The global arms trade is suffused with corruption, imperils the vulnerable and makes us all less safe. Yet arms merchants and their government supporters can turn to a set of time-honed and well-packaged arguments to justify the status quo. Each one of the claims is either deeply questionable or simply untrue. The arms business needs to be undressed. Then, we will find its claims are indefensible; nothing more than myths.
This book debunks the seven core myths that the arms industry uses to deflect criticism and explains what can be done. The project was sponsored by WPF, and the book’s author is Paul Holden, our colleague at Shadow World Investigations, along with collaborators Bridget Conley-Zilkic, Alex de Waal, Sarah Detzner, John Paul Dunne, Andrew Feinstein, William Hartung, Lora Lumpe, Nic Marsh, Sam Perlo-Freeman, Hennie Van Vuuren, and Leah Wawro.
