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GLOBAL DAY of ACTION on MILITARY SPENDING

http://demilitarize.org/

2011

No. 8 February 2012

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Military Spending: Anti-Development

Twenty years ago, world leaders met in Rio de Janeiro for an Earth summit. Out of their deliberations came the first international effort to address climate change as well as the Convention for Biological Diversity. The participants grappled with the challenge of promoting development, particularly for the developing world, without turning the planet into a charcoal cinder. When the UN convenes this June in Rio to evaluate the progress made since 1992, it will face some unpleasant facts. Biological diversity continues to disappear at an alarming rate. Climate change continues at a nearly irrevocable pace. And very few countries have managed to leap across the gap that separates rich from poor. Heres the message we will be asking the attendees this year: Wheres the money? You see, we have enough money to address climate change and the course of underdevelopment. Much of it is sequestered in military budgets the world over. It will take a global commitment to begin transferring money for destruction into money for constructive development. Our Global Day of Action on Military Spending is dedicated this year to addressing skewed budget priorities, not only within countries but across countries. Some governments, including the U.S., are considering cuts in military spending to apply the savings to debt reduction or domestic stimulus. But some portion of the savings should go to leveling the global economic playing field. This was the essence of the plan of Brazilian leader Lula to tax the arms trade and fight poverty. In our February newsletter, we have several articles on this issue of disarmament and sustainable development. We will provide background on the Rio+20 Earth Summit, give some insights into whats ahead for global development, and highlight the challenges military spending poses to development. With two months to go before April 17, were delighted to have 50 groups in 28 countries already signed up. Well highlight a couple of the actions being planned. Theres plenty of time to plan an action of your own. Our organizers packets one for international organizers, another for U.S.organizers can take you step by step through the planning process.

Organizers:
The International Peace Bureau (IPB) is dedicated to the vision of World Without War. We are a Nobel Peace Laureate (1910); over the years, 13 of our officers have been recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize. Our 320 member organizations in 70 countries, together with individual members from a global network, bring together expertise and campaigning experience in a common cause. Our current main program centers on Sustainable Disarmament for Sustainable Development. Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) is a community of public scholars and organizers linking peace, justice, and the environment in the U.S. and globally. We work with social movements to promote true democracy and challenge concentrated wealth, corporate influence, and military power. As Washingtons first progressive multi-issue think tank, IPS has served as a policy and research resource for visionary social justice movements for 50 years.

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We are at a critical moment. We missed a golden opportunity to change global budget priorities after the end of the Cold War. We have another opportunity today. We may not be given another chance. Lets work together on April 17 to start changing the conversation to answer the question: wheres the money?

WHY MILITARY SPENDING SHOULD BE INCLUDED IN THE DEVELOPMENT EQUATION

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. Martin Luther King Jr. (1967) Last year, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the world military bill reached $1.63 trillion. The top five military spenders -- the USA, China, the UK, France, and Russia -- spent $994.6 billion on their militaries, which accounts for 61.2% of worlds military expenditures. At the same time, the cost of tackling mass poverty in a time of shrinking public funds is a growing international issue. Estimates vary: the amount of (additional) foreign aid required to reach the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 ranges from $40 to $60 billion a year (World Bank estimate) to $329bn (IPB, 2009, based on UN and other official figures). Whichever estimate is used, compared with the investments made in the military sector it is a paltry sum. This is why military spending should be viewed, as the UN jargon has it, as an innovative source of development funding. However, despite being the largest single potential source of development funding, it usually remains ignored. Notions of national security and sovereignty are frequently used to justify this overspending in the defense sector. Nevertheless, such spending hinders other key aspects of human security, such as access to health facilities, food, clean water and shelter. As a matter of fact, militarism not only concerns defense budgets, it has impacts on a wide-range of areas: Military research: a large proportion of R&D budgets is spent on defense, which holds back innovations in other fields. Environment and health: with contamination from nuclear and chemical waste, accidents in weapons development programs, the effects of landmines, pollution from military bases, etc. Social impacts: prostitution and sexually transmitted diseases, crime and violence due to the presence of weapons, and distortions in the local employment market which becomes dependent on military facilities. Economics: less national capital available to meet basic needs. Politics: the greater the military expenditures, the greater the influence of the militaryindustrial complex over political actors. The security of a nation is assured when its peoples basic needs are fulfilled, not because of its investments in the defense sector. Therefore, high military spending is controversial in the face of more essential and pressing needs, as it diverts funds from development goals.

