Call to arms: Inside the war room

"Hi. Yeah, I'm just entering the death and destruction fair now. Heh heh."

A couple of suits twist around to glower at the source of the quip, like they've just caught a wedding guest calling the bride tubby in the queue for the vol-au-vents.

Clearly, the man with the loud voice and the box of papers has crossed some sort of line here. Maybe the first rule of Arms Club is that you don't talk about death, or at least have the courtesy to use some sort of pinstriped euphemism such as "existential re-deployment".

Of course, it could be that arms fair guests are just like everyone else, and simply can't stand hearing every detail of someone's day yelled into a mobile while they're being crisped in the sun outside a big white marquee.

Maybe it's a cunning trick to get each visitor excited about the idea of buying a gun. If it is, they'll have a long while to wait.

The pre-show for the Excel's DSEi arms fair begins in a car park a few hundred yards and several hundred years away from the exhibition itself. Visitors are herded into the penned space by marshals keen to "clear the road", to wait while the queue for the marquee dies down.

On the way down this short stretch, the waiting throng pass the time by flashing forms of identification at various people who wander by expectantly, presumably to check if you've changed your haircut or become someone else in the five minutes since you last took it out of your pocket.

After around twenty minutes of waiting comes the first surprise. The marquee - as it happens - is empty, except for a lone water cooler. It's not the sign-up tent after all, but a cloth waiting room for a bus which will later take us through the guarded gates to the Excel car park. In exchange for a quick flash of our ID, of course.

Anyone that's ever queued for Disneyworld's Space Mountain ride knows that you can be four yards away from an entrance and still have 300 people queueing ahead of you. The Disney effect is clearly evident at the DSEi entrance, where a thin snake of people coils into a tight space, boiled by sun and indignation. Surely they won't have as much fun here, unless they're allowed to ride the bombs like Major Kong.

The Wharf had barely stepped off the bus when we were summoned back on again to have our IDs checked, and quizzed as to why we'd made the trip to Excel on a balmy September day. There's only really one obvious answer to that.

Until Friday, the world's largest arms fair was in full swing in a venue just yards from our door. And, like any neighbour worth their salt, we've always been a little nosey.

INSIDE DSEi

"I'm sorry if you've had a long wait. One of the entrances is closed because of Excel's expansion. By the next show in 2011, we'll be back to two entrances again."

CMS Strategic chief executive Nick Johnstone leads The Wharf through a purple-carpeted car park, through a metal detector and past several grumpy visitors who don't appreciate media queue jumpers. CMS handles the marketing for the Clarion Events show, just as it did when Reed Elsevier owned it in previous years. From the security, you'd expect everyone to be cagey when it comes to press access. But inside the hangar itself, it appears there are slightly different rules.

"You're free to go anywhere in the exhibition and talk to any exhibitors you want, although obviously they may say no. That said, we don't allow photographs of military delegates for personal safety reasons."

According to Campaign Against Arms Trade, invites went out to countries such as Pakistan, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Italy, the USA and Colombia. But Mr Johnstone denies national paper reports that a country in the news this week has brought a big party over.

"I think there's only one person from Libya here, and that's a training officer from the navy."

While running an international arms fair is always going to stoke up controversy, DSEi is keen to avoid shooting itself in its own foot. In 2007, one exhibitor from China was pulled up for selling leg irons in its brochure, a must-have Christmas gift frowned upon by the Foreign Office and event guidelines. While many see DSEi as a cash-and-carry for carnage, Mr Johnstone is keen to point out that visitors can't just walk out with heavy weaponry.

"There are very strict regulations. Every exhibitor understands what they are and are not allowed to exhibit", he said.

"The stands are checked very thoroughly, and all the equipment is subject to export controls. You have to be granted an export license by the government before you can complete a sale."

The last time I went to an event at Excel, I bought a book on comic art and got a goody bag with a wrestling sticker album in it. This time, I'm locked in a staring match with a missile fitted onto an Apache AH MK1 helicopter, while the photographer paws at a bowl of mints.

