__SERIES__
current
international
problems
[2]
~
[3]
R.A.FARAMAZYAN
__TITLE__ USA: PROGRESS PUBLISHERS
MOSCOW
Translated from the Russian by YURI SHIROKOV and YURI SVIRIDOV
P. A. <I>apaMa3HH C111A: AtaHiapHSM H SKOHOMHKH
Ha
__COPYRIGHT__ First printing 1974 11105--363
---------------------
014(01)-74
Militarism is an establishment inherent in capitalism and called upon to build up and use military power to preserve class oppression, tighten the grip on existing and conquer new spheres of economic and political sway of the exploiting classes. Militarism comes on the scene in capitalist states pursuing a policy of expansion and an arms race, preparing for wars of conquest. Militarism has reached its heyday in the imperialist era, particularly after World War II, it was stimulated by the cold war. The objectives, level and forms of militarism are determined by imperialist policy.
Before the world split up into the two social systems the imperialists had used the military machine to maintain their rule at home and to deal with their rivals abroad to reverse time and again an upset balance of power between capitalist states and alliances. Today, militarism operates mostly under the banner of anti-Communism and anti-Sovietism, and is spearheaded against the world socialist system.
A major factor of militarist growth is the priority importance attached by the imperialists to the military machine among the means employed to pursue their neocolonialist policy, to suppress by force of arms the national liberation movement, to dictate their will to the developing states. After World War II the imperialists have repeatedly used military force against them.
The growth of militarism is also attributable to the use by imperialist quarters of military force to protect their 8 mounting foreign investments. Lenin listed the export of capital among the basic characteristics of imperialism. The foreign investments of capitalist states are continuing to grow and have now reached tremendous proportions. In 1970, the United States alone had an estimated 150 thousand million dollars in foreign investments. Over the past few years, a system of international supermonopolies has taken shape, which accounts for an increasingly greater share in total capitalist production. The preservation and safety of foreign investments, which secure access to foreign, in particular strategic sources of raw materials, cheap labour and commodity markets and bring fabulous profits to international monopolies are some of the basic tasks the imperialists have entrusted to their armed forces.
The arms race is used in the capitalist countries as a means of state-monopoly stimulation of capitalist reproduction, reduction of unemployment, prevention of economic crises, and as a source of monopoly superprofits. A close union of military-industrial companies, the military circles and the government bureaucracy has formed on the basis of military economic work carried out on an enormous scale. This union, which has come to be known as the militaryindustrial complex, is an evil force which has a disastrous influence on the political, economic and spiritual life of bourgeois society. With an increase in volume of military contract's and in militarisation of the economy the influence and profits of this complex tend to grow. For this reason, the military-industrial complexes which function in different countries and are closely interconnected extol military power, seeking to aggravate the international situation and to increase military budgets.
Never before has militarism held sway over so many states as in the post-war years. Despite the growing contradictions between the capitalist countries, however, the imperialists tend to join their military efforts to secure their common class interests, setting up aggressive military blocs, signing numerous bilateral and multi-lateral military-- political treaties for joint military economic work, in particular, for forming joint armed forces, preparing the infrastructure of theatres of war, manufacturing military equipment, etc.
9It is the cold war policy and the specifics of modern militarism that are to blame for the maintenance of huge armed forces even in peacetime. Their total strength in the member countries of NATO, SEATO and CENTO in 1970 was close on seven million men.^^1^^ The outlays for their maintenance and technical equipment have reached an all-time high and continue to mount. The total direct military spending of the NATO countries alone grew from 18.7 thousand million dollars in 1949 (NATO foundation year) to 106.4 thousand million in 1971.
The United States accounts for the bulk of the military outlays and armed forces of modern imperialism. After World War II, the expansionist policy of US imperialism led to the building up of a huge military machine and an unprecedented growth of militarism, which is a terrible menace to mankind and world peace.
Apologists of militarism justify the huge military outlays of imperialism mostly by fabrications about the "communist menace''. However, history and the peace policy of the socialist community of nations have invariably disproved this pet argument of the militarists. This has become particularly evident today when the active and coordinated policies of the socialist countries, the consistent activities of the CPSU Central Committee and the Soviet Government in implementing the Peace Programme of the 24th CPSU Congress largely contributed to detente and demonstrated to the whole world that the central objective of the foreign policy line of the socialist community is to avert a new world war, to guarantee a lasting peace on earth and the security of all nations.
The Soviet-American agreements and treaties signed during the three Summit Meetings (May 1972, June 1973, June-July 1974), have led to appreciable progress in normalising relations between the two great powers, contribute to the easing of international tensions, produce a restraining influence on the arms race, reduce the danger of the breakout of devastating nuclear war, create more favourable opportunities for new talks on limiting and ending the arms race.
_-_-_^^1^^ Military Balance 1'JTl, London, 1970, pp. 1-5, 22--23.
10This amelioration of the international climate is welcomed enthusiastically by world public opinion. Mankind's vital interests require this change in the world situation to be deepened and widened and made irreversible. Imperialism, however, maintains its armed forces and military outlays at a high level, and the race in the production of new, costlier and more destructive weapons systems continues. The need for increasing military power and retaining its role as a foreign policy tool of imperialism is emphasised in every way. What is more, in recent time the most reactionary forces of imperialism, in particular the militarist and revanchist circles, the military-industrial complexes and the NATO leaders have notably stepped up their activities against detente, and are trying to stir up distrust in the relations among states and revive the spirit of the cold war, are advocating an intensified arms race, an expansion of military arsenals, a continuation of the "policy of strength''. All this indicates that if the current political detente is not reinforced by military detente the tendency towards growth of military preparations will continue in the near future with all its dangerous implications involved.
The author attempts to show the causes of the unprecedented development of militarism in the United States, to analyse the size and structure of its military outlays, the degree of militarisation of its economy as a whole and of its individual sectors, discussing the organisation of military production, the rivalry between monopolies for lucrative military contracts, the methods for winning them. He demonstrates at large the impact military outlays have on the process of capitalist reproduction, the disastrous socio-- economic effects of militarism and the arms race. His main task is to make the reader become better aware of the burden of the continued arms race, the great menace of modern militarism to all mankind, as well as the urgent need for pooling the efforts of all states concerned and of the progressive forces to supplement the current political detente in the world by military detente, to step up the struggle for ending the arms race, reducing armed forces and armaments, guaranteeing universal peace and international security.
11 __*_*_*__This book was first published in Russian in 1970. Since then certain changes have taken place in the international situation and in the military economic work in the USA, which insofar as possible have been taken into account when preparing the book for translation into foreign languages.
The author acknowledges his profound gratitude to I. V. Antonova for her great assistance in preparing the manuscript for publication.
[12] ~ [13] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ CHAPTER I __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE GENERAL CHARACTERISTICSThe United States of America emerged as an independent state from the revolutionary war of liberation the North American colonies waged against British rule in 1776--83. In his analysis of that war, Lenin wrote: "The history of modern, civilised America opened with one of those great, really liberating, really revolutionary wars of which there have been so few compared to the vast number of wars of conquest... .''^^1^^
Although its own history opened with a revolutionary war it was not long before the United States itself embarked on a policy of aggression. American history is replete with wars of conquest and crimes, instances of cynical violation of other peoples' rights and interests, interference in the affairs of other states under all manner of pretexts. As early as the War of Independence, the USA began to display a bent for aggrandisement and territorial expansion. At the peace talks with Britain the USA, which originally consisted of 13 states, demanded that Canada, which contained several British colonies at the time, be joined to it as the fourteenth state. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the North American continent was the main scene of US predatory wars. The US expansion encountered but slight resistance from the strife-torn Indian tribes, other neighbours who were weak militarily and economically and European powers busy with their feuds. Within the first century of its independence, the USA _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 62.
