This week in London, the biennial DSEI arms fair, among the world’s biggest, wrapped up. Over 1,600 exhibitors filled its halls, offering everything from drones to frigates. The industry has rarely looked healthier: global defence spending climbed nearly 10% last year to $2.7 trillion, the highest ever. Britain, already one of the top arms exporters, is not content to ride this wave. It wants to lead it.
That ambition rang out in the speeches of John Healey, the Defence Secretary, and Andy Start, Britain’s new National Armaments Director. Their message was clear: war is reshaping the global order, and Britain’s arms industry should prosper from it.
Mr Healey touted what he called a “defence dividend”: jobs, exports and innovation. He spoke of a £10 billion frigate contract with Norway, 50,000 jobs promised by the end of the decade, and Ukrainian-designed drones soon to be mass-produced on British soil. Project Octopus, an Anglo-Ukrainian plan to churn out thousands of cheap interceptor drones, was held up as proof that necessity on the battlefield could become an economic boon.
Mr Start, by contrast, framed the boom in the jargon of management consultants. Britain, he said, had a “pipeline” of £100 billion in potential exports and should aim to double them by 2035. The future, he argued, lies in applying Formula One-style rapid design to weapons, with AI and robotics making legacy systems “irrelevant.” Defence, he insisted, should be seen as “one of the most attractive investment markets” of the next decade.
This language marks a shift. Defence is no longer portrayed as a reluctant insurance policy. It is being sold as industrial policy—an “engine of growth” to rival green tech or life sciences. The new Defence Industrial Strategy, launched alongside the show, codifies this: billions for R&D, special treatment for SMEs, streamlined procurement and a new Office of Defence Exports to market British kit abroad.
Outside the ExCeL centre, the mood was rather different. Protesters from Shut the System cut internet cables, splashed red paint and scuffled with police. Their anger focused on Israeli arms firms—formally barred this year because of the war in Gaza, though hardly absent in practice. For campaigners, DSEI epitomises the normalisation of war as business. Their actions are unlikely to slow an industry buoyed by NATO rearmament and government largesse. But they pose an awkward question: if Britain so loudly hails its arms industry as a pillar of economic growth, how credible can its claims to champion peace really be?
Europe’s wider predicament adds weight to that question. Despite a surge in defence spending, the continent still depends on America for protection. European forces lack satellites, long-range strike systems and air defences. SpaceX alone launched more rockets this year than all European states did in the past decade. Britain’s leaders cast this shortfall as an opening: a chance to become Europe’s hub for “tech-enabled” security. In practice, it means recasting strategic dependence as an industrial opportunity.
There is no doubt that Britain’s military industry has momentum. Contracts are being signed, jobs promised, and spending is rising towards 3% of GDP. Yet history suggests caution. Arms booms tend to deliver not just profits but boondoggles, corruption and dependency. Innovation born of war rarely stays confined to the battlefield.
At DSEI, ministers pitched the fusion of defence and industry as common sense. AOAV would suggest another reading: the militarisation of economic policy.
As protesters outside put it more bluntly, Britain risks confusing growth with making more and more bombs.
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