It's a room full of weapons. There's no disputing that. But it's too quiet, and too clean. It's like a warzone found out that the Antiques Roadshow was coming to town, and brought in the Changing Rooms crew to spruce up the place. In this carpeted stretch of cubicles, it's very difficult to grasp exactly how serious every inch of this exhibition really is, for soldiers and protesters alike. And in some ways, I'm not really sure I want to.

"A few of our exhibitors are showcasing blast protected vehicles this year", said Mr Johnstone.

"A lot of stuff is being launched to counter the increasing effectiveness of IEDs, or improvised explosive devices. There are three new armoured vehicles here with Afghanistan in mind. In the current conflicts, there's much more emphasis on protecting soldiers against an enemy who can be quite clever and nimble, and is using quite nasty devices."

Among these new vehicles on show is the Ocelot, a light protected vehicle that's among the candidates to replace the Land Rover Defender on patrols. There's also a catwalk for Universal Engineering's "safest vehicle in the world" with a 30mm cannon and a curved undercarriage to spread out a blast.

The UAS aerosonde unmanned aircraft can be remote-controlled in the US while flying in Afghanistan. It's believed that, within 50 years, this sort of design will remove the need for piloted craft.

BCB International has drawn a crowd thanks to The Buccaneer, "a ship-bourne launcher system" used to punt projectiles at pirates. The army is on hand to demonstrate some of its big equipment, while there's a mean looking howitzer in the BAE Systems pen. But, as we're told more than once, there's also stuff here that's not designed specifically to kill you.

High street sound brand Bose has a stand here. There's a selection of boots, including some with different settings to relieve the strain of constant marching. A cluster of ceremonial shiny swords glimmers in the centre of the show, while there's talk of a stand somewhere that cleans tattoos using air blasts.

Of course, a trade show wouldn't be a trade show without a Dragons' Den contestant.

Inventor Michael Pritchard arrived at DSEi 2007 with the Lifesaver bottle, a water bottle that filters bacteria and impurity from dirty water out in the field. Now he's unveiling the Jerrycan, which allows patrols to reduce weight in their vehicles by purifying and drinking water at a given stop-off point, rather than wandering around with several litres on board. It's a breakthrough that's already on trial in Afghanistan.

It's easy to assume that all this technology is exclusively designed for warzones. But some of these products are tailored for use much nearer to home.

HOME SECURITY

The Deenside Camlock baton snaps out to full length with a decisive click. It's a noise that may soon become familiar to members of Sussex and Cambridgeshire police, and West Yorkshire has already put in an order for 5,000.

Former bouncer, deputy sheriff, SWAT operator and longtime martial arts expert Jardad Wihongi pulls the baton from his belt like a gunslinger, noting the benefits of the benefits of the new sturdy locking system.

"Older models use friction locking, but this doesn't close until you hit the button", he said.

"The weight and balance are a major selling factor. What you're trying to generate is a voluntary compliance through pain. If you have to keep beating someone, you're going to cause them greater injury.

"If you can achieve compliance through one or two hits, it looks better and causes less injury. The quicker you can take care of the situation and get the individual into custody, the safer it is for everyone involved.

"There's a lot of interest here in the UK because this is the sort of equipment that officers have to resort to using. Police have other tools they can use in addition to this in the US market."

Further along in the corner, WCCTV is offering "covert surveillance solutions" such as a tiny camera which can be fitted to a jacket or a tie. The 3G Nano can record images, and beam out live video as well as operate as a GPS receiver. Among the buyers for the product are domestic organisations such as "local governments".

"I think this business has moved on in the sense that you used to have large swarms of people in military uniform walking around. Now there are many more private contractors such as Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems", DSEi spokesman Paul Beaver mused in a side room at the top of the press section.

"Ten years ago the UK awarded 70,000 contracts a year. Now it's 20,000. Spending levels are still the same in relative terms, but projects themselves are getting bigger. There are fewer military here, but there's certainly more business-to-business deals taking place."

So does this mean we're looking at an increasing privatisation of warfare?