14 __RUNNING_HEADER_LEFT__ USA: MILITARISM AND THE ECONOMY widened its territory tenfold with a relatively little war effort.Even in the pre-monopoly period, the expansionist ambitions of young US capitalism were not confined to the North American continent. In addition to its "domestic colonisation" drive the USA went ahead with the annexation and recarving in its favour colonies and spheres of influence in Latin America, Asia and the Far East. In Latin America, it acted under cover of the notorious Monroe Doctrine. In Asia and the Far East, where open conquest seemed impracticable on account of opposition from the strong colonial powers of Europe, the USA chose to rely on the "open doors" doctrine. At that time, the USA pursued an ``isolationist'' policy of non-participation in European affairs yet seized every opportunity to strengthen its positions outside Europe in the ``peripheral'' regions of the world at the expense of the European powers.
For all that, however, in the pre-monopoly period, US militarism was way behind its counterpart in the Old World. Unlike Europe, the United States had no experience of frequent, prolonged and bloody wars between dynasties. The few wars it waged had required a relatively small army and furnished no breeding ground for the growth of militarism. In the seventies of the last century, Marx wrote that because of its specific historical conditions, militarism and the. bureaucracy in America were far less developed than in capitalist Europe. As time went on, however, the situation changed. The US military establishment steadily grew swelled by every new war. The rise of militarism was whipped up to a frantic pace by the advent of the imperialist era when the US rulers became obsessed by a craving for expansion, colonial conquest and forcible redivision of the world to bring it into line with the new balance of power.
The growth of US militarism was stimulated by the economic and political ambitions of the ruling circles, the continued development of capitalism. Lenin wrote in this connection that "modern militarism is the result of capitalism. In both its forms it is the 'vital expression' of capitalism---as a military force used by the capitalist states in their external conflicts (Militarisms nach aussen, as the Germans say) and as a weapon in the hands of the ruling classes for 15 __RUNNING_HEADER_RIGHT__ THE GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF US MILITARISM suppressing every kind of movement, economic and political, of the proletariat (Militarismus nach innen)".^^1^^
American capitalism developed by leaps and bounds. Industry grew faster than anywhere else in the capitalist world. In 1820, the US share in world industrial output was 6 per cent; in 1840, 7 per cent; in 1850, 12 per cent, reaching 15 per cent in 1860, when the USA ranked fourth in the world for total industrial output.
The abolition of Negro slavery, which hampered capitalist development, gave a new impetus to the productive forces. Within three decades following the Civil War the United States became the world's biggest industrial power. Describing its economy Lenin wrote that "the USA is unrivalled either in the rate of development of capitalism at the turn of the century, .or in the record level of capitalist development already attained; nor has it any rival in the vastness of the territory developed with the use of the most up-to-date machinery, which is adapted to the remarkable variety of natural and historical conditions.. .".^^2^^
Thus, by the late 19th century, the USA had emerged as the world's leading nation industrially and technologically due to the specific historical conditions under which capitalism developed there: absence of survivals of feudalism, availability of vast ``vacant'' territories and a rich variety of natural resources, favourable climatic and geographical conditions, development unhindered by protracted wars, the advantage of labour immigration, the use of the capital and technological know-how of advanced European countries in building up industry, protection of domestic industries against foreign competition by high import tariffs, etc.
Despite its rise to the top in the world economy the USA, however, was behind a number of European states for the size of colonial possession and spheres of influence. To eliminate this disproportion, the US imperialists redoubled their efforts to expand them. As the world had already been divided the USA could achieve its goals only by re-dividing it by force of arms. Yet militarily the USA was inferior to the European powers at the time. That is why in the 1890s _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 15, p. 192.
^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 22, p. 17.
16 the US imperialists stepped up their military activities, planning to use armed force, particularly the Navy, in pursuing a "policy of strength" to attain their political and economic goals on the world scene.Simultaneously, the US ruling circles proceeded to justify their policy ideologically, claiming that history had vested in the United States responsibility for leading the world. The US historian Woodrow Wilson, who later became President, bluntly stated: "We have come to full maturity.. . and the day of our isolation is past.... A new age is before us in which, it would seem, we must lead the world.''^^1^^
In the late 19th and early 20th century, the US imperialists extensively combined their "dollar diplomacy" with a "big stick" policy. In 1898, they unleashed the Spanish-American war, the first imperialist war for a redivision of the world. That war exposed the USA as a full-fledged imperialist power using armed force to grab territory from the old colonial powers. In that war, the USA seized the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico and other islands and established its domination in Cuba. In these newly acquired territories, it went about setting up its first overseas bases---strategic outposts of US imperialism.
In the early 20th century, the US economy continued to develop at a much faster rate than that of the Old World. In 1913, the US share in world industrial output grew to 35.8 per cent from 30.1 per cent in the period 1896--1900. The USA provided a graphic illustration for the law of the uneven economic and political development of capitalist countries in the jmperialist era formulated by Lenin. The relatively rapid US economic build-up was accompanied by a growing disparity in the world alignment of forces and by rivalry in the contest for colonies and spheres of influence between the USA and the European powers embroiled as the latter were at the time in a bitter imperialist tussle. It was precisely this struggle for a redivision of the world, rather than the ``lofty'' and ``noble'' motives bourgeois apologists are so fond of invoking, that induced the USA to renounce the neutrality it had declared on August 4, 1914. Planning _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ray Stannard Baker, Woodrow Wilson. Life and Letters, Vol. IV, New York, 1931, pp. 57 and 85.
17 to derive maximum profits and dictate its terms of a peace settlement, the USA declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917 when World War I was in its closing stage. The total strength of the American forces and US direct military expenditures in World War I are given in the following table. Fiscal year Total armed forces, thous. Direct military expenditure (mil. dollars) in current prices in stable prices 1957--58* 1917 1918 1919 361 1,708 3,041 602 7,110 13,548 936 9,916 17,873 Total ..... --- 21,260 28,725 * Data in stable prices as calculated by Author.Source: Statistical Abstract of the United States, I960, Washington, 1959, p. 244.
The US total war spending in fiscal 1917--19 was 21,260 million dollars in current prices. Its actual spending on World War I, however, was somewhat less, since the USA was not at war through all of the period 1916/17--1918/19.
In addition to its direct war expenditures, the US Administration granted generous loans to its allies. The First Liberty Loan Act of April 1917 authorised the Secretary of
the Treasury, on the approval of the President, to make loans to allied governments up to 10,000 million dollars. In fact the US allies were loaned the following sums (see the table on the right):
Year Mil. dollars 1917 1918 1919 1920 885.0 4,739.4 3,470.3 350.3 Total .... 9,445.0Source: Harold Underwood Faulkner, American Economic History, New York, 1960, p. 597.
When the Act came into
force, the foreign governments
were no longer granted private
US loans which until then had
amounted to an impressive
total. For example, between
the outbreak of World War I
__PRINTERS_P_17_COMMENT__
2--181
18
and April 1917, US private loans to the Entente powers totalled 2,300 million dollars, of which 1,500 million had been made by Morgan alone. US bankers actively promoted the sales in the United States of stocks and bonds by Europeans. Between 1914 and 1919, some 3,000 million dollars' worth of American stocks and bonds were sold by foreign owners.^^1^^ The European powers had to repay part of the US war supplies with securities of US companies.
The First World War gave a mighty impetus to the development of US militarism and prompted a cardinal revision of Marx's statement on the absence of militarism in the USA. Lenin wrote in The State and Revolution: "Today, in 1917, at the time of the first great imperialist war, this restriction made by Marx is no longer valid. Both Britain and America, the biggest and the last representatives---in the whole world---of Anglo-Saxon `liberty', in the sense that they had no militarist cliques and bureaucracy, have completely sunk into the all-European filthy, bloody morass of bureaucratic-military institutions which subordinate everything to themselves, and suppress everything.''^^2^^
World War I whetted the aggressive appetites of the US imperialists who were out to annex new territories, acquire new spheres of influence and ultimately establish their domination in the world. That this was so was evidenced, among other things, by the 14-point Peace Programme put forward by President Wilson. Another striking proof was the US active participation in the armed intervention against the young Soviet Republic.
