Armament and Disarmament in the Third World Problems of Disarmament

摘要

Military spending in the world has been increasing rapidly, especially through the 1970s. It will reach nearly a thousand billion dollars in 1985. Third World countries have most rapidly increased military spending. These expenditures have mainly been used to purchase weapons imported from industrialised nations. Some observers refer to this phoenomenon as the militarization of the Third World.At the same time, efforts to reduce arms in the Third World have also been undertaken since most of these countries are faced with numerous problems. which are an inhibition on too much military spending.Several causes for the increase in military expenditure in the Third World are overviewed in this essay: international tension, regional arms race, repression, and so on.The efforts to reduce arms in the Third World are classified into four kinds according to the nature of the weapons concerned and the region expected to disarm: the disarmament of weapons the Third World countries do not possess, the disarmament of weapons Third World countries also possess, disarmament on a global scale, and disarmament within a certain region.Findings were made as regards the diversity among Third World countries which was reflected in the tremendous difference in the amount of each country's military expenditure. The problem of disarmament in the Third World should not ignore this diversity. There is also a need to distinguish resourcerich countries, such as the oil producing Middle East nations, NICs with the ability to produce and export weapons of considerable quality, pariah states alienated inside each region, ‘big-powers’ seeking hegemony within each region and countries faced with international and internal tensions including armed conflicts, from other Third World countries.Disarmament means the removal of the necessary condition for war. The main obstacle to disarmament, however, has the same roots as the sufficient condition for war. This is the reason why a lot of disarmament efforts have been made unsuccessfully. Therefore, we should try to tackle both of these conditions at the same time when we want to succeed in disarmament efforts: the process of the effort should not be called disarmament but demilitarization.