The defence industry has a curiously privileged place in UK and US government spending. The new Burnham administration has promised to prioritise military spending over other sectors. President Trump is set to increase the US defence budget by 44% in 2027 while other government agencies have been gutted by DOGE, the ‘Department of Government Efficiency’. So, it seems a good moment to ask what the defence industry is, and whether it really offers defence.

In addition to being one of the most privileged sectors, defence is also one of the most secretive.  The defence industry meets regularly at arms fairs, which are international trade shows for military equipment, but they are tightly guarded. When DSEI (Defence Security Exhibition International), one of the world’s largest arms fairs comes to London, it is surrounded by riot fences and armed police. Passes are restricted to industry professionals, military personnel and dignitaries. Academics can apply to visit if they are engaged in military research, but they are refused if they have been critical of the industry.

I have visited DSEI and similar fairs for nearly 20 years by describing myself as a security consultant. My new book, Gifts from the Arms Trade, gives an insight into this secretive industry through the freebies I have been given.

I started the project in 2007 as a play on Official War Art, a tradition where artists are commissioned to draw or paint in war zones. I was looking for somewhere to draw. And, as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars dragged on, I wondered what Official War Art might have overlooked in its focus on the battlefield. So, I applied to visit DSEI by calling myself an official war artist. Although I had no official status, it worked, for a time, until a security guard became suspicious. What I saw while I was inside the fair was so disturbing and gave such a different view of the defence industry to the one implied by its name, I was determined to return. So, I bought a suit and plastic pearls, changed my name and passport, and constructed a sham consultancy company. I also visited other arms fairs - Eurosatory and Milipol in Paris; IDEX in Abu Dhabi; the Counter Terror Expo in London. 

One of the biggest challenges I have faced over this time, is describing what it is like in the fairs – the range and scale of weapons, the corporations courting international clients, the glitzy marketing so at odds with the reality of the merchandise. Missiles soar towards the ceiling, tanks sink into the carpet, artillery shells glint under spotlights; executives laugh, drink and exchange business cards. Vast screens show fighter jets in flight with a cinematic soundtrack of music and explosions, but no sign of the devastation they wreak. National flags flutter amongst neon multinational corporate logos; a dystopian version of the United Nations. And, circulating around the weapons, women in tight skirts offer trays of wine, ham, petit fours and gifts. As in most trade fairs, arms companies hand out promotional gifts but, here, they include toy bombs, rubber missiles, miniature tanks with rotating guns, a pen that transforms into a drone, and condoms promising ‘the ultimate protection’.

When I try to describe an arms fair, it is the gifts I return to. The commodification of weapons is so strange, and so at odds with the dominant assumption that tanks and missiles are produced for defence, words fail. But the gifts offer material evidence of the bizarre juxtaposition of weapons and marketing.

Corporate freebies are meant to be transitory – eaten, played with, then discarded.  Gifts from the Arms Trade gives them a permanence, so they can betray the ethics of their origins.  

I have been fortunate to work on the book with the photographer Ricky Adam and the graphic designer Ashleigh Armitage. Ten years ago, Ricky started photographing the gifts, as I continued to visit fairs to collect more. Profits have soared in the arms industry with the Saudi-led war in Yemen, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Sudan civil war, Israel’s genocide in Gaza, US-Israeli attacks on Iran, and the increasing militarisation of the police. Arms fairs have responded with ever more elaborate hospitality. It been a complex task, designing the book to convey the strangeness of the gifts, without taking part in their trivialising of war. 

Some gifts are shocking in themselves - a rubber F35 fighter jet, a stress ball shaped like a human heart, a sweet in a wrapper with the slogan ‘welcome to hell’. Here, text seems a distraction. Other gifts are innocuous at first glance, but they have a chilling back story.  For example, a teddy bear wears a T shirt with the logo for the Queen’s Award for Enterprise (now the King’s Award for Enterprise) on the front, and the logo of UTC Technologies Corporation) on the back. The award is given for ‘outstanding achievement by UK businesses.’ UTC, a US multinational, won the award in 2004, 2011 and 2013 for developing and exporting devices that ‘help guide a wide variety of systems including air and land vehicles, missiles and shells.’

^{Photos by Ricky Adam}

A sugared biscuit is stamped with the logo of TDW, a company that produces warheads for Brimstone and Storm Shadow missiles. The Saudi-led coalition used both types of missiles in airstrikes in the war in Yemen, bombing farms, marketplaces, fishing vessels and food storage sites — triggering famine.

^{Photo by Ricky Adam}

TAR Ideal, an Israeli ‘defence integrator’, gives away keyrings with running figures attached, along with product catalogues showing people running from tear gas. TAR describes itself as ‘one of the strongest suppliers’ to the Israeli Ministry of Defence with ‘numerous operational implementations in the field, including ammunitions, pyrotechnics, electronic warfare, weapon systems, robotics and personal gear’. 

^{Photo by Ricky Adam}

The book attempts to convey the visual and contextual aspects of the gifts by showing them in two formats – as a series of colour plates, and in a black and white index. The aim of the colour section is to create a visual jolt. Most of the gifts have been enlarged so details are visible – the barbs on a taser badge, the Cyrillic script on a Russian chocolate, the shiny latex of a condom, the sugar on a pastille. They are photographed against a plain background, as if presenting evidence. The index gives background information about the companies with details of the weapons they produce.

The gifts embody the mass production, mass promotion and trivialisation of weapons in arms fairs. They are giveaways in two senses – they are freebies, and they reveal how arms companies regard weapons as products for an international market. 

As the book went to the printers, I visited another arms fair, Eurosatory, in Paris. I returned with a tiny toy assault rifle, a rocket desk ornament, and a duck dressed as a superhero. But they will have to wait for a second edition.