The US casualties and losses in World War I were much smaller than those of the other belligerents. A little over 50,000 US servicemen were killed in action or died from wounds, which was l/25th, l/20th, and l/10th of the German, French and British casualties respectively. The war effort of all the belligerents cost them a total of 208,100 million dollars, of which the US share was 19.800 million, that of Britain 40,900 million, France 33,600 million, Germany 47,000 million dollars.^^3^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Anna Rochester, Rulers of America. A Study of Finance Capital, London, 1936, p. 38.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, pp. 415--16.
^^3^^ Harvey F. Fisk, The Inter-Ally Debts. An Analysis of War and Post-War Finance 1914--1923, New York-Paris, 1924, pp. 23--39.
19With a smaller loss of lives and far less material spending the US rulers derived from the war much greater profits than the ruling circles of the other belligerent powers did. The market situation during the war stimulated the rapid development of the US economy. The gross national product grew from 39,000 million dollars in 1913 to 77,100 million in 1918. US foreign trade expanded rapidly. The favourable trade balance resulted in the US gold reserves increasing from 1,526 million dollars in 1914 to 2,873 million in 1918.~^^1^^
The war brought fabulous profits to the US financial oligarchy. In his "Letter to the American Workers'', Lenin wrote that American multimillionaires "have profited more than all the rest. They have converted all, even the richest, countries into their tributaries. They have grabbed hundreds of billions of dollars.... Every dollar is sullied with the filth of `profitable' war contracts, which in every country made the rich richer and the poor poorer. And every dollar is stained with blood---from that ocean of blood that has been shed by the ten million killed and twenty million maimed....''^^2^^
After the war the world balance of power changed drastically.'The world's first socialist government came to power in Russia in the wake of the victorious socialist revolution which ushered in a new era in mankind's history, that of transition from capitalism to socialism. Apart from that, a new alignment of forces was in evidence among the capitalist states. The US economic and political role in the capitalist world had grown markedly. The USA had also moved ahead of the rest of the world in volume of exports. It had scooped up some 40 per cent of the world's gold reserves. Once a debtor nation, it was now an international creditor. The economic centre of capitalism had shifted from Europe to North America.
In the twenties and thirties of this century, the US ruling quarters used their superior economic and financial positions to try and establish their domination in Europe. They took advantage, among other things, of the painful problem of war reparations and debts. At the US initiative, the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Historical Statistics of the United Stales. Colonial Times to 1957, Washington, 1960, p. 649.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 64.
__PRINTERS_P_19_COMMENT__ 2* 20 London Conference of the Entente powers in 1924 adopted the Dawes Plan and the Hague Conference of 1930, the Young Plan. These plans were designed to help the USA exploit the German reparations problem so as to establish its financial domination in Germany and at the same time increase the financial dependence of Britain, France, Italy and other European powers on the United States. What is more, it hoped that these plans would help it enslave the USSR economically. The plans failed but the US financial aid to Germany contributed to the revival of German militarism which soon plunged the world into another global war.In the twenties the US economy continued to swell. US foreign investments increased markedly, particularly in Canada and Latin America. The US imperialists further consolidated their economic and financial positions in the capitalist world. The US economic growth was set back by the world economic crisis of 1929--33, then by the crisis of 1937--38. The slump of the thirties was terminated by the outbreak of World War II.
Under cover of the Neutrality Act of May 1, 1937, and its so-called policy of isolationism, the US Administration jointly with the governments of other capitalist states encouraged in effect the rearmament of nazi Germany and preparations for a second world war. When the war broke out, the USA chose to remain neutral. On September 9, 1939, however, President Roosevelt stated in a radio address on the outbreak of the European war: "This nation will remain a neutral nation, but I cannot ask that every American remain neutral in thought as well.''^^1^^ On September 5, 1939, the US Government issued a declaration of neutrality and imposed an embargo on arms exports to the belligerent powers. Two months or so later, however, at President Roosevelt's insistence, the embargo was lifted to facilitate US aid to embattled Britain and France.
After its declaration of neutrality the USA stepped up its defence work, setting up special agencies to deal with economic mobilisation in an emergency. The defence appropriations and the strength of the armed forces were increased, and a decision was taken to expand the arms industries. _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Roosevelt Reader, ed. by Basil Rauch, New York, 1957, p. 225.
21 Congress passed a universal conscription act. Before long, the USA launched an extensive programme of arms shipments to Britain which was expanded particularly after the passage of the Lend-Lease Act of March 11, 1941. The Act authorised the President to lend and lease armaments and other materials to any state the defence of which he deemed essential for the security of the United States.After nazi Germany's attack on the Soviet Union, the USA continued to abide by its declaration of neutrality. What is more, its reactionary quarters sought to exploit the nazi attack to further their imperialist ends by steps to drag out the war and thus have Germany and the USSR bleed each other as long as possible. But the more far-sighted of the American leaders, notably President Roosevelt, who were fully aware of the extent of the nazi menace, knew that the US interests would be best served by an alliance with and assistance to the USSR in its war against nazi Germany. Two days after the German attack on the USSR the Roosevelt Administration declared that the United States would give the Soviet Union every possible assistance. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 ended the US neutrality. Before the end of the month the USA declared war on nazi Germany and Italy.
World War II assumed a much wider scale than World War I. American economists estimated that the direct war expenditures of all the belligerent capitalist states in World War II totalled 925,000 million dollars, of which the US share was 325,000 million, nazi Germany's 272,000 million, Britain's 120,000 million, Italy's 94,000 million, Japan's 56,000 million, and France's 15,000 million.^^1^^
The US ruling circles have been exaggerating in every way their financial losses in World War II and their contribution to victory over nazi Germany. President Truman, in his message to Congress on the budget for fiscal 1947, stated that the Second World War had cost the USA 347,000 million dollars. These totals (325,000 million and 347,000 million dollars) are clearly overstated, as evidenced, in particular, by other US publications giving smaller figures.
_-_-_~^^1^^ A. M. Alexeyev, Military Finance of Capitalist States, Moscow, 1952, p. 61 (in Russian).
22 Table 1 US War Expenditures, Fiscal Years 19'il Through 1945 (thousand million dollars) Department Fiscal years Total 1941 1942 1943 19/i 4 1945 Defence Department .... Department of the Navy . . Maritime Commission . . . War Shipping Administration .... 3.7 2.3 0.1 * ' * 0.2 14.1 8.6 0.9 0.1 0.7 0.5 1.1 42.3 20.9 2.8 1.1 2.0 1.2 1.9 49.2 26.5 3.8 1.9 2.1 1.4 1.9 50.3 30.0 3.2 2.0 1.2 1.5 1.7 159.6 88.3 10.8 5.1 6.0 4.0 6.8 Department of Agriculture The Treasury . . Other . . Total .......... 6.3 26.0 72.2 86.8 89.9 281.2* Less than 50 million dollars.
Source: Richard W. Lindholm, Public Finance and Fiscal Policy, New York, 1950, p. 257.
Lindholm, for instance, writes that during the five fiscal years of the war (1941--45), the US total military expenditure, including that under the Lend-Lease Act, amounted to 281,200 million dollars, i.e., 87.1 per cent of the total budget appropriations. Lindholm adduces further data on their annual distribution between individual departments (see Table 1). A considerable share of the sums tabulated for the Department of Agriculture and the Treasury was expended under Lend-Lease.
According to official American sources, "national defence" spending for the period 1940/41--1944/45 totalled 251,300 million dollars in current prices.^^1^^ A sizable proportion of that was spending under the Lend-Lease Act. Between March 11, 1941 and October 1, 1945, it ran to some 44,000 million dollars, of which 22,100 million was spent on arms shipments, 9,700 million on equipment and materials _-_-_
~^^1^^ Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1959, p. 244.
