Arms Sales as Economic Warfare
Money spent on arms is money that impoverishes people. Governments take money from their citizens, money that they can ill afford to give up. Instead of using that money on education and social programs which would help the poor climb out of poverty, it is paid out to weapons manufacturers. Tax resentment, stemming from all the taxes it takes to keep up with arms purchases, makes social spending even more impossible.
According to a Congressional Research Service report out this month titled Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 2001-2008 (CATDN), 76.4% of 2008 arms transfers agreements by major weapons suppliers were to nations in the developing world. “The value of all arms transfer agreements with developing nations in 2008 was nearly $42.2 billion.”
Let’s put $42.2 billion into perspective. India is one of the primary developing country purchasers of weapons around the world. According to the World Bank’s Geo, India had a 2006 per capita income of $820. So $42.2 billion is equivalent to a year’s income for more than fifty million Indians.
How many people is that? Take the populations of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia, and San Antonio. Add them together. Now double it. It is still less people than the fifty million Indians whose yearly income equivalent is being spent on arms by developing nations.
“India ranked second in arms transfer agreements during 2005-2008 with $20.2 billion (in current dollars), or 13.7% of the value of all developing-world arms transfer agreements.” So while India contains a third of the worlds poor and while nearly a quarter of urban residents live in slums, the government is spending vast amounts of money on arms.
The money that is spent on arms by developing nations goes primarily to companies from the richest countries in the world. And the United States military industrial complex benefits more than anyone. “In 2008, the United States ranked first in arms transfer agreements with developing nations with $29.6 billion or 70.1% of these agreements” (CATDN).*
Selling arms benefits the United States in all sorts of ways. First there is the money directly made from the initial arms sales. Then there is the continuing income from “upgrades, spare parts, ordnance and support services” (CATDN).
Rather than feeling any moral ambiguity about taking money from poor people in developing countries to fill the coffers of the U.S. “defense” industry, many in our government see the arms race as a desirable mechanism for keeping dependent countries from ever catching up.
Lest you think I have been hanging out on too many conspiracy theory websites, I direct your attention to Senate Bill 1044. The bill was introduced by Republican John Thune of South Dakota. It is titled Preserving Future United States Capability to Project Power Globally Act of 2009. Its purpose is to “pursue a development program for the next generation bomber” and it reads, in part:
(2) Long range, penetrating strike systems provide…the ability to impose disproportionate defensive costs on prospective adversaries of the United States.
In other words, as long as we can keep other countries buying our outrageously expensive high tech weapons, our world hegemony remains secure. The fact that this hegemony depends on keeping the poor impoverished is not an unintended consequence. It is a tactic.
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* Please note that this figure includes only the government-to-government Foreign Military Sales. Data for commercial export sales is not kept by any government agency.
United States commercially licensed arms deliveries data are not included…The United States is the only major arms supplier that has two distinct systems for the export of weapons: the government-to-government Foreign Military Sales (FMS) system, and the licensed commercial export system. (CATDN)
