The Arms Economy and Warfare in the Third World

A new world military order is being forged much more successfully and rapidly than a new international economic order. Third World arms imports have skyrocketed in response to pressures to export ever more sophisticated and expensive military equipment from the North and sometimes competitive pressures by military or militarily threatened governments in the South to import these weapons. Additionally, more and more Third World countries are increasing their own production of arms, including sophisticated weapons systems, both for their own use and for export. From an economic point of view, armaments are just another major world industry that is adapting to the changing international division of labor. Military conflicts in the Third World, including international wars, civil wars, and military coups, are increasing. This is not necessarily because of the growing stocks of armaments in Third World states. Military conflicts are also provoked by pressures and incentives produced by the world economic crisis. Third World governments are affected both directly and indirectly by the growing international geopolitical tensions and the competition between the great powers. These conflicts are likely to provide the setting and opportunity for further political change in many parts of the Third World, but they are not likely to further the cause of socialism.

The progressive militarization of society and the growing arms economy in the Third World are part of the "militarization of the world economy" and of the "New International Mlitary Order". The trend to an arms economy is among the most significant real characteristics of the real emerging "New International Economic Order" lately heralded at international meetings and in the press. We argued that the militarization of the state and society in the Third World is the logical derivative of the economic exigencies of capital accumulation in the Third World, which in turn is essentially determined by the process of world capital accumulation, especially during its present period of crisis. Of course, this militarization has consequences in policy and action, including war, that are also directly derived from or related to international political, strategic, and military concerns in a world of bi- and multinational alliances and their shifts. Clearly, the superpowers seek political and military alliances with the states and military establishments of the Third World, particularly in politically sensitive or strategically important areas. The fragile nature of most of these alliances and the frequent changes, often for economic or economically determined political reasons, from one side to another are illustrated by Sadat's shift of Egypt from the Soviet camp to the American, by Quadaffi's constant shifting of Libya from one ally and enemy to another, and by the "exchange" of Ethiopia and Somalia in the system of international alliances. Some military alliances are more long-standing and have more far-reaching consequences, however.