23 supplies, 6,100 million on food supplies, 2,300 million on petroleum products deliveries, and 3,800 million on transportation and other services.Unquestionably, America's aid to its wartime allies under Lend-Lease was a help in their struggle against nazi Germany, but the US ruling quarters have played up the role of Lend-Lease as the well-nigh crucial factor of victory over nazi Germany. At the same time, they prefer to keep silent about Lend-Lease being a means for US imperialism to attain its long-range goals. L. S. Amery, of the British Conservative Party, in a book published in 1946, writes that American businessmen and senators regarded Lend-Lease as a "business transaction in which Britain was hired for the job of defending America".^^1^^
World War II boosted US economic growth. Situated far away from the main theatres of war, the USA took advantage of the war market situation to consolidate its economic and political positions in the capitalist world. The US monopolies raked in fat profits from war supplies. The US gold reserves grew from 12,790 million dollars in 1937 to 24,399 million in 1948, which was 71.3 per cent of the total the capitalist world had at the time. The US share in the industrial output of the capitalist world increased from 34.9 per cent in 1938 to 53.9 per cent in 1948.
Leaning on their overwhelming economic and military power in a situation where the economy of Western Europe was ravaged by the war, the US imperialists went ahead with steps to establish their world domination, opening a cold war against the Soviet Union and other socialist states, making efforts to check the national liberation movements in the colonial and dependent countries. The USA became the centre of militarism and reaction, acting as the ^ ``savior'' of the capitalist system and as a "world policeman''.
At the end of and immediately after World War II the USA, in its aggressive plans, pinned great hopes on its atom bomb monopoly as an instrument of pressure on the Soviet Union. Secretary of State Byrnes in an interview in June 1945 with US nuclear scientists opposed to the atomic _-_-_
~^^1^^ L. S. Amery, The Washington Loan Agreements. A Critical Study of American Foreign Policy, London, 1946, p. 106.
24 bombing of Japan, did not argue that the bomb was needed to defeat Japan, but rather that it should be dropped on its cities to "make Russia more manageable in Europe''. One may fully agree with the British Professor Blackett when he says that the atomic bombing of Japan "was not so much the last military act of the Second World War, as the first act of the cold diplomatic war with Russia''.The US post-war policy found its graphic expression in their military strategy, in the nature of their military-- economic activities. The weakness of other capitalist states, recipients of US aid under the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan and other programmes, the common class interests of the ruling circles of the capitalist states, and their fear of the growing socialist system enhanced still more by the USfabricated myth of the non-existent "Soviet threat"---enabled the USA to knock together the aggressive NATO, SEATO and CENTO military blocs, conclude many bilateral military treaties, set up numerous military bases, notably in capitalist countries bordering on the socialist states. All this was accompanied by declarations of peace and the allegedly defensive nature of US-led military alliances and treaties.
The Soviet Government from the very outset exposed the far-reaching plans of the USA and of the military blocs set up under its aegis. In connection with the setting up of NATO the Soviet Government stated that "the NATO countries are not threatened by anyone and no one is going to attack them, that this military bloc has an aggressive character and is spearheaded against the USSR and other peace-loving countries".^^1^^
The USA, and its allies of the military blocs, embarked on the road of aggravating the world situation and stepped up the arms race in preparation for a war of aggression against the socialist countries. This stimulated the growth of militarism at a pace unprecedented in peacetime. The military expenditures of the imperialist powers grew rapidly to reach astronomic proportions (see Table 2). In 1971, NATO's direct military spending was 5.7 times that in 1949, the NATO foundation year.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Pravda, April 10, 1969. '
25At no period in human history has militarism involved as many countries as today. Outside the USA, militarism has developed in those capitalist countries whose ruling circles resort to armed force to strengthen their class domination, fight against revolutionary movements, retain their colonies and seize new territories.
Great Britain ranks second among the imperialist powers for the amount of military spending and the extent of militarisation of the economy. A considerable proportion of the British armed forces is stationed overseas. The geography of British military presence abroad is striking evidence of its being used to preserve by force of arms the remnants of the British Empire and fulfil Britain's commitments within the NATO, SEATO and CENTO blocs of which she is a member. Another factor contributing to the growth of British militarism is its alliance with US imperialism, the ``special'' Anglo-American relationship extending also to the military field. This is illustrated among other things by Britain's active support for US aggressive military and political actions. Today when a trend towards termination of the cold war and towards detente is in evidence in the world, Britain's Conservative government is stubbornly seeking to secure an increase in the military power and military outlays of the NATO member states.
The USA and the North Atlantic bloc it heads contributed to the revival of militarism and revanchism in the FRG. Following its entry into NATO in May 1955, the FRG took an active part in the arms race in later years. According to West German press reports, since May 1945, the FRG has spent on arms procurement far more than nazi Germany did between 1933 and 1939. The FRG's direct military spending grew from 12,100 million DM in 1960 to 22,600 million in 1970. In 1958, the FRG contributed a mere 2.6 per cent of NATO's total military expenditures. In 1970, its share increased to 6.1 per cent. The coming to power in the autumn of 1969 of the "minority coalition" of the Social-Democrats and Free Democrats, the conclusion of the treaties with the Soviet Union and Poland, which confirm the inviolability of the borders existing in Europe, the accord on West Berlin, the treaty on the main principles of relations between the GDR and the FRG, as well as some other realistic foreign __PARAGRAPH_PAUSE__ 26 Table Direct Military Expenditures of NATO Member States (million dollars) 1949 1951 1953 1955 1957 I960 19G2 1965 1967 1969 1070* 1971 USA 13,503 372 2,181 1,370 33,059 1,220 3,217 2,517 49,377 1,970 4,715 3,962 1,497 768 350 307 396 129 149 94 69 10 40,371 1,819 4,388 3,148 1,758 882 447 385 341 133 138 133 77 12 44,159 1,829 4,390 4,457 2,134 978 486 475 367 147 147 151 83 9 45,380 1,654 4,597 3,911 2,905 1,145 458 267 386 161 149 170 105 5 52,381 1,715 5,039 4,527 4,319 1,389 607 331 425 225 193 170 200 7 51,827 1,535 5,819 5,163 4,979 1,942 753 421 504 286 267 210 231 10 75,451 1,817 6,386 5,900 5,348 2,178 888 505 573 326 295 313 324 8 81 ,444 1,756 5,452 5,763 5,832 2,258 1,023 593 630 352 352 425 367 8 77,827 1,906 5,950 5,982 6,188 2,340 1,102 622 701 367 380 473 430 8 77,791 1,006 6,473 6,309 7,026 2,625 1,205 540 745 405 420 533 440 9 Canada . . . Britain . . . France .... FRG** . . . Italy .... Netherlands . Turkey . . . Belgium . . . Denmark . . Norway . . . Greece .... Portugal . . . Luxemburg . . 482 179 199 153 52 52 51 50 2 731 279 233 268 69 80 90 54 5 Total . . Share of West European countries 18,700 4,825 41,906 7,627 63,750 12,403 54,068 11,828 59,802 13,814 61,265 14,231 71,504 17,408 73,936 20,574 100,321 23,053 106,416 23,216 104,286 24,553 106,420 26,723 XI o H Pi P! O O o
Note: Expenditures are quoted from NATO statistics slightly varying from national ones. The total is not fully equivalent to the total for individual countries due to approximation in conversion of national currencies to US dollars.
* Estimate.
** Before entry to NATO (in May 1955) the FRG Government met the occupation expenses of some NATO members and made a number of other payments as part of NATO's military expenditures.
Sources: The Commonwealth Survey, February 2, 1965, p. 112; NATO Letter, December 1970, p. 23; Aerospace Daily. 1971. p. 272.
27 __PARAGRAPH_CONT__ policy actions of Chancellor Brandt's government have notably contributed to improving the situation in Europe.One should not ignore the fact, however, that under the pressure of Right-wing militarist extremists, the Bonn Government is nevertheless contemplating a further expansion of military activity and an appreciable increase in the expenditure on the Bundeswehr.
In defiance of the restrictions on arms manufacture imposed by the Potsdam Agreements, West German monopolies are rapidly building up military industry. Before the mid-sixties, the FRG imported mostly from the USA about sixty per cent of its weapons and military equipment. Today West German arms manufacturers win most of the government's military orders.
