Racial capitalism must be defended: reading the arms trade through critiques of policing

As the beating heart of global circuits of violence, arms companies face a constant crisis of legitimation. Tracing how these companies seek legitimacy exposes the ideological work required to reproduce an imperial, racial capitalist international order. While previous scholarship has examined how arms companies operate through appeals to national security, human rights, gender equality, and technological progress, this article spotlights the central role of policing discourses. It focuses on the French company Thales, showing how the organization mobilizes themes of patrol, surveillance, and social sorting, and positions itself at the “thin blue line” between a world of order and a world of chaos; it argues that together these work to obscure or justify the company’s complicity in political violence. The article makes the case that there is critical value in, in effect, taking Thales at its word and positioning companies like this as components of global policing. It develops a counter-reading of Thales’ discourse, which sets out the role the company plays in the violent reproduction and defense of racial capitalism. It argues that reading martial technology companies through critiques of policing challenges the foundational myths that allow policing discourses to function as legitimating devices, and can be productive for social movements organizing in opposition to policing, militarism, and state violence.