THE Stockholm International Peace Research Institute presented the dismaying news this week that the world weapons trade has grown 20 per cent in the past five years.
The bulk of it went to the Middle East and the bulk of it came from the US.
The Institute reports that the world spent $1339 billion on weapons in 2007, the latest year it has figures for, up 6 per cent over the previous year and 45 per cent in the decade. Again, nearly half of it was US military spending.
The US military calls it “defence”. It is there to provide Americans with “security”. But Americans feel (and probably are) less secure now than they were a decade ago.
Australia spends about $20 billion a year on the military. As a percentage of GDP it is more than the world average. It comes after more than half a decade in which the Howard Government guaranteed a 3 per cent real increase in military spending every year.
Has it made us more secure? Not likely.
Indeed, it seems that the more the US and its allies spend on the military, the more enemies they create and the less secure we are. Worse, the spending is on the wrong things for the threats we face, particularly in the US.
Why spend all that money on the military when you haven’t got a universal health care system, so that when the nation is invaded from across the Mexican border by a swine flu virus you do not cope as well? Why spend all that money on military toys which are ineffective against an invasion from a hurricane?
The Australian “Defence” White Paper is expected any time soon. It will no doubt contain the need for lots of “capabilities” — a Joint Strike Fighter force, a bigger submarine fleet, tanks, more ships and so on. Nearly all of it will be based on imaginary threats from other nation states who have no desire or intention to attack us.
In the meantime, we cannot stop refugees in leaky boats.
All these expensive capabilities are worse than a waste of money. They actually cause a lot of the threats that they are incapable of stopping.
“Defence” White Papers and military spending in Australia have often been directed at giving us the “capability” of supporting the US. Where has it got us? We are now probably a target for terrorism like the others in the coalition of the willing – Britain and Spain and others.
We have been much more protected merely by distance and lifestyle than military “capability”.
Where has all this interference in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan got us? It has just generated more hatred towards us and refugees to us.
And these threats cannot be met by conventional forces.
It seems, at least, that some of the Australian people are beginning to wake up. An Australian National University poll which regularly monitors attitudes to military spending said this week that more people (35 per cent) wanted less military spending than wanted more spending (30 per cent). Eight-two per cent said they would not pay more tax for military spending.
Nearly 70 per cent thought the allies were not winning the war in Afghanistan. Yet, bizarrely, more than half approve our being there – all the way with the USA, it would seem.
This is weird thinking. It seems some people are happy to be in a losing war as an ally of the US, presumably because they think the US would help us if we were invaded (ho-hum, by another nation state) or that another nation state would be deterred from invading us because of our US alliance.
But being allied to the US has only made us less secure. Far from deterring the new enemies, they are more likely to attack us because of our US alliance. Indeed, they can’t be deterred at all by threats retaliations with nuclear or conventional bombs or conventional forces. Nor are many of our high-tech weapons much use against improvised bombs set off my mobile phones. And they are entirely useless against destructive internet hackers or food poisoners or others who find ever more imaginative and ingenious ways of inflicting harm.
US policies have spawned a generation of suicide bombers who will only stop when the causes of their disaffection are addressed.
A good start would be to alternate the spending on the military ($20 billion a year in Australia) with the spending on foreign aid ($3 billion a year). And it has got to be real foreign aid, not spending on material sourced in the donor country.
We could also open our markets to the third world, instead of hypocritically preaching free trade while practising protectionism.
We could have more human interaction.
And let’s not have any more absurd “road maps” and big-name “negotiations” with “deadlines” for peace. All they do is pressure parties into seeking the unobtainable maximum because they fear an irreversible final agreement — so they are destined to fail.
We should change what we mean by “defence” and “security”. Armies with big weapons and “capabilities” do not constitute “defence” nor do they contribute much to “security”, indeed, they often detract from it.
Let’s add foreign aid and the costs of dealing with climate change to the security budget. The US should certainly add a universal health system to its security budget – how could anyone feel secure without one?
Thankyou Crispin for some clear committed thinking on the proposed military buildup. ‘When will they ever learn’..to think about the consequences of their actions. We would do much better if we reverted to the old name for the defence department and called it the department for war/military combat. Then we would be able to, as you suggest, think more clearly about the real threats to our security….climate change, pandemics, military buildups and see that building peace requires transforming our carbon based technologies, appropriate trade and aid and other peace-building activities and above all disarmament. We cannot spend money on armaments and achieve the Millennium Development Goals and unless we do that the battle against climate change will be lost. Perhaps you would like to write a piece on the environmental cost of war, including preparing for war, manufacturing weapons, testing them, keeping them in service, and storing unused weapons and WMDs in perpetuity. When can we expect an environmental impact statement for the the defence budget?
Very good piece in my view and sums up what should really be common sense thinking, whether applied to human relations or international relations. Does the government not have advisers in international relations or are they drowned out by the so-called “defence” procurement industry? Various crash scenarios are now confronting us (even in the near term), with climate change the big one, yet money in huge amounts is being spent to address the wrong threats. If someone visited here from another galaxy, they would probably wonder how our priorities could be so warped.