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The economic crisis, which emerged in 2007-8, is still wreaking havoc across the world. But it seems to have had little impact on the global level of military spending. Nevertheless, lately, certain states have announced some limited cuts (see other articles on US/other budget reductions). ! ! Even if the overall results of such reductions on the global pattern of military spending are not yet known, a "window of opportunity" has opened for those of us who believe in re-allocating military spending towards sustainable development at home and abroad. GDAMS 2012 offers us all a fine opportunity to make the case. !

Military Spending at Rio+ 20, the 'Earth Summit'

The year 2012 may prove a decisive moment in the global development debate. This June will see the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, also known as the Rio+20 Earth Summit. Twenty years have passed since the term 'sustainable development' was coined at the 1992 UNCED Earth Summit, also in Rio de Janeiro. Some of the issues discussed at that momentous event were: biodiversity, climate change, forests, alternative energy, public transportation, and water scarcity -- but with no reference to militarism! Despite many path-breaking outcomes such as the Climate Change Convention, (leading to the Kyoto Protocol) and the Convention on Biological Diversity, now, 20 years on, our sustainability challenges have not decreased, but continue to grow alarmingly. This disturbing fact led the UN General Assembly to decide on the Rio + 20 follow-up conference. The negotiations will focus on two major topics. First, the development of a green economy and poverty eradication, and second, the creation of an institutional framework for sustainable development governance. Member States will send high-level representatives and so-called Major Groups are also invited to participate: Business & Industry; Children & Youth; Farmers; Indigenous People; Local Authorities; NGOs; Scientific and Technological Community; Women; Workers and Trade Unions -thus basically including all citizens. This is an invitation to everyone to care about and contribute to sustainable development knowing that governments alone cant do it all. To us, it is an invitation to bring in our disarmament perspective. Disarmament and the reduction of military spending are one of the conditions to make development possible, for several reasons: use the brainpower of researchers and scientists for development issues instead of weaponry; avoid that infrastructure in war-torn countries gets destroyed; give people the security and the peace of mind to do their ordinary work; and last but not least, have more money available for investments to combat poverty.

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Thus it is essential that disarmament is brought up as a serious and relevant issue during the Rio+20 process (especially during the preparatory period), and that civil society reminds governments that military spending has to be reduced drastically in order to promote sustainable development. We will argue that governments are not coherent if they spend disproportionate shares of their GNP on their militaries while failing to contribute adequately to development. These governments should be shamed and put under pressure from other governments as well as civil society, in order to change the priorities. IPB is planning several side events on this topic during the Summit period, and encourages everyone - and especially development agencies and poverty campaigners - to take up the issue with their own government delegations. Well before the Summit, during the whole GDAMS activity period, we need to talk about Rio+20 and inform people about its importance and our message to governments. We have to explain the link between disarmament and development and make them understand that as long as governments dont reallocate their military spending, development will be at risk. Rio+20 is a great opportunity to get the message to decision-makers. We must do our share to make this historic event a success. Lets inform our supporters, and the general public, and put pressure on our representatives to make disarmament a priority in their development efforts!

Millennium Development Goals: What happens after 2015?

At the UN Millennium Summit in New York in 2000, world leaders adopted the Millennium Declaration containing a series of goals known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). These are: End Poverty and Hunger; Universal Education; Gender Equality; Child Health; Maternal Health; Combat HIV/AIDS; Environmental Sustainability; and Global Partnership. These goals are rather general, yet they have given governments an unprecedented framework for their development efforts and have pushed them to strengthen their measures to help the poor. However, the deadline for achieving these goals is 2015. Only 3 years to go, and we are still very far from meeting them.!!

