The Increasing Salience of 3D Printing for Nuclear Non-Proliferation

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This article was originally published in in the PRIF Blog on 30 June 2017.

A growing number of defense-industrial 3D printing fairs, print-a-thons and the amount of defense dollars, particularly in the US, going into the technology of 3D printing speak to the fact that the defense industry and some countries’ armed forces recognize the great potential of the technology. 3D printing indeed allows the quicker, cheaper, and easier development of weapons, and even entirely new weapon designs. This applies to the full range of weapons categories: Small arms and light weapons (e.g. guns, guns, guns and grenade launchers), conventional weapon systems (drones, tanks, missiles, hypersonic scramjets) – and possibly even weapons of mass destruction.

3D printing, or additive manufacturing (AM), is increasingly adopted by various industries for rapid prototyping, the production of very complex objects in small numbers, and even the rapid production of end parts. Because of the features associated with 3D printing, particularly the high flexibility, the technology is, in a sense, the epitome of dual-use: One and the same 3D printer can produce both tools and weapons. A growing concern in the international security realm is that 3D printing could help a proliferating state in its quest for a secret nuclear weapons program.

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Can We Predict Political Uprisings?

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This article was originally published by IPI Global Observatory on 19 June 2017.

Forecasting political unrest is a challenging task, especially in this era of post-truth and opinion polls.

Several studies by economists such as Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler in 1998 and 2002 describe how economic indicators, such as slow income growth and natural resource dependence, can explain political upheaval. More specifically, low per capita income has been a significant trigger of civil unrest.

Economists James Fearon and David Laitin have also followed this hypothesis, showing how specific factors played an important role in Chad, Sudan, and Somalia in outbreaks of political violence.

According to the International Country Risk Guide index, the internal political stability of Sudan fell by 15% in 2014, compared to the previous year. This decrease was after a reduction of its per capita income growth rate from 12% in 2012 to 2% in 2013.

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Is the Force Intervention Brigade still Justifying its Existence?

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This article was originally published by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) on 22 June 2017.

This potentially effective unit is being hamstrung by politics and concerns about using force in peace operations.

The Force Intervention Brigade (FIB), the sharp end of MONUSCO – the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – earned its stripes in 2013 when it helped the DRC’s army defeat the powerful Rwanda-backed M23 rebels in the east of the country.

But not a lot has been heard about the FIB since, though it has remained deployed in the eastern part of the country for four years. What has it been doing?

The unit of some 3 000 troops from South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi has a more muscular mission than the rest of MONUSCO to use necessary force to ‘neutralise’ all the ‘negative’ armed rebel groups in eastern DRC. Its second target was supposed to be the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), the armed group founded in the mid-1990s by Rwandan Hutus who fled the country after the genocide against the Tutsis.

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The Islamic State’s Internal Rifts and Social Media Ban

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This article was originally published by the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) on 21 June 2017.

An important part of the Islamic State’s meteoric rise to power in Syria and Iraq was due at least in part to its creative use of social media tools to distribute propaganda and recruit new members. The group’s well-documented social media skills have attracted tens of thousands of foreign fighters to join the fight. As documented by the CTC weeks before Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi established the caliphate in Mosul, the Islamic State propaganda machine also served a critical role in psychological operations during the group’s blitzkrieg advance into northwestern Iraq in June of 2014.

It is somewhat ironic, therefore, that the group has issued an official ban on social media for all of its soldiers. In a document (see below) produced by the Islamic State’s Delegated Committee a few weeks ago and disseminated via Islamic State distribution channels more recently, the group’s order to all of its soldiers stated: “effective from the date of this notification, using social networking sites is entirely and completely forbidden. Whoever violates this exposes himself to questioning and accountability.” The order was published by the group in both Arabic and English.

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How Brazil’s Political and Economic Crisis Affects its Military Spending

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This article was originally published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on 22 June 2017.

SIPRI’s recently published data shows a decrease of 7.2% in Brazil’s military expenditure in 2016 compared to 2015. The reasons behind this cut are quite complicated, since the country is embroiled in a mix of a political and economic crises. This blog post briefly discusses some of the features driving Brazil’s military spending downwards and how the current context may affect the future.

Brazil’s economic growth—and crash

First, we need to understand why Brazil’s military spending went up in the first place. Between 2000 and 2010, Brazil had significant economic growth, especially during President Lula’s term in office. Not only did the country’s economy grow, but inequality dropped. For instance, in 2007 the national Gini coefficient–an index created to measure income inequality–reached its lowest level in 30 years. These outstanding growth results enabled the government to allocate large resources to military projects, like the KC-390 aircraft, the Integrated System of Border Monitoring (SISFRON) and the Guaraní armoured vehicle production. In fact, between 2002 and 2013—the year Lula took office and the beginning of Petrobras corruption scandal, respectively—Brazil’s military spending increased by 28%.

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