Star Wars
or Earth Wars?
By Ahmad Faruqui, PhD
Danville, California
The
Revenge of the Sith, the sixth movie in the Star
Wars saga, is drawing record crowds and grossing
millions by the week. George Lucas, heady with
the success of American Graffiti in 1973, conceived
the series two years later. It was to be the story
of Anakin Skywalker’s rise, fall and ultimate
redemption. Since the story was too large for
one film, he divided it into two trilogies and
decided (for reasons best known to him) to make
the second trilogy before the first one.
He offered the science fiction concept to Universal
Studios, who had produced American Graffiti. In
a decision they would regret badly in the years
to come, Universal passed on it because they dismissed
the story as “unfathomable and silly.”
In fact, every single studio in Hollywood passed
on it except for 20th Century Fox.
The first film in the series was released in 1977.
By the end of its first theatrical run, it had
become the most successful in the history of cinema
and turned Lucas into a multi-millionaire. In
the decades to come, the Star Wars brand would
acquire a cult following equally among the young
and the old. Some would be drawn to it because
of the lure of space travel. Others would love
the stunning special effects that became its hallmark.
And many would love its portrayal of war between
good and evil. Located in a “galaxy far,
far away,” war seemed glorious.
However, it you strip the exotic location and
the stunning special effects, the film is a gripping
portrayal of the arrogance, anger and hostility
that drive people to make war on planet Earth.
By not calling it “Earth Wars,” Lucas
ensured that millions of people seeking to escape
the real wars going on around them would become
moviegoers.
Addressing the Asian defense ministers in Singapore
earlier this month, an indignant US Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld asked why China was increasing
its defense spending in consecutive years by double-digit
percentages since it faced no immediate threats.
He said such high spending rates could destabilize
the Asian military balance. One may, of course,
ask the same question of Rumsfeld. The only known
enemies of the US are non-state actors that hardly
justify the type and level of military spending
that it is engaged in.
While accounting for only 5 percent of the world’s
population, the US accounts for half of global
defense spending, according to figures released
by the Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute. For the first time since the end of
the Cold War, global military spending topped
a trillion dollars last year. This amounts to
2.6 percent of the world’s gross domestic
product and represents an expenditure of $162
for every man, woman and child on the planet.
In addition to spending $500 billion annually
on its military, the US has allocated $238 billion
to prosecute the global war on terror since 2003.
As Jeffrey Sachs of the Earth Institute argues
in his new book, “The End Of Poverty,”
the US has unfortunately neglected the deeper
causes of global instability that lead to terror.
Its spending on extremely poor people who live
on a daily income of less than a dollar a day
is about 3 percent of its defense budget. These
people are chronically hungry, ill, and uneducated.
They lack basic housing and clothing. Today, there
are 1.1 billion such people in the world, all
in danger of being killed by poverty.
Yet a callous world continues to increase military
spending. No where is this more evident than in
South Asia, where defense spending grew by 14
percent last year, compared to a global average
growth rate of 5 percent.
While always arguing that it is not engaged in
an arms race with India, Pakistan has just raised
its defense spending by 16 percent to $3.8 billion.
The saving grace is that in the same budget, the
government has announced it will raise infrastructure
development spending by almost 35 percent to $4.6
billion. Higher economic growth rates in the 6
to 8 percent range have made it possible to raise
spending on both defense and development. However,
this should not be taken to mean that there is
no trade-off between spending on development and
defense. If there is any ironclad law in economics,
it is that there is no free lunch.
Peace economist Kanta Marwah and Nobel Laureate
Lawrence Klein have published an analysis of the
impact of defense spending on economic growth,
drawing upon data from five Latin American countries:
Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay and Peru.
During the 1970s and 1980s, these countries spent
on average 3.3 percent of their GDP on defense,
which translated into an annual military expenditure
of $7.4 billion (measured in 1990 US dollars).
Marwah and Klein quantify the “hidden cost”
of defense spending during this period, by assessing
how much it lowered the rate of economic growth.
Applying econometric methods to annual data over
the 1970-91 time frame, they find that military
spending had a negative impact on economic growth
in all five countries. The worst affected country
was Paraguay and the least affected was Bolivia.
To determine the impact of the defense burden,
they simulated what would have happened had the
burden been reduced to 1 percent of GDP, emulating
the spending cap set by the Central American nation
of Costa Rica.
Marwah and Klein find that high military spending
caused Argentina to lose nearly 2 percentage points
in its annual economic growth rate during the
1976-81 period. It was during this time that the
generals in Argentina waged a “dirty war”
after having overthrown the civilian government
of Isabel Peron.
Similarly, Chile lost annually 1 to 1.5 percentage
points in its economic growth rate between 1974
to 1988, when the military government of August
Pinochet held sway, after having overthrown the
government of Salvadore Allende. For the five
countries collectively, excessive military spending
took off 1.5 percentage points of the annual rate
of economic growth.
The findings of this exercise in revisionist history
are very revealing and worth pondering over by
governments in all developing countries who are
seeking a brighter future for their citizens.
In particular, they should be of interest to the
leaders of South Asia, which is home to a third
of the world’s poor.
Pakistan and India need to take the lead in reducing
the defense burden on their populations, especially
now that their longstanding tensions seem to be
dissipating. Capping (and eventually reducing)
military spending would be the ultimate confidence-building
measure on the road to peace.
(Dr. Faruqui is director of research at the American
Institute of International Studies)
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