Still thrive the world’s armourers

Press, 7 August 1976, Page 15

Still thrive the world’s armourers

The Arms Trade With The Third World. By the Stockholm Peace Research Institute. Penguin Books. N.Z. price $3.30. (Reviewed by Kevin Clements) Arms merchants are merchants of death and destruction. In the 19th and early 20th centuries most arms manufacturers produced weapons and sold them to whoever had the money to pay and political or strategic considerations were rarely if ever taken into account. English investors for example, who had the foresight to invest in Krupps before the First World War made a tidy packet out of the carnage. Now, however, while it is true that most manufacturers of arms continue to make huge profits from successful deals, it is also true that the sale and trade of arms is much more integrally related to foreign policy objectives. This book, while an abridged version of a much longer study published in 1971, is a must for anyone who wishes to know- which countries are in the business of manufacturing and merchandising death, and for what sorts of political purposes. For example, five countries, the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France and China, account for more than 90 per cent of major weapons exports to the Third World. Of these countries the United States and the Soviet Union have accounted for about two-thirds of total arms deliveries while Britain and France have made up more than _2O per cent of the remainder. Since 1972 there has been some change in the pattern m that the United States share of the total weapons market has declined while the Soviet Union’s share has increased, but the two superpowers continue to take the lion’s share of the weapons market. The authors identify three major patterns of armaments supply to Third World nations. These are hegemonic, industrial and restrictive. In the hegemonic pattern, the major suppliers

give-sell arms to further explicit and implicit foreign policy objectives. The most graphic illustration of the hegemonic pattern in recent years was American support for South Vietnam. The industrial pattern occurs when a particular nation wishes to have its own armaments industry and needs the export market to make it a profitable proposition. The restrictive pattern occurs when countries, like Sweden and Switzerland, manufacture and sell arms but only to countries not involved in conflicts. Clearly, these different supply patterns overlap but the authors believe that Britain and France sell weapons to bolster their economies, and to retain the possibility of a domestic defence industry. West Germany, Sweden, Canada and Switzerland operate a restrictive pattern while the Soviet Union and the United States have hegemonic supply patterns. The arms trade is one of the major ways in which the struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States continues. In the Middle East, for example, the major arms suppliers softened the blow of increased oil prices by negotiating a variety of large arms deals with the O.P.E.C. countries. This undoubtedly increases the possibility of further conflicts within the region and reduces longterm possibilities for peace. In Washington, last year, it was revealed that almost haif of America’s total arms sales of nine billion dollars went to the Gulf States. When arms flow into a region at this rate — and if they are matched by the Russians, — the potential for conflict increases exponentially. This book describes objectively and factuallv most of the majoi dimensions of the arms race. Tht authors conclude that the competition between the producers of arms for buyers results in Third World countries wasting resources that might otherwise be used for development

purposes. They present a number of proposals for the regulation of the trade in arms so that the possibility of war is reduced. It is unlikely, however, that any of their proposals, to register arms sales, and develop regional consumer groups etc will succeed unless there is a prior commitment to peace, and a commitment to seek alternative ways of resolving conflicts on the part of Third World nations. While Professor Wald's comment that “the free world comprises those countries who get their armaments free from the United States,” still applies to a very large extent, this little book underlines the face that armaments are costly and few Third World countries can afford to arm themselves. Maybe economic factors will prove more crucial in the long run than principled objections to the wasteful unproductive nature of expenditure on armaments. |Dr Clements lectures in sociology at the University of Canterbury.!