In the late sixties, the arms race was whipped up to a frantic pace in other NATO countries as well. As a result their military spending shot up from 61,300 million dollars in 1960 to 106,400 million in 1971. Between 1949 and 1971, NATO's direct military expenditures amounted to 1,580,000 million dollars, of which the USA provided some 75 per cent.
In the past few years, resurging Japanese militarism has been showing signs of renewed activity. In Japan, a country which has suffered the horrors of atomic bombing, influential political circles are openly calling for bringing Japan's military power into line with her economic potential. The 25th Congress of the ruling Liberal-Democratic Party early in 1971 significantly took a decision to launch a campaign for "regaining northern territories''. Former Prime Minister Eisaku Sato went so far as to declare openly that this was the "greatest task" facing Japan. Japan's rapidly growing economic potential is being used by its reactionary circles to build up the military machine, to the accompaniment of revanchist slogans and open claims to parts of Soviet territory.
Japan's military spending rose from 421 million dollars in 1960 to 1,864 million in 1971. The Japanese Government has plans to step up their military-economic activity. Evidence of this comes from the draft of the fourth five-year programme covering the period 1972/73 to 1976/77. Under this programme, expenditure on the development of Japan's 28 armed forces is slated to total 5,200,000 million yen. By comparison, between 1967/68 to 1971/72 the total was only 2,340,000 million yen and 1,160,000 million yen between 1962/63 and 1966/67.
Israel has become one of the world's most militarised states. Israeli militarism is an arm of world imperialism. Having seized a large part of Arab territory the Tel Aviv aggressors arrogantly refuse to withdraw their troops from all occupied lands, ignoring thereby a major prerequisite for a political settlement of the Middle East crisis. The recent outbreak of hostilities in the Middle East was another evidence of the Israeli military circles planning to annex the lands seized from the Arabs and to occupy more territory. Israel has launched a feverish drive to strengthen her armed forces. The Israeli war budget for 1972/73 broke the record at some 5,300 million Israeli pounds.^^1^^
The USA, the strongest imperialist power economically and militarily, has lavished colossal material and financial resources on the maintenance and reinforcement of its immense military machine (see Table 3).
The growing aggressiveness of US imperialism and the escalation of the war in Indochina were accompanied not only by an increase in war expenditures colossal as they are, but also by a steady rise in the proportion of that expenditure in the overall military-economic activities of the capitalist world. Indeed, whereas in 1966 the USA accounted for 45.2 per cent of the combined strength of the armed forces of the capitalist countries and for 69.4 per cent of the total military spending of the advanced capitalist states, by 1970 the corresponding figures were 48.6 per cent and 71.1 per cent (see Table 3).
In the sixties, and especially since 1965, when the escalation of the Vietnam war began, there has been a rapid increase in the strength and equipment of the US armed forces. The ground and naval forces have been increased the most. The United States' transition from the strategy of "massive nuclear retaliation" to that of "flexible response" and the growing demands of the Vietnam war were the reasons __PARAGRAPH_PAUSE__ _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Military Balance 1972--1973, London, 1972, p. 31.
29 Table 3 Summary of US Active Military Personnel and Forces (June 30) Fiscal Years 1951 1965 1967 1970 1973* 1974' Military personnel (thousands) Army ......... 858 968 1,442 1,322 825 804 Navy ......... 627 671 752 692 574 566 Marine Corps ..... 177 190 285 260 197 196 Air Force ....... 820 824 897 791 692 666 Total, Department of Defence ..... 2,482 2,653 3,376 3,066 2,288 2,233 Strategic forces Intercontinental ballistic missiles Minuteman .... 800 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 Titan II ..... 54 54 54 54 54 Polaris Poseidon* Estimate.
** Numerator indicates the number of submarines, denominator, the number of missiles.
*** Data for 1968.
**** Data for 1972.
Sources: The New York Times, January 25, 1966, p. 22, and January 25, 1972, p. 16; The Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 1970, Washington, 1969, p. 75, and Fiscal Year 1974, p. 79.
__PARAGRAPH_CONT__ behind renewed interest in the conventional armaments. The USA, however, was attaching prime importance to building up and improving its strategic nuclear missile arsenal. In the middle of 1973 the US strategic offensive forces included 1,054 land-based ICMBs, dozens of submarines in commission capable of carrying 656 missiles and more than 500 manned bombers.The following data give an idea of the size of the US military machine. The Defence Department has a total of 470 major installations and more than 6,000 lesser facilities at home. The Pentagon owns 27.6 million acres of land. The value of real property alone is carried on Pentagon ledgers as exceeding 40,000 million dollars, while .the total value of property owned by the US armed forces is estimated at 210,000 million dollars.^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Congressional Record, November 1, 1967, Vol. 113, p. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1970, p. 249.
31 Armed Forces and Military Expenditures of Imperialist States (1970) Armed forces Military expenditures thous. men percentage of total mil. dollars percentage of total Economically advanced countries ........ 6,484 3,161 2,873 98 259 100.0 48.6 44.3 1.5 4.0 107,604 76,507 26,2oO 1,325 1,582 100.0 71.1 24.4 1.2 1.5 USA ......... Western Europe and Canada ....... Australia and New Zealand ....... Japan .........Calculated from: The Military Balance 1970--1971, pp. 110--12; NATO Letter, December 1970, p. 23.
S 15665;
In late 1970, over one million servicemen were stationed outside the United States. The U.S. News and World Report's map of the deployment of US forces overseas indicates that 237,500 servicemen were stationed in the Pacific and the Far East, 291,000 in Europe, the rest in Latin America and elsewhere.^^1^^
The USA has invariably attached great importance to setting up strategic bases on foreign soil. The network of such bases has particularly expanded since the last world war. The immense size of the military machine, the location of US military bases and areas where US military presence is outstanding clearly show that these are spearheaded against the socialist states and the national liberation movements in colonial and dependent countries.
The US military machine is a tool of US imperialist policy. Its maintenance has stimulated the unprecedented rise of US militarism. The total strength of the US armed forces, including civilians, has exceeded 3.5 million, from an _-_-_
~^^1^^ U.S. News mid World Report, December 28, 1970, pp. 20--21.
32 average of less than 300,000 in the twenties and thirties. Since the last world war the United States has been spending roughly ten per cent of its GNP on direct military purposes as compared with less than one per cent before the war.The US ruling circles and apologists of US imperialism are known advocates of using or threatening force to settle international disputes, alleging that force remains the decisive factor of world politics. Ex-President Johnson in his State of the Union message to Congress in January 1966 named the principle of force as the first of the five immutable guidelines of US policy in the post-war years. The US Administration, too, repeatedly stressed the importance of this principle in matters of foreign policy.
Before the Second World War, military work was usually curtailed once a war was over. US militarism in general was relatively underdeveloped and the military had but a minor role to play in US political affairs. The Second World War and the resultant expansion of military activities pushed the military to the foreground, enhancing their role in the state management and policy-making. Over the past few years, the military have gained new positions of influence by taking advantage of US military work on a scale yet unknown in peacetime. In contravention of the national tradition more and more military figures found their way to top government posts. General Eisenhower was President from 1953 to 1961, General George Marshall was Secretary of State in 1947--48.
The military establishment has become a major factor in policy planning.
The Pentagon, the headquarters of US militarism, has come to epitomise the power of the military. A total of more than 26,000 employees---14,200 civilians and 11,800 military personnel---report for duty at the Pentagon each working day.^^1^^ It has the biggest centralised bureaucratic apparatus in the world. By manipulating its huge budget, giant military machine and other tools, the Pentagon is invading almost every sphere of American life: the economy, politics, science, etc.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Clark R. Mollenhoff, = The Pentagon. Politics, Profits and Plunder, New York, 1967, p. 27.
33The Pentagon's enormous influence on US policy has been admitted by members of the US Congress. For example, Senator George D. Aiken said that some senators from states with big defence industries "are being prodded to support the war''. Congressmen oppose, as a rule, cuts in military appropriations, if they are detrimental to military contracts in their states.^^1^^
The US financial oligarchy is using government military work to achieve its political ends and to make fabulous profits. The military suppliers have a vested interest in the arms race and step it up whenever possible. This, in turn, increases the power of the military.