"I don't think it's privatisation as such. There's certainly a contractorisation of elements of defence. About 25 years ago, repairs and overhaul would be carried out by people in uniform. This way, it's more cost efficient for the taxpayer.

"The contractors aren't going out to fight. They're not carrying weapons. They're ensuring the tanks and aeroplanes keep moving, and they're bound by contractor law. There's no difference between an airline and an airforce when it comes to servicing."

Mr Beaver claims that trends at the arms fair are dictated by the current shift from "traditional state-on-state" warfare to "asymmetric or hybrid" tactics.

He said: "The Taliban is using very old technology such as landmines and Kalashnikovs. They're receiving ammonium nitrate fertiliser and they're using it to make bombs. These bombs are being employed against armoured vehicles. We're having to change the type of tactics we use to adapt to that.

"It's very much the exhibitors that set the agenda here. This is a place for new technology and showcasing new ideas. Some will appear at the show and never see the light of day because they're not quite right, and others will stay around for a considerable period. In 1960 you bought something expecting it to last 30 years. Today, it will last three years before it needs to be radically updated."

Mr Beaver is not slow to offer the view that the arms trade is a big part of Britain's economic arsenal.

He said: "There are two reasons why this exhibition is important. One is economic. We've got 305,000 people employed in the defence industry and 9,000 companies involved. It's important to the country.

"We've also got the fact that we're at war, so our military is here to see if there's something being developed in the US, France or Sweden that can help protect our troops.

"Screening for this event is something that takes up a lot of our time, making sure that the law of the land is followed. We screen the registrations to ensure that we don't have people here who will at the very least embarrass the UK and at the worst are not working in our interests."

There are 228 exhibitors on site showcasing weapons and munitions, 104 offering electronic warfare systems, 1242 with naval equipment and 461 representing military aerospace. But there are also 464 devoted to security and 330 to homeland security.

Mr Beaver said: "A lot of companies here are going to be selling security systems to the Olympics and places such as Canary Wharf. The lines are becoming blurred between defence companies making military equipment and companies making security equipment.

"You can hardly walk around London these days without being photographed at least 12 times. There was a paradigm shift after 9/11 and people started to take security seriously, especially in crowded spaces. The government maxim for the Olympics is 'Business As Usual'. What the government wants to see happen is that those of us who aren't particularly keen on track and field can go about our business without being interfered with.

"We're all getting used to security now. Hopefully the technology will improve so there's less hassle. Google Street Scene technology is really advanced by current standards, and it's made the military wake up to the fact that you can do this at a reasonable cost."

Mr Beaver's argument is straightforward. Britain needs an arms industry to protect hundreds of thousands of jobs, to improve efficiency in conflicts across the world, and to protect our cities from the threat of terrorism. For that reason, the fact that this fair happens to be running as mourners remember the dead of 9/11 is a potent symbol, a reminder that violence and vigilance is sometimes required to defeat an intractable foe.

However, there's another view, yelled from the policed fringes of the Excel centre. It's a view held by grass-roots protesters such as Alun Morinan, Daniel Viesnik and Gwyn Gwyntopher, who say that the arms industry kills millions each year, and that it diverts skills, funding and resources from projects helping to heal, feed, clothe and educate citizens of rich and poor countries alike. For them, the fact that DSEi will be at Excel on September 11 is an insult to each and every victim.

It's a conflict with little chance of resolution, other than the utter collapse of one side. In 2009, just as in years past, there is the inside and the outside, the two lines of wildly different thought running off towards the horizon, clashing but never, ever merging.

"There's always going to be a problem with people with different agendas", Mr Beaver said.

"I'm never going to convince Campaign Against Arms Trade and I don't think they'll ever convince me. I've been a solider and I've been on operations. I understand the pressures and the risks. They're all very lucky because they don't have to experience that, and that we live in a country where protest is accepted.

"I thought personally that the candlelit vigil they held on Monday night was far more impressive than a lot of hooligans throwing paint around.

"Whether DSEi remains at Excel in future depends on whether the exhibitors like it. But I would expect DSEi to be here in two years time."