Regulating new tools of warfare: Insights from humanitarian disarmament and arms control efforts

Jessica West Emerging Technologies, Featured, Reports, Space Security

As the tools and methods of warfare continue to evolve, it is critical that arms control, disarmament, and normative regimes also advance. Warfighting applications of today’s emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), outer space, and cyber capabilities are becoming more apparent andhold enormous potential for expansion if left unregulated. Such capabilities clearly have the potential to be used in harming civilians, violating international humanitarian law, and creating unpredictable and even unintended escalation of conflict. In this context, compliance with existing arms control measures and humanitarian principles is essential. Yet new arms control frameworks are also needed to mitigate these risks and maintain global commitments to disarmament.

The AI-enhanced kill chain

Branka Marijan Analysis and Commentary, Emerging Technologies, Featured, News, Ploughshares Monitor

Military research and development in recent years have focused on artificial intelligence (AI) tools that gather and analyze data quickly. Combined with improved sensors, they make possible faster and seemingly more accurate targeting of enemy positions. Now this R&D is being operationalized. Last September, according to Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall, the United States Air Force, for the first time, used AI to help to identify a target or targets in “a live operational kill chain.”

International Humanitarian Law and R2P: Online conference

Ploughshares Featured

In December 2001, the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty released its ground-breaking report “The Responsibility to Protect” or R2P as it is now commonly known.  Twenty years later, the norm of R2P remains contested. Join us on November 11, 2021 at 12:30pm EST for a free, public event, as we discuss the complex relationship – both in theory and practice – between IHL and R2P.

SPECIAL REPORT: “No Credible Evidence” – Canada’s flawed analysis of arms exports to Saudi Arabia

Ploughshares Featured, Reports

Click on the image to download the Special Report by Amnesty International Canada and Project Ploughshares. Introduction The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), a multilateral international agreement aiming to regulate international …

An unparalleled look into Canada’s arms trade

Kelsey Gallagher Analysis and Commentary, Conventional Weapons, Featured, Ploughshares Monitor

Just before Canada halted certain weapons exports to Turkey in April 2021, the FAAE committee released nearly 1,000 pages of government documents on Canada’s arms deals with Turkey. Although heavily redacted, the documents provide an unmatched look into the Canadian arms trade, including previously confidential memoranda to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, hundreds of pages of internal correspondence by Global Affairs Canada (GAC), and never-before-seen Canadian export permits for weapon systems.

Export suspension exposes flaws in Canada’s arms controls

Kelsey Gallagher Analysis and Commentary, Conventional Weapons, Featured, News

On October 24, Radio Canada International reported that Canadian-based Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP) had suspended the export of aircraft engines to “countries with unclear usage.” This action followed reports that these engines were being used in Turkish-built Bayraktar TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that Turkey had sent to support Azeri forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

SPECIAL REPORT – Killer optics: Exports of WESCAM sensors to Turkey

Kelsey Gallagher Conventional Weapons, Featured, Reports

Since 2017, Turkey has been a major customer for WESCAM products, second only to the United States. During this time, the Turkish military has not only been active in trying to put down an insurgency in southeast Turkey, but has become increasingly involved in armed conflicts in Syria, Iraq, and Libya.

Canada’s half-decade mission in Iraq

Kelsey Gallagher Featured, Ploughshares Monitor

In the fall of 2014, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Operation IMPACT, Canada’s military contribution to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. Approaching its sixth anniversary, Operation IMPACT is Canada’s most significant military operation since the war in Afghanistan.