Since World War II, the US imperialists have repeatedly used armed force to back up their ambitious plans. Between 1950 and 1953 they waged war against the people of Korea. In 1958 US marines invaded the Lebanon. In 1965 the US Army intervened militarily in the Dominican Republic. From 1955 to 1973 it waged its inhuman war in Indochina, the strength of the US forces directly involved in hostilities steadily increasing to top the half-a-million mark in 1968.
The USA, acting hand in glove with the Israeli aggressors and using its Sixth Fleet, is trying to topple progressive regimes in some Arab countries and retain its positions in the Middle East with its rich oilfields and great importance for military strategy.
The US ruling quarters have invariably resorted to all sorts of plausible pretexts to cover up their expansionist policies. Lenin wrote in this connection: "The American people, who set the world an example in waging a revolutionary war against feudal slavery, now find themselves in the latest, capitalist stage of wage-slavery to a handful of multimillionaires, and find themselves playing the role of hired thugs who, for the benefit of wealthy scoundrels, throttled the Philippines in 1898 on the pretext of 'liberating them, and are throttling the Russian Socialist Republic in 1918 on the pretext of `protecting' it from the Germans.''^^2^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Congressional Record, November 1, 1967, Vol. 113, p. S 15666.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 63.
__PRINTERS_P_33_COMMENT__ 3--181 34After the Second World War, the United States sought to camouflage the true aims of its foreign policy and the tremendous scope of military-economic work involved by the need to protect the so-called "free world" against the alleged "military menace" from the Soviet Union and other countries of the socialist community. This fabrication was used as the chief argument to justify the cold war policy, the setting up of military-political alliances, the deployment of large armed forces and military bases of the United States abroad, its military interference in the internal affairs of other nations. This was accompanied by extolling military force as the decisive means of solving international disputes, by propaganda of the imperialist "policy of strength''.
The expansionist policy of the United States pursued on a global scale, however, was increasingly discrepant with the objective conditions of modern times and the real possibilities of US imperialism. The growing economic and military potential of the Soviet Union and other countries of the socialist community, the substantial change in the world balance of power in favour of socialism have become an insurmountable obstacle to the expansionist plans of imperialists. These historic factors have made perfectly clear the futility of the plans of the imperialist circles to attain a military superiority over the socialist system and by using military force to ``liquidate'' or at least "throw back'', `` contain'' socialism, to dictate their will to it.
In the present situation, when the alignment of forces on the world scene is steadily changing in favour of socialism, democracy and peace, the national liberation movement is growing and the undivided rule of imperialism has become a thing of the past. The effectiveness of military force as a means of solving disputes between states has markedly reduced.
During 11-odd years, the United States waged war against the people of Vietnam. The strength of the US forces directly involved in the war in Indochina topped the half-- amillion mark in 1969. The United States direct budgetary spending on this war ran into 140 thousand million dollars even according to official estimates obviously played down. But neither a huge army armed to the teeth nor the " scorched earth" policy helped US imperialism to win this war, 35 the longest in US history and the second largest in expense. (See Table 3a.)
Table Sa USA War Losses In lives In wounded In million dollars In length, months Revolutionary War (April 1775 -November 1782) 4,435 6,188 75 92 War of 1812 (June 1812--Source: US News and World Report, February 5, 1973, p. 19.
The US Government had to sign the Paris Agreement on ending the war and restoring peace in Vietnam. This was a great victory for the Vietnamese people in their hard and long struggle for freedom, independence and peace.
The lessons of the war in Indochina indicate that today military force must not be the main factor of foreign policy. They also evidence that in today's world, military conflicts, __PRINTERS_P_133_COMMENT__ 3* 36 crisis situations and arrogance of the role of a world policeman greatly endanger international security and may have disastrous consequences, for the United States as well.
The United States assumed the role of a world policeman and saviour of the capitalist system in the early postwar years, when it was the only power centre of imperialism, had absolute economic, political and military superiority over the other capitalist countries which were at the time greatly dependent on US imperialism. The United States continues to be the leading power of modern capitalism but it has lost its former hegemony as the economies of the West European countries and Japan have been rehabilitated and developed. During the 50s and 60s the balance of power in the capitalist world changed gradually, `` Americanocentrism'' gave place to emerging ``polycentrism'' and the main imperialist rivals---the USA, Western Europe and Japan---came on the scene.
This process was accompanied by a fall of the US share in the total industrial production of capitalism, a decline in the competitive power of American goods on world markets, a growth of the US payments deficit, a sharp devaluation of the dollar as the world currency, and an exacerbation of contradictions between capitalist states. The US economic positions in the world are weakening under the impact of various factors but largely due to the cold war policy and the arms race. The greater total and relative size of US military spending than in other countries aggravated its economic difficulties abroad and contributed to an exacerbation of its economic and social problems at home.
The steady growth of the economic and defence potential of the socialist community, the change of the alignment of forces on the world scene in its favour, the increased effectiveness of the peace policies of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, the successes of the national liberation and working-class movements, the upsurge and growing influence of progressive public movements, the weakening of the world position of US imperialism and the exacerbation of imperialist contradictions, the disastrous consequences of the arms race, the growing economic, political and social problems facing the United States at home, compelled its more far-sighted leaders to realise at last the 37 untenability of the main conceptions of the cold war policy and to take a more realistic view of the objective conditions of the modern world, to seek other ways and means of attaining the goals of the US ruling classes.
This reassessment of US foreign policy began practically when the Administration of President Richard Nixon came into office in January 1969 as was expressed in particular, in the President's foreign policy messages to the US Congress, the Nixon Doctrine, the new military strategy of "realistic containment" and other official decisions. The practical steps taken by the Nixon Administration evidence its departure from the dangerous cold war dogmas, its desire to come over from confrontation to negotiations with the socialist countries, to normalise relations with the Soviet Union.
The Soviet-American top-level talks which took place during Presiden Nixon's visit to Mocow in May 1972, during the visit of General Secretary Brezhnev to the United States in June 1973 and during President Nixon's visit to the Soviet Union in June-July 1974 largely helped normalise relations between the two great powers. The agreements they signed, in particular, the Treaty on the limitation of anti-ballistic missile systems, the interim Agreement on certain measures with respect to the limitation of strategic offensive arms and particularly, the agreement on the prevention of nuclear war, were the first concrete steps towards keeping back the arms race and reducing the threat of world-wide thermonuclear war. The Soviet Union and the United States proclaimed as the objective of their policies the elimination of the menace of a nuclear war and the use of nuclear weapons and gave a pledge to take action to rule out the outbreak of a nuclear war between themselves and between each and a third country.
The Soviet Union and the United States also agreed to continue active talks with a view to working out and preparing for signing a permanent agreement on wider measures to limit strategic offensive arms both in quantity and in quality.
The series of treaties and agreements between the Soviet Union and the United States meet the vital interests of both the Soviet and the American peoples, since their aim is to prevent nuclear war, limit the arms race, develop mutually 38 advantageous economic, scientific, technical and cultural exchanges. Normalisation of Soviet-American relations is of great importance not only for the two countries but for the entire mankind as well. The Soviet-American summit meetings produced a healthy impact on the entire international situation, facilitated detente, helped put an end to the Vietnam war which had lasted for years, speed up preparations for the Conference on security and co-operation in Europe, etc. The positive changes in the relations between the Soviet Union and the United States reveal two important factors: first, the possibilities now available for solving disputable inter-state problems through negotiation on the principles of peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems and, second, new favourable prospects for taking advantage of these possibilities, for settling through negotiation international problems still outstanding, for further improving Soviet-American relations and achieving a more radical and stable amelioration of the climate in the world today.
