Comparative Perspectives on Militarization, Repression and Social Welfare
| Author | Miles D. Wolpin |
| Published date | 01 June 1983 |
| Date | 01 June 1983 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002234338302000203 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Comparative
Perspectives
on
Militarization,
Repression
and
Social
Welfare*
MILES
D.
WOLPIN
State
University
of
New
York
at
Potsdam
The
focus
of
this
article
is
upon
the
costs
of
high
military
burdens
and
militarization.
While
the
primary
concern
is
with
the
Third
World,
this
analysis
also
considers
costs
to
advanced
capitalist
as
well
as
state
socialist
systems.
The
work
synthesizes
findings
by
more
than
three
dozen
researchers,
many
of
whom
have
published
comparative
or
case
studies
of
substitution
effects
of
military
expenditures
in
socio-economic
areas.
Particular
attention
is
focused
upon
damage
to
the
American
socio-economic
order
by
high
militarization
since
the
early
1960’s.
In
both
the
North
as
well
as
the
South,
the
costs
are
most
obvious
in
terms
of
specific
tradeoffs
when
military
burdens
are
high
or
rapidly
increasing.
They
are
occasionally
pronounced
in
such
welfare
areas
as
health
and
particularly
education.
More
frequently,
they
appear
in
terms
of
diminished
economic
growth
rates,
unemployment,
reduced
exports
and
inflation.
In
developing
nations welfare
is
less
adversely
affected
in
civilian,
more
industrialized,
economically
dynamic,
heavily
aided,
state
capitalist
and
especially
socialist
oriented
regimes.
Military
dominant
systems
tend
to
be
the
most
repressive
and
exhibit
the
heaviest
military
burdens.
In
general,
however,
systems
in
both
the
North
and
the
South
vary
in
how
they
absorb
such
tradeoffs
as
appear.
Emphasis
is
placed
upon
East-West
competitive
intervention
and
commercial
gain
as
a
source
of
both
militarization
and
accelerating
militarism
in
the
South.
It
may
be
prophetic
to
observe
that
we
live
in
an
era
of
global
militarization
unparalleled
in
the
twentieth
century
except
perhaps
for
the
arms
races
that
preceded
World
Wars
I
and
II.’
Thus,
’(b)etween
and
1980
(UNSG
1982:11)
the
volume
of
resources
devoted
* Without
the
support
of
the
International
Peace
Research
Institute,
Oslo
(PRIO),
the
Norwegian
Research
Council
for
Science
and
the
Humanities
(NAVF)
and
PRIO
colleagues
Nils
Petter
Gleditsch,
Tord
Hoivik,
Ingvar
Botnen
and Tor
Andreas
Gittlesen,
this
work
would,
as
we
say,
not
have
seen
the
light
of
day.
Others
to
whom
special
gratitude
is
owed
include
Cora
Weiss
and
the
Samuel
Rubin
Foundation,
Ralph
Shikes
and
the
Public
Concern
Foundation,
Morris
Janowitz
and
the
Inter-University
Seminar
on
Armed
Forces
and
Society,
John
Saxe-Fernandez
and
the
School
of
Graduate
Studies
in
Political
and
Social
Science
of
the
National
University
of
Mexico,
Richard
DelGudice
and
Kathy
Sukanek
of
the
State
University
of
New
York
at
Potsdam.
Research
assistance
along
the
way
was
provided
by
Berit
Aasen,
Liv
Buttingsrud,
Vigdis
Mathisen,
Turid
Kran,
Robyn
and
Seth
Wolpin.
Finally,
for
assistance
in
preparing
the
manuscript,
I
express
great
appreciation
to
Liv
Buttingsrud.
annually
to
military
purposes
increased
by
a
factor
of
1.9,
that
is
almost
doubled.’
And
as
SIPRI
analyst
Landgren-Backstrom
(1979)
cogently
adds,
this
is
mirrored
by
escalating
weapons
exports:
The
international
trade
in
arms
is
one
of
the
most
significant
indicators
of
the
ever-increasing
global
militarization.
The
value
of
world
arms
sales
at
current
prices
has
now
reached
as
high
as
$20
billion
per
annum.
Of
this,
70%
goes
in
the
direc-
tion
from
the
industrialized
countries
to
the
less
developed
countries.
During
the
first
half
of
the
1970’s,
the
average
yearly
increase
of
arms
trans-
fers
to
less
developed
countries
was
running
at
a
rate
of
l501o
per
annum.
The
past
five
years
-
1974
through
1978
-
show
an
average
yearly
increase
of
25%.
The
two
dominant
arms
suppliers
in
the
1970’s
are
the
United
States
(39%)
and
the
Soviet
Union
(32010)
followed
after
a
considerable
gap
by
France
(11%)
and
the
UK
(8010).
The
Middle
East
absorbed
over
half
of
the
total
arms
supplies
to
the
Third
World ...
