Militarism
Sir,—General Burba complains that an uninformed public and international peace initiatives lead to constraints of military programmes (March 29). In fact, the public is poorly informed about the wildly escalating military threat to the future of our planet and the dire need to redirect military expenditures to combat the real threats of ozone depletion, greenhouse effect, environmental degradation and pollution, population growth, starvation, disease, illiteracy, etc. Global military spending is now about one trillion dollars a yean 2.5 times the level of 1960 in
constant dollars. Since 1961, there have been 81 major wars with 12,555,000 dead. Militarisation, presumably designed to protect nation States, has led to a precarious mutual vulnerability of the world’s population. Thousands of nuclear weapons are poised for instant global destruction because of human or systems failure. Yet General Burba projects endless vistas of “exorbitantly expensive ... hi-tech weaponry ... we can not afford.” Mindless militarism threatens everyone.—Yours, etc., LARRY ROSS, Secretary, N.Z. Nuclear-free Peacemaking Association. March 29, 1989.
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Press, 4 April 1989, Page 12
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162Militarism Press, 4 April 1989, Page 12
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