The Soviet Union and other countries of the socialist community consistently implement coordinated comprehensive measures in order to stabilise, deepen and extend to the whole world the current process of political detente, to make it irreversible. At the meeting in the Crimea in July 1973 between leaders of the Communist and Workers' parties of the socialist countries, it was emphasised that today "it is important to consolidate by joint efforts of all states concerned the positive changes on the international scene, to implement consistently the agreements and treaties concluded, to advance steadily towards the main objective--- universal peace''.
The countries of the socialist community come out for political detente to be supplemented with military detente. The Soviet-American agreements on strategic arms limitation have a restraining influence on the arms race. For the first time in history they set a limit to stockpiling the most powerful and dangerous weapons, thereby ending the race in this field. As is known, the continued development of antiballistic missile systems on a large scale was fraught with the danger of a rapid escalation of the nuclear arms race. This menace have been substantially reduced by the treaty on anti-ballistic missile systems limiting their deployment to 39 one region in the United States and one in the Soviet Union. However, only the first few concrete steps have been taken, the first approaches have been made, and only partial agreements on limiting the arms race have been achieved.
The Soviet-American agreements, however, do not set limits to the improvement of arms quality, the development and production of more effective and destructive weapons, which may override the limits to stockpiles. The absence of restrictions on arms improvement is responsible for the continued dangerous race for scientific and technological superiority in the military field. Huge investments continue to be made in large and expensive programmes of development and production of new weapons systems. For example, the US Defence Department is pushing ahead with its programme of developing the B-l strategic bomber, the Trident missile submarine, and other types of weapons.
Continued development and production of the most upto-date weapons systems may have disastrous consequences, because making these systems operational will result in a still greater increment in the huge destructive potential of military arsenals, an increase in military spending and a growing threat of the outbreak of a devastating thermonuclear war.
In this situation, the proposal of the socialist community for making requisite efforts to supplement the political detente now in progress in the world by a military detente merits attention as a matter of exceptional importance and urgency. A crucial role in solving this difficult problem could be played by an agreement to restrict arms improvement, the development of new weapons systems, the technological arms race.
With a view to reducing the arms race, the Soviet Union submitted to the 28th Session of the United Nations General Assembly as a matter of extreme importance and urgency proposal on the draft resolution calling on the permanent members of the Security Council to cut their military budgets by 10 per cent and to use part of the money thus released to assist the developing countries. The permanent members of the Security Council---the Soviet Union, the USA, France, Great Britain and China---account for the bulk of huge military outlays in the world today. The 40 United Nations General Assembly approved this businesslike and constructive proposal by a vast majority of votes. It requested all permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to cut their military budgets by 10 per cent from the 1973 level during the next fiscal year and to set aside 10 per cent of the funds released by curtailing military outlays for aid to the developing countries and called on other states also to cut their military budgets.
Agreement on troop and arms reductions would be an effective means of securing military detente. Today, the arms stockpiles of states have grown to a level where their use, particularly nuclear missiles, would cause irreparable damage to world civilisation. The only realistic way to offset this menace to the human race is to reduce military arsenals. A successful completion of the current Soviet-American talks on further strategic arms limitation and on troop and arms reductions in Central Europe which got under way in Vienna on October 30, 1973 may mark important progress in this direction.
As evidenced by the communique of the Crimean meeting between leaders of the Communist and Workers' parties of the socialist countries, the socialist community regards these talks as crucially important.
Reinforcement of political by military detente would contribute to a radical improvement in the international situation and to creating a fundamentally new system of international relations in which disputes between states with identical or different social systems would be solved exclusively by peaceful means, without armed conflicts and wars.
The path towards this noble goal, however, is laden with great obstacles, such as the cold war inertia, the resistance of militarism, the military-industrial complexes and other reactionary forces. The socialist countries believe that these obstacles can be overcome and are taking comprehensive and vigorous measures to this end. This extremely complicated problem of vital importance for all mankind can be solved only by pooling the efforts of all revolutionary and progressive forces of today, with joint and vigorous assistance from all states, particularly the Soviet Union and the United States. Speaking on American television, the CPSU General Secretary Brezhnev declared: "The climate prevailing in the 41 relations between our two countries has a large bearing on the general atmosphere in the world. Neither economic and military power, nor international prestige give our countries any additional rights but impose on them special responsibility for the destinies of universal peace, for preventing war. In its approach to the relations and contacts with the United States, the Soviet Union is fully aware of that responsibility''.
A further improvement of Soviet-American relations in a spirit of mutual awareness of this lofty responsibility would be a major factor of progress in the international situation towards universal peace, delivering mankind from the threat of militarism and a new world war.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. US MILITARY ACTIVITIES AFTERThe main items on the list of US military needs are financed out of the federal budget. The USA uses it to maintain and reinforce not only the national armed forces but also those of its allies, to bolster up reactionary regimes throughout the world, to carry out the imperialist policy, and organise military ventures and other actions to serve the US ruling monopoly circles. Generally speaking, US military expenditures can be described as monetary outlays for current and future wars and for the backlog of payments connected with past wars.
The bulk of military work in the capitalist countries is financed out of the budgets of the defence ministries and military departments. To conceal the actual volume of this work and for other practical reasons, the governments of bourgeois states often finance what amounts in effect to military needs of the ``civilian'' part of the state budget.
Soviet economists rightly argue that actual military spending in capitalist countries includes an ``invisible'' part added to the regular outlays of military departments. Military expenditures are usually divided into direct and indirect. The former is spending by defence ministries; the latter is that from the ``civilian'' part of the state budget (i.e., invisible military expenditure). This classification according to the heading of a particular expenditure item adopted in the 42 capitalist budgets obscures the true purpose of individual items of military spending and the difference between them. Under this classification, US indirect military expenditure must include, for example, spending by the Atomic Energy Commission and that on veterans benefits although they widely differ in purpose.
It would be correct, therefore, to supplement the accepted departmental principle of demarcation of military outlays with a classification based on their functional purposes, i.e., their influence on the country's military power. For this purpose, all types of military spending may be divided into two basic groups: (1) the cost of maintaining and reinforcing the country's military power and military-economic potential in peacetime and the cost of military operations in time of war; (2) outlays unconnected directly with the maintenance of military power but involved in the repair of war damage or linked with earlier military work. The first group of expenditures may be described as direct, or active; the second, as indirect, or passive.
In our view, the proposed classification according to purpose presents a correct picture of military work. The size and share of current direct military expenditures show how a country builds up her military potential, while her indirect military spending indicates the scope of her past military work and the extent of earlier war damage.
Direct military expenditures include above all spending involved in the upkeep and training of military personnel, supplying them with weapons and military equipment, the building of various military facilities and installations, the development of weaponry and arms manufacture. Indirect military expenditures are those involved in rebuilding what has been destroyed by war, the payment of pensions, the settling of the national debt, etc.
The above classification is also essential for forecasting the economic implications of disarmament. In case agreement is reached on general and complete disarmament only direct military appropriations will be stopped, while indirect spending will, most likely, be immediately increased since the disbandment of armies will result in greater disbursements on veterans benefits and other indirect military outlays which are to be curtailed gradually. It will probably 43 take time to reduce them to naught. The intricate, confusing classification of US budgetary appropriations precludes an accurate estimate of military outlays which are distributed under different headings of the federal budget. To estimate, if only roughly, the full US military expenditures, the distribution of budgetary allocations under the various headings of the federal budget need be analysed.
Direct military expenditures are above all those of the Defence Department which consumes the bulk of all military outlays. The Defence Department budget includes also pensions to ex-servicemen---indirect military expenditure which accounts for a fraction of the Defence Department's total. For this reason, all Defence Department expenditures are regarded as direct in our further analysis. Others of their kind include spending by the Atomic Energy Commission, on foreign military ``aid'' and the stockpiling of strategic materials. In official statistical publications the above expenditures are bracketed together with those of the Defence Department under one heading: "National Defence''. Another type of direct military expenditure is that on space exploration (see Table 4). In our view, the above items of expenditure should be classified as patently direct military expenditures, i.e., those used to build up the US military machine.