Thus
it
is
unsurprising
to
discover
that
in
constant
dollars
(USACDA
1979:27,
70)
Third
World
arms
expenditures
between
1968-
1977 alone
rose
from
54
to
92
billion
while
130
those
of
developed
countries
increased
from
305
to
319.2
With
respect
to
regular
and
paramilitary
armed
forces,
the
former
ex-
panded
from
12.5
to
15.6
million
while
those
of
industrialized
nations
diminished
from
11.9
to
10.6.3
Militarization
then
-
understood
as
the
allocation
of
increasing
resources
to
armed
forces
-
was
greatest
in
the
South.
Much
foreign
exchange
moreover
was
used
to
pay
for
increasingly
complex
and
costly
imported
weapons
systems.
This
in
turn
contributed
no
small
amount
(Tuoni
&
Vdyrynen
1980:217-221)
to
the
growth
of
unsupportable
external
debt
burdens.4
4
In the
North -
accounting
for
roughly
3/4
of
global
military
expenditures
-
the
rate
of
increase
has
accelerated
since
the
late
1970’s.
This
is
particularly
true
for
the
U.S.
where
between
1978
and
1981
alone,
the
military
budgetary
share
rose
from
22.8
to
24.207o
while
U.S.
arms
exports
jumped
from
$8.8
billion
in
1977
to
$15.3
in
1980.
By
1984
the
military
share
of
the
budget
is
projected
to
be
in
excess
of
32°70.5
5
This
qualitative
escalation
(Scheer
1982)
and
the
probable
Soviet
response
has
led
one
peace-oriented
military
expert
(Thee
1982:282)
to
bemoan
that
’(h)alting
the
momentum
of
nuclear
armaments
under
the
conditions
of
today’s
sharply
escalating
arms
race,
is
...
thinking
about
the
unthinkable.’
My
concern
here
however
is
less
the
histor-
ically
justified
(Eckhardt
1982;
Westing
1982)
pessimism
of
the
foregoing,
than
the
im-
plications
for
mass
welfare
of
this
diversion
of
vast
and
ever
greater
resources
to
armed
forces.
More
specifically,
I
shall
devote
most
of
this
article
to
a
summation
of
the
findings
by
researchers
who
have
analyzed
the
delete-
rious
effects
of
militarization
with
respect
to:
1)
socioeconomic
welfare
in
the
developing
countries;
2)
repression
and
militarism
within
these
nations;
3)
war
probabilities
and
par-
ticularly
socioeconomic
costs
for
societies
in
the
North
and
East.
In
addition,
I
shall
take
account
of
work
by
scholars
whose
perspectives
on
military
impact
in
the
Third
World
are
more
benign,
and
report
the
findings
of
my
own
current
and
past
research
insofar
as
they
are
germane.
Finally,
I
shall
endeavor
to
fit
the
global
and
related
regional
patterns
into
a
broader
interpretive
frame-
work.
The
global
environment
is
one
of
acute
East/West
and
North/South
tensions,
de-
clining
rates
of
socio-economic
progress
in
most
COMECON
countries,
rising
Western
unemployment,
protectionism,
inflation
and
economic
stagnation
along
with
increasingly
unsupportable
external
indebtedness
in
the
South
(ca.
$600
billion)
resulting
in
growing
austerity
being
imposed
upon
Third
World
mass
sectors.
Approaching
bankruptcy
of
the
world
financial
system
has
been
paralleled
by
the
failure
of
developing
countries
to
structure
a
NIEO
and
the
demise
of
OPEC
as
an
effective
cartel.
The
world
capitalist
crisis
cannot
but
intensify
the
deleterious
consequences
of
the
global
militarization
process.
Analysis
of
its
ramifications
is
thus
imperative
if
we
are
to
devise
practical
or
useful
policy
alternatives.
Hypothesized
beneficial
effects
Before
addressing
specific
costs,
it
may
be
appropriate
to
consider
the
views
of
scholars
who
claim
at
least
some
collateral
benefits
to
be
a
consequence
of
accelerating
military
burdens
and/or
role
expansion
of
the
armed
forces.
Anarchists
and
pacifists
notwith-
standing,
few
can
take
issue
with
Kennedy’s
(1974)
rather
mundane
contention
that
in
the
contemporary
state
system,
armed
forces
are
required
to
externally
defend
the
maximi-
zation
of
intrasocietal
values.
This
however
ignores
their
ubiquitous
use
for
other
less
benign
purposes
-
internal
and
external.
It
equally
fails
to
confront
the
variable
of
diplomacy
which
can
ameliorate,
reduce
or
exacerbate
external
’threats’,
thus
altering
what
is
necessary
for
’security’.
Hence
he
evades
the
issue
of
’how
much’
is
legitimately
required
for
’defense’,
and
more
crucially,
who
should
make
that
determination.
This
problem
is
illustrated
by
Gauhar’s
( 1982:11 )
provocative
thesis
that
additional
petroleum
resources
have
allowed
’arms
merchants’
to
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