enjoyed by weapons manufacturers.
[vi] See Paul Rogers and Judith Large, The Insecurity Trap: A Short Guide to Global Transformation (Hawthorn Press, 2024), 41–50.
