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U.N. official: Global military spending rising at alarming rate after years of decline

By Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press, 8/30/2001 16:23

UNITED NATIONS (AP) Global military spending is rising at an alarming rate after years of decline following the end of the Cold War a decade ago, the top U.N. disarmament official said Thursday.

''The highest rates of increase, once again, were in countries with enormous unmet social and economic needs in Africa and south Asia,'' said Undersecretary-General for Disarmament Affairs Jayantha Dhanapala.

He quoted figures released in June by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute that reported that military spending by the world's nations rose to $798 billion in 2000 from $780 billion in 1999.

''All together, arms sales to developing countries exceeded $36 billion last year, an increase of 8 percent,'' Dhanapala said at Macquarie University in Sydney. His office in New York released a copy of the speech.

The United States sold almost half the weapons purchased last year by developing countries, followed by Russia, France, Germany, Britain and China, the U.S. Congressional Research reported earlier this month. The three leading purchasers were the United Arab Emirates, India and South Korea.

According to the Stockholm Institute, there were 25 major armed conflicts in the world last year 23 of them inside poor countries ''that could least afford such a tragic waste of precious human life and scarce economic resources,'' said Dhanapala.

''The tragedy of these numbers becomes all the more apparent when we consider that half the world struggles to survive on less than $2 per day,'' he said.

The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution Thursday on the prevention of armed conflict that called on member states to ensure implementation of the U.N. program of action on the illicit trade in small arms. The action program was developed during a summit on small arms in New York in July.

In his speech, Dhanapala noted that the first resolution adopted by the U.N. General Assembly more than 50 years ago called for the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction.

Yet, today, some 30,000 nuclear weapons reportedly remain in arsenals around the world, many on hair-trigger alert, he said.

There are also an estimated 550 million small arms in circulation around the world.

''Whether one looks at the big weapons or the little ones, the facts are alarming,'' Dhanapala said.

International efforts to halt or slow the spread of weapons have also stalled, he said.

Negotiations on nuclear disarmament and controlling the fissile material used in nuclear weapons are deadlocked at the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, he said. The nuclear test ban treaty hasn't received enough ratifications to enter into force, and efforts to enforce a ban on germ warfare broke down last month after the United States declared a draft proposal unacceptable.

''A new phase of the global nuclear arms race likely to be accompanied by a missile race and the weaponization of space is another risk, now that the future of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty is in jeopardy as a result of the stated intention of the U.S. to withdraw as a party,'' Dhanapala said.

President Bush has announced plans to build an anti-missile shield, which would violate the 1972 ABM treaty that Russia views as a cornerstone of international security.

-- Anonymous, August 31, 2001