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This fact should encourage governments and civil society to push even harder in the next few years, but it also invites us to think beyond 2015. Because, lets be realistic, what we havent achieved in 11 years wont easily be done in 3, even with the most vigorous efforts by all stakeholders. At the UN Summit on the Millennium Development Goals in 2010, governments started thinking of 'afterwards' and included an item in the summits outcome document requiring the UN SecretaryGeneral to make recommendations for further steps on the development agenda in his annual reports. He has invited a High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability to make recommendations on how to replace the MDGs by sustainable development goals and how to link the Rio+20 conference to post2015 initiatives. This report was launched in Addis Ababa on January 30. However, despite all the research initiatives and dozens of meetings, there are no conclusions yet on how such a framework should be developed. Beyond2015 is an international campaign working to ensure that the development of this framework is participatory and inclusive, especially for those directly affected by the absence of development. The campaign coordinates civil societys voice in this discussion and calls on the UN to allow a participatory process including the voices of affected people. Despite these forward-looking steps to realize sustainable development around the world, thinking beyond 2015 should not neglect the 'elephant in the room': the enormous human and financial resources currently devoted to militarism and war preparations. A new start requires some new thinking!

GDAMS 2012: Whats Happening?

At the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., weve got plans underway for a Tax Day Walk of Shame. Well stop by some of the Military Industrial Complexs biggest tax evading war profiteers and demand that they pay their share. Companies like General Electric, Tyco International and Navistar Defense reap in billions of dollars for creating the machinery of war and destruction, and they get that money from us, the taxpayers. Well also stop by the National Group lobbying firm, which represents companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, helping them strengthen their hold over the legislative process in Washington. And we cant forget the financial sectors involvement in the Military Industrial Complex. Well hit up Bank of America and the U.S. Treasury to tell them just where to put those billions of dollars in lowinterest loans and taxpayer guarantees: Into our Human Needs! Finally, our walk will start and end at the home of the most powerful man in the world the White House where well tell president Obama that well believe in his change when we see it! His stated goal to cut military spending can be reached, but not if we roll over and accept that slower growth is the same thing as a budget cut! Geneva, Switzerland, Feb. 28, 2012. IPB announced today that it plans to launch an International Appeal on Disarmament for Sustainable Development on April 17th, to mark the second Global Day of Action on Military Spending. Co-sponsored by the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility and Foreign Policy in Focus, the Appeal will call on the governments meeting at the Earth Summit in June to agree on a global plan for disarmament and to use

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the freed-up funds for social, economic and ecological programs. Our aim is to find 500 well-known personalities to endorse the Appeal; suggestions please to IPB Secretariat. Also on the agenda for IPB are two actions in Geneva on April 17 one is happening on the street, with interactive activities engaging the public in the discussion on military spending and raising awareness of just how serious a threat it poses to human development. The other is a high level seminar at the UN, with a presentation of SIPRI data and responses from governments and NGOs on how to affect real change to budget priorities across the globe. Update from Aotearoa New Zealand: In December, the New Zealand government disestablished the long-standing position of Minister for Disarmament and Arms Control and rolled the disarmament and arms control portfolio into the foreign affairs portfolio, details of this backwards move are available at www.converge.org.nz/pma/mdacdis11.pdf Also in December, the legislation to activate the Defence Capability Plan - to "modernise" the armed forces to ensure longer deployments to overseas combat situations, and the expansion and partial or full privatisation of the Special Air Service, SAS - was introduced to parliament. This year's Women Say No to War actions on International Women's Day (8 March) are focused on military spending, see www.converge.org.nz/pma/iwd12.htm for details. Preparations for the 2012 GDAMS are underway here, the 17 April date this year coincides with the start of the White Poppies for Peace Annual Appeal - www.whitepoppies.org.nz - which is used to fund scholarships for research into militarism, militarisation and war.

Elsewhere groups are busy planning their actions. SUARAM in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is putting together a film screening and discussion. In New York, the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs will be putting up a display on military spending inside the UN. And Nobel Laureate Oscar Arias Endorsed the Global Day of Action on Military Spending, saying:
It is a journey we cannot afford to avoid. And if we persist, if we endure, then this just might be the year that takes us closer to the peace and justice we have sought for so long. Oscar Arias, Nobel Peace Prize recipient, 1987

But we need your details!

Please keep in touch, and let us know what youve got planned. Check out whats going on at demilitarize.org and contact Noah Gimbel at the Institute for Policy Studies (ngimbel@ips-dc.org) with more information on your plans, or with any questions you might have. April 17 is coming up fast. The sooner we get details about your actions, the more effective we can be about promoting your event as part of the Global Day. Remember: we want this year's GDAMS to have maximum impact in shifting the conversation from military spending to human needs.