BRICS trade, Yearbook in Chinese, civilians in conflict, arming autocracies and more

Ahead of the BRICS Summit, SIPRI shared data on arms trade between BRICS members in a thread on X/Twitter. The countries making up the economic bloc—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—met for a summit in South Africa on 22–24 August. The data visualizations explore whether the trend in growing trade between the group is reflected in the arms trade between BRICS members. 

Read the thread | Explore the data in the SIPRI Arms Transfer Database

On 21–25 August, SIPRI and the Alva Myrdal Centre for Nuclear Disarmament, in cooperation with the Odesa Center for Nonproliferation, hosted the Armament and Disarmament Summer School. This event served as an invaluable platform for emerging professionals in the areas of disarmament, non-proliferation and arms control to come together for a week of education, skill development and networking. A total of 26 participants from 21 countries attended sessions on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, export controls, military spending, arms transfers, artificial intelligence and space security.

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SIPRI has convened a new research initiative with a focus on North Africa. The North Africa Dialogues and Analysis (NADA) research initiative is jointly organized by SIPRI and the Middle East Institute (MEI). NADA will focus on issues such as political economy, governance and security and aims to better understand the changing and complex dynamics that shape North Africa. The initiative is co-led by Ahmed Morsy (SIPRI) and Intissar Fakir (MEI) who will act as meeting conveners, topic coordinators and moderators.

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On 16 June, SIPRI had the privilege of hosting a visit from Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Victoria and a delegation from the European Union’s Political and Security Committee (PSC). The visit featured a panel discussion on the theme ‘Towards an Environment of Peace’, moderated by Dan Smith, SIPRI Director. SIPRI staff and the PSC discussed the breadth and complexity of environment-related security risks around the globe. The conversation looked at how environmental degradation undermined human security and livelihoods in many regions, and how climate and environmental risks compounded and cascaded into countries far from their origin.

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SIPRI is pleased to announce that the Chinese translation of SIPRI Yearbook 2022 is now available. The Chinese-language version of the SIPRI Yearbook has been made possible with the generous support of the Swiss Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport.

Read more | Download the Chinese translation of SIPRI Yearbook 2022 (PDF)

In the latest Peace Points video, Dan Smith, SIPRI Director, takes a look at recent developments in peace and security and what it means to be living in one of the most dangerous periods since World War II. Pressure from the war in Ukraine, build-ups of military forces, an increase in the number of conflicts, failing nuclear arms controls and the rise in human and ecological insecurity mean the world is dealing with a polycrisis. Smith stresses that instead of focusing on each problem individually, the focus needs to be on the connections between these issues. Interlinked problems need interlinked solutions.

Watch the video | Access the Peace Points video playlist

In this guest blog, Dan Mahanty, Director for Research, Learning and Innovation at Center for Civilians in Conflict, discusses some of the reasons why protection of civilians remains such a challenge in 2023. Mahanty writes that it has never been more urgent to find better ways to protect civilians in armed conflict. Yet for all the challenges, there is a wealth of experience and observation that offers both hope and practical lessons. Mahanty lists five ways that states and civil society can get started and urges them not hesitate to take what they have learned in order to be more responsive, more effective and more unified in protecting civilians in the wars of today and tomorrow.

Read the SIPRI WritePeace Blog

A string of observers have voiced concern about what they perceive as a disconnect between the foreign policy rhetoric of United States President Joe Biden’s administration and its foreign policy practice. One area in which commentators see this disconnect playing out most starkly is in Western countries’ arms exports. This WritePeace Blog uses SIPRI data on arms transfers to explore this discussion. The data show that the USA and other leading democracies have transferred substantial volumes of arms to autocratic states in recent years. While assessing the effects of these exports, or whether they are justified, is beyond the ambit of the piece, President Biden’s claims that the USA and its allies are the defenders of democracy in a fundamental struggle about ‘the future and direction of our world’ still run up against reality: these same countries continue to arm a majority of the world’s autocracies.

Read the SIPRI WritePeace Blog

In this guest blog, as part of a series from partners of the 2023 Stockholm Forum, Jakkie Cilliers, founder and former executive director of the Institute for Security Studies, asks what a more complex, multipolar and less Western world means for Africa. He writes that if Africa wants to grow, reduce poverty and provide jobs for its large working-age population, it must trade and engage with China, Europe and the USA and increase its relations with the emerging South but on its own terms. But above all, inclusive economic growth in Africa requires global stability and for the international community to knuckle down and make the hard choices necessary to create a future that accommodates all of humanity.

Read the SIPRI WritePeace Blog

In this guest blog, which provides reflection from a session at the Stockholm Forum, Dr Bryan Sims, Humanity United, discusses the multiplicity of crises afflicting the world and the roles that non-violent movements could play in building peace and security. The blog concludes by urging policymakers and donors to move beyond exclusively supporting traditionally organized civil society towards also supporting non-violent movements comprised of human rights defenders, democrats, peacebuilders, professionals and others who want to build peaceful and prosperous societies.      

Read the SIPRI WritePeace Blog

SIPRI experts were recently featured in the following external outlets:

• ‘Space security governance: Steps to limit the human costs of military operations in outer space’, by Nivedita Raju, published by the International Committee of the Red Cross in the Humanitarian Law & Policy blog on 22 August.

• ‘Health system resilience and peacebuilding in fragile and conflict-affected settings’, by Jannie Lilja and Abeer S. Ahmad, published in Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability in vol. 63, August.

• ‘Palestine: How western aid enables Israel’s colonialism’, by Alaa Tartir, published by Middle East Eye on 21 July.

• ‘Environmental peacebuilding and sustainable peace’, by Farah Hegazi, published by Peace News Network on 20 July.

• ‘Addressing challenges to tolerance and religious diversity in Iraq’, by Shivan Fazil, published by the Middle East Institute on 5 July.

• ‘What does IHL permit, prohibit and require’, by Netta Goussac and Laura Bruun, published by the University of Queensland in the Future of War podcast on 20 June.