Pakistan Ordnance Factory demonstrates machine guns and automatic rifles. Pakistan exhibit at IDEX 2007. Military ammunition by Poongsan from South Korea. Exhibit at IDEX 2007. Plastic plant and gun at the booth of Turkish weapons manufacturer MKEK at IDEX 2007. Shotgun and rifle display at the Turkish exhibit at IDEX 2007. Chinese display of Qian Wei surface-to-air missile launchers. Conference visitors photograph one another atop a tank. United Arab Emirates armed forces banner at IDEX 2007.

As Hollywood describes them, Middle Eastern arms deals are nefarious meet-ups in the middle of a desert with black SUVs, automatic weapons and metal briefcases, but the reality is more like a sterile, home-appliance trade show.

Photographer Spencer Murphy visited Abu Dhabi's 2007 International Defence Exhibition and Conference , or IDEX. Governments and contractors at the biennial expo fill their shopping carts with the latest weapons. Its show floor is packed with trade booths, but instead of iPad cases or videogames, they are populated by bored arms dealers in bad lighting.

There's "an absence of death and destruction, and in their place [are] suited salesmen and plastic plants," says Murphy. His resulting photo series is titled Architects of War.

As popular uprisings unfold across North Africa and the Middle East, understanding the conflicts requires not just a knowledge of who is fighting but who is providing the weapons. Egyptian protesters on Jan. 27 tweeted pictures of an American-made tear gas canister fired on them.

A pressured British government revoked dozens of arms-trading agreements with Bahrain and Libya on Feb. 18. During his four day tour of Egypt last month, British Prime Minister David Cameron was forced to defend himself against accusations of courting Egypt's interim military leadership and drumming up future business for British defense companies.

Murphy's photos are from 2007's IDEX, but are imbued with new meaning in light of this year's trade show, held Feb. 20 to Feb. 24, just as the ongoing Libyan standoff with Gadhafi loyalists was in its infancy. In a turn of cultural cognitive dissonance, governments and contractors filled their shopping carts with the hottest weapons in Abu Dhabi while the world anxiously watched the violence unfold in Libya.

"Most people [at IDEX] were more than happy to let me photograph their stands and pose alongside their wares," says Murphy of 2007's show. "I have since been twice to a similar event in London, and it did not provide the same wealth of images. Stands were less photography-friendly and people seemed a lot more wary. In Abu Dhabi, there are banners up advertising IDEX and no evidence of the same kind of peace demonstrations that go on outside the London equivalent."

IDEX, hosted every two years, is the "largest defense and security event in the Middle East and North African region," according to the event's website. It has grown steadily since the first arms show in 2005, now boasting 900 exhibitors from more than 50 countries.

Big guns are big business. A congressional report set the value of worldwide arms deals in 2009 as $57.5 billion. American companies accounted for 39 percent of the worldwide market with $22.6 billion of sales.

IDEX is not open to members of the public, and access is strictly managed. Attendees must pass through airport-like security.

Murphy says his series "is not a statement about the countries or individuals that appear in the images, as they simply had the best stands and allowed me to take pictures."

"Countries from all around the globe are present and offer everything from pepper spray to tanks and aircraft," he says. "I do not want to make an intentional moral statement but merely present to the viewer a world that most of us don’t get to see."

It's been four years since he attended IDEX, but Murphy doubts that much has changed. "I imagine it will still look very similar, the people will still be the same. The only differences are the technologies on offer," he says.

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Photographs from Murphy's Architects of War are included in The Spectacle of War exhibit at The Empty Quarter Gallery, Abu Dhabi, March 14 to April 30, 2011.

Murphy is not the only photographer to have visited IDEX. Martin Parr said of the 2009 event, "I have photographed many fairs in my time, but this is the strangest of them all."

For more on IDEX 2011, Raw File recommends Abu Dhabi's English-language publication The National.

See also BagNewsNotes' response to IDEX 2011.

All images © Spencer Murphy