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Keith, the only point I was trying to make is
that there is a huge gap between the global expenditure on militarism on the one
hand and aid to poor countries on the other. I'd suggest that, when it
comes to military expenditures, much more is spent that is officially
reported. But it is the militarily driven mentality that is really the
issue. The US has become obsessed with
war. Helping poor countries overcome their problems and issues like
climate change simply don't figure. A review article in the Current New
York Review of Books contains the following paragraph:
Why does the US Department of Defense currently
maintain 725 official US military bases outside the country and 969 at home
(not to mention numerous secret bases)? Why does the US spend more on
"defense" than all the rest of the world put together? After all, it has no
present or likely enemies of the kind who could be intimidated or defeated by
"star wars" missile defense or bunker-busting "nukes." And yet this country is
obsessed with war: rumors of war, images of war, "preemptive" war,
"preventive" war, "surgical" war, "prophylactic" war, "permanent" war. As
President Bush explained at a news conference on April 13, 2004, "This country
must go on the offense and stay on the offense."
I've ordered one of the books that the
review article discusses, Andrew Bacevich's "The New American Militarism: How
Americans are Seduced by War".
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, July 08, 2005 2:39 PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Priorities
anyone?
Ed,
I'm wary of these sorts of articles
where the reader is overwhelmed with emotive statistics. There's often a lot
of clever selectivity. For example, the article you've posted from the
Vancouver Sun says that global spending on armaments is only 6% below
its Cold War peak in 1987/8. What it doesn't say is that both the principal
opponents in the Cold War, Russia and America, are both spending substantially
less on defence than they were then.
The article makes great play on
the extra money America is spending on fighting terrorism (whatever that may
mean) but even Bush has pruned back several huge projects which could easily
have restored and exceeded previous Cold War expenditures -- the new stealth
fighter, the successor to the Abrams tank, an ungraded nuclear submarine, for
example. It's also unlikely that America will ever build a new aircraft
carrier -- as France and the UK also. It says that America spends "almost
half" of the rest of the world on military expenditures. It used to be
approaching 70% in real terms and was probably even higher than that in the
1950s and 60s. Why? Because even America is joining the rest of the club of
developed nation-states and is beginning to feel the pinch now. This is the
reason why Bush and Cheney have recently stopped threatening Iran, and why the
Pentagon has publicly stated that it gave up its "two-war" capability some
years ago. America can't even afford what it's doing now.
So I suggest
that we don't get too pessimistic.
Keith
At 11:42
08/07/2005 -0400, you wrote:
The following two news items say a lot
about our priorities. If the G8 countries were to contribute $50 billion to
African aid by 2015, they would have attained a level of aid equal to 5% of
current global military expenditures or about 10% of current US military
expenditures. But Im not going to bet that it will happen. The military has
become a huge business and the $1.035 trillion figure is undoubtedly low,
given the following:
"But the report said the figures might be on the low side as countries
are increasingly outsourcing services related to armed conflicts, such as
military training and providing logistics in combat zones, without
classifying them as military expenditures."
Ed
P.S. I hope I have my billions and trillions
right. I don't think I've ever worked with numbers quite so
high.
From this mornings Globe and Mail:
That meets a
key Blair objective, though the pledge doesn't mention the British leader's
hope of increasing aid from the current $25-billion (U.S.) to $50-billion.
Also left out of the pledge of support for Africa will be Mr. Blair's other
goal of getting all summit countries to commit to raising foreign aid to an
amount equivalent to 0.7 per cent of each country's economy by
2015.
The United States, which is now giving an amount equal to 0.16
per cent of its economy, objected to the setting a numerical
target.
and From the Vancouver Sun June 8, 2005
Global military spending reaches $1 trillion
The
U.S. accounts for almost half of all expenditures
By Mattias Karen
Stockholm, Sweden -- Global military spending in 2004 broke the $1
trillion
US barrier for the first time since the Cold War, boosted by the
U.S. war
against terror and the growing defence budgets of India and
China, a
European think-tank said Tuesday.
Led by the United
States, which accounted for almost half of all military
expenditure, the
world spent $1.035 trillion on defence, equal to 2.6 per
cent of global
gross domestic product, the Stockholm International Peace
Research
Institute said.
Besides its regular defence budget, the U.S. has
allocated $238 billion
since 2003 to fight terrorism, according to the
report. "These
appropriations are now assuming extraordinary
proportions," said SIPRI
researcher Elisabeth Skons, who co-authored the
organization's annual
report.
Adjusted for inflation, the figure
for global military spending in 2004 is
only six per cent lower than its
Cold War peak in 1987-1988, Skons said.
The Cold War was the
struggle for power and prestige between the western
powers and the
Communist bloc from the end of the Second World War until the
collapse of
the Soviet Union in 1991.
Total military expenditure grew six per
cent in 2004 over the previous year,
in line with an average annual
increase since 2002, the institute said.
South Asia, northern Africa and
North America made the largest increases. In
Western Europe and Central
America, military spending fell.
But the report said the figures
might be on the low side as countries are
increasingly outsourcing
services related to armed conflicts, such as
military training and
providing logistics in combat zones, without
classifying them as military
expenditures.
Such outsourcing has more than doubled in the last 15
years, and was
estimated to have reached $100 million during 2004, SIPRI
researcher
Caroline Holmqvist said.
The researchers predicted it
would double again from current levels by 2010.
"This is a global
phenomenon," Holmqvist said, adding it was difficult to
provide exact
figures. "This is an industry that is not largely regulated."
As a
region, South Asia saw the biggest rise in military expenditure,
largely
because India boosted its defence budget by 19 per cent in a move
that
could provide a "real setback" to the country's attempts at ending
a
decades-long conflict with neighbour Pakistan, Skons said.
"Just a few years ago, it looked like they would be able to reach a
peaceful
settlement," she said. "Now India has increased [military
spending] again."
The report is based on official national budgets
in most cases, and
independent studies for countries like China, where,
Skons said, "it's
obvious that the official figures are very wrong."
Associated Press and Canadian Press
_______________________________________________
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mailing list
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Keith
Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>
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