Critical Times

Source: The Guardian 27 August, 2008

Denis Doherty and Hannah Middleton

An arms fair — the Asia-Pacific Defence and Security Exhibition (APDSE) — is due to open in Adelaide on November 11 — Remembrance Day. Organisations around the country have called for a Peace Convergence from November 8 to 13 to try to put a stop to this arms bazaar and to have the merchants of death banned for advertising their wares in our country.

South Australia has about 30 percent of Australia’s total military defence and security capital expenditure and the state government wants to increase this, making South Australia the “defence state”.

South Australia is home to the Asia Pacific regional headquarters and operations of some of the world’s biggest armaments corporations.

The Rann government crows: “We’re right on target for billions of dollars worth of defence projects in the next decade, adding to the $8 billion Air Warfare Destroyer project, including the high-tech AWD Systems Centre, AP-3C Orion Alliance, $1 billion Coastwatch coastal surveillance project, and the multi-billion dollar Collins class submarine.”

The APDSE organisers claim they expect over 150 international exhibitors and over 5,000 visitors. They say their exhibition will provide many opportunities for business in Australasia and the Asia Pacific Region as well as recruitment and distribution opportunities.

Green state

There would be more jobs for South Australians and more security for Australia if the state became the “Green state”, investing in solutions to the enormous environmental problems Australia is facing now and into the future.

This can be done through a program of conversion to civilian production, creating balanced and sustainable economic development.

Military production is capital intensive rather than job creating. Fears that conversion will cost workers their jobs are false because civilian spending actually creates significantly more jobs.

Research from a number of industrialised countries makes it clear that military spending creates fewer jobs than would be created in civilian production for the same sum of money.

Conversion

There are many examples from industrialised capitalist countries, comparable to the situation in Australia, which show that conversion can become a successful reality. In the 1970s, workers at the Lucas Aerospace plant in England prepared detailed plans for making civilian products, including gas heat pumps, energy generating windmills, portable dialysis machines, solar heat collectors, artificial limbs and a vehicle for children with spina bifida. The plan included an analysis of how to finance such ventures and potential markets.

It was never implemented because it threatened the authority of the corporate and governmental bosses.

Other civilian products which could be produced by military-related production facilities include hospital equipment, consumer durables, new communication systems, environmental technologies and technology-based consumer goods.

However, arms corporations have little incentive to move out of military work where they enjoy low-risk operations, generous cost-plus contracts and large profits. Conversion would mean a loss of power and privilege.

A time of wars

The territorial division of the world between the major capitalist powers and the enormous power and reach of the transnationals has created a world of bitter competition and contradictions. The only way the imperialist powers, above all the United States, can add to their possessions is through war.

The competition between them for export markets and the sources of raw materials, for the territory of other states and for cheap labour has led to devastating local and world wars.

Within countries too, driven by the lucrative arms trade, wars are fuelled by competition for scarce resources, by the struggle between those who are oppressed and those who are oppressors, by the demand for an end to poverty and injustice.

The Stockholm Peace Institute (SIPRI) records that in 2007, there were 14 major armed conflicts in 13 locations around the world. Other commentators put the number of conflicts higher.

They included Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Colombia, Peru, Kashmir, Burma, Mindanao (Philippines), Sri Lanka, Dafur (Sudan), Palestine and Kurdistan (Turkey).

Military spending

World military expenditure is estimated to have been $1,339 billion in 2007 — an increase in real terms of six percent over 2006 and a 45 percent increase since 1998.

This corresponds to $202 for each person in the world.

In 2007 the United States of America spent $547 billion on the military, 45 percent of the world total. The UK spent $59.7 billion (5 percent), China $58.3 billion (5 percent), France $53.6 billion (4 percent) and Japan $43.6 billion (4 percent).

In 2008-9, under the new Rudd government, Australian military spending will be $22 billion (about 2 percent of the world’s total) with a promised 3 percent increase each year until 2018.

Global arms production is increasing. Arms sales by the 100 largest companies in the world (excluding China) amounted to $315 billion in 2006. Forty-one US companies accounted for 63 percent of the combined arms sales of the top 100, while 34 West European companies accounted for 29 percent.

About 80 percent of the volume of exports of major conventional weapons between 2003 and 2007 were accounted for by the USA, Russia, Germany, France and the UK.

The Asia–Pacific region now spends more than $285 billion a year on defence (more than NATO, excluding the US) with China accounting for $128 billion of this amount, Japan $43 billion, South Korea $26 billion and India $24 billion. A regional arms race is underway.

These extraordinary expenditures on war and preparations for war divert the financial, human, technological and natural resources needed to resolve our real threats, including poverty, hunger, climate change, and environmental degradation. They make us poorer, not more secure.

Security

The astronomical sums spent on war and preparations for war — $62 million every single day in Australia — and the distortion of the South Australian state economy do not provide security for the Australian people.

Security is often interpreted to mean military security. However, human security also relies on addressing the causes of social disadvantage, political injustice and environmental degradation. The over-emphasis in casting the military as Australia’s guarantee of security has not created a true culture of national security.

Australia’s security can be enhanced by attention to social, political and humanitarian issues which affect the people of this country as well as in neighbouring states.

Security cannot be enforced by ever-greater numbers of ever more sophisticated weapons. It is increasingly clear that real and enduring security comes with jobs, steady food supplies, homes, clean water, warmth, education and health care, democracy and human rights.

We can either continue current defence policies or we can move toward more stable and balanced social and economic development within a more sustainable international economic and political order. We cannot do both.