Apart from direct and indirect military expenditures, there are the so-called invisible military outlays listed under a variety of ``civilian'' headings of the federal budget. For instance, listed under the heading "International Affairs and Finance" are expenditures on foreign economic aid, part of which, as Americans themselves admit, is military aid. Other measures related to US military schemes are also financed under this heading.
The budget of the US Treasury has a provision for the maintenance and development of the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard is assigned strictly military tasks and according to legislation is to be placed immediately at the disposal of the Defence Department in the event of war. In 1963/64 expenditures on the Coast Guard totalled 350 million dollars, in 1965/66 397 million.^^1^^ Large military outlays are ``hidden'', __PARAGRAPH_PAUSE__ _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 1966, p. 290.
44 Table 4 Budget Outlays by Function (thousand million dollars) Fiscal years 1965 19G7 1970 197.T 1974' National defence ....... 49.6 4.3 5.1 4.8 2.0 7.4 0.3 2.3 1.7 25.7 5.7 10.4 2.2 ---3.1 70.1 4.5 5.4 4.4 1.8 7.6 2.6 5.9 0.7 31.2 6.9 12.6 2.5 -3.9 80.3 3.6 3.7 6.2 2.5 9.3 3.0 7.3 13.0 43.8 8.7 18.3 3.3 -6.4 76.4 3.3 3.1 6.1 3.9 12.5 4.0 10.5 18.0 75.9 11.8 22.8 5.6 6.8 -8.4 0.5 81.1 3.8 3.1 5.6 3.7 11.6 4.9 10.1 21.7 82.0 11.7 24.7 6.0 6.0 ---9.2 1.8 International affairs and finance Space research and technology Agriculture and rural development ........... Natural resources and environment ........... Commerce and transportation Community development and housing .......... Education and manpower . . . Health ............ Income security . . Veterans benefits and services Interest ........ General government ..... General revenue sharing . . . Intergovernmental transactions Allowances ......... Total ......... 118.4 158.3 196.6 249.8 268.7* Estimate.
Sources: The Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 1972, pp. 569--73, and Fiscal Year 1974, p. 67.
__PARAGRAPH_CONT__ for instance, in the budgets of the Department of Justice (which finances the Federal Bureau of Investigation), the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency. The US Administration spends through the federal budget considerable funds on military mobilisation work, to develop the infrastructure (the building of roads, airfields, ports, etc.) and other projects of both civilian and military importance. 45The fact that many types of expenditures, which are, in effect, military, are listed as civilian is admitted by American authors, too. For instance, Neil H. Jacoby has divided the federal budget allocations into four groups according to their military use.^^1^^ His calculations reveal that over 85 per cent of the total administrative budget allocations is spent on the "global concept of defence''. At the same time, he lists as military outlays some types of civilian spending.
Some categories of US military expenditure are reflected on the revenue side of the budget. To stimulate military work by monopolies and in some cases by individuals (the building and operation of military-industrial enterprises, civil defence facilities, etc.) the US Administration grants them tax reliefs, the right of accelerated amortisation, and other privileges which do not affect the military part of the budget but reduce its revenues and are, in effect, military spending.
It may be concluded that the US direct and indirect military expenditure amounts on average to nearly a half of the federal budget's total. Since ``invisible'' military expenditures cannot be determined exactly, only direct and indirect military spending is discussed here to show the growth and structure of US military spending. This understates somewhat the overall size of military expenditure. The exclusion of the invisible military expenditures from our estimates is compensated for, to a certain extent, by the fact that minor civilian outlays are listed under some headings of patently military expenditures. For instance, according to US publications, roughly 30 per cent of the expenditure of the Atomic Energy Commission goes for civilian needs.
Direct and indirect military expenditures account respectively for some three-fourths and one-fourth of the total federal military outlays (see Table 5).
The absolute and relative size of obviously direct military expenditures varies within wider limits than indirect military expenditures owing to alterations in current and longterm military programmes. The scope of military work involved increases or reduces relatively more quickly. The __PARAGRAPH_PAUSE__ _-_-_
~^^1^^ Planning and Forecasting in the Defense Industries, ed. by J. A. Stockfish, Belmont, 1962, pp. 3--4.
46Table 5
Military Expenditures in the Federal Budget Item of Expenditure Fiscal years 1965 1967 1970 1971 1973* Total federal budgetary expenditure (thousand million dollars) ........ of which military spendings (per cent) . . . Direct military outlays .... Department of Defence . . . Atomic Energy Commission . Defence-related activities . . Foreign military aid .... NASA ... Indirect military spending . . National debt settlements . . War veterans benefits and services 118.4 60.3 46.7 39.1 2.2 0.1 1.0 4.3 13.6 8.8 4.8 158.3 60.0 47.7 42.5 1.5 ---0.3 0.6 3.4 12.3 8.0 4.3 196.6 56.5 42.8 39.2 1.3 0.4 1.9 13.7 9.3 4.4 212.8 51.3 37.5 34.4 1.1 -0.1 0.5 1.6 13.8 9.1 4.7 249.8 45.7 31.9 29.7 0.9 ---0.2 0.2 1.3 13.8 9.1 4.7* Estimate.
Sources: The Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 1972, pp. 569--73, and Fiscal Year 1974, pp. 364--67.
__PARAGRAPH_CONT__ volume of indirect expenditures, however, is determined by past military work and the resultant national debt, an increase in the number of war veterans, and some other factors. Government obligations involved in past military work are less subject to change, while the absolute size of US indirect military expenditure shows a tendency towards a steady increase.At no period of American history have US military expenditures in time of peace swallowed up such a big portion of total budgetary allocations as has been the case since the last world war. Over the past few years, all direct and indirect expenditures amounted to more than half of the federal budget total, whereas in the twenties and thirties they accounted for some ten per cent. Again, whereas formerly direct military spending amounted to one-third of the total military expenditures in peacetime, today it accounts for 47 three-fourths. This indicates that since the last world war, the US Government has been carrying military activities on a vast scale even in peacetime, whereas before the Second World War military expenditures were connected mainly with past military work, war pensions, etc.
The US war of aggression in Korea (1950--53) gave a strong impetus to the growth of US militarism and the arms race. In 1949/50, the US "national defence" expenditures stood at 13,000 million dollars, whereas by 1952/53 they had grown to 50,400 million. The strength of the US armed forces in 1953 was 3,555,000 as against 1,615,000 in 1949. After the Korean war, US military appropriations stopped to grow for a time and became stabilised, but intensive military work was continued.
The US military expenditure again climbed steeply in the early sixties. In 1959/60 the US ``defence'' appropriations amounted to 45,700 million dollars; in 1961/62 to 51,100 million; in 1963/64 to 54,200 million. The escalation of the US war in Vietnam stimulated another increase in war spending.
For several years the Administration published obviously understated figures of expenditure on the Vietnam war. The data in Table 6 show that its increasing involvement in this war was the main reason behind the steep rise in the total Defence Department spending in the latter half of the sixties. According to the American press, the USA has spent an estimated 150,000 million dollars on the Indochina war.
By our estimates, the federal expenditure per US serviceman in Indochina was much larger than in all previous US wars. Thus, official statistics of Vietnam war expenditure per serviceman gave about 60,000 dollars (based on price index for 1957--59). By comparison, in 1953 the corresponding figure for the Korean war was 15,000. This steep rise in the US war expenditure was attributable to the intensive use and raising costs of military equipment, as well as to payroll increases for US servicemen in Vietnam.
According to US publications and some official statements by Pentagon spokesmen, the actual expenditures on the Vietnam war were larger than the official figures indicated. The reason is dual: first, the ruling circles want to conceal the true cost of the war; secondly, it is difficult to estimate the __PARAGRAPH_PAUSE__ 48 Table 6 Department of Defence Expenditures Attributable to the Vietnam War Total Defence Expenditure Vietnam war expenditure Fiscal year Dept. spending (mil. dollars) minus Vietnam war spending (mil. dollars) mil. dollars percentage of total Defence Dept. spending 1965 46,173 46,070 103 0.2 1966 54,409 48,597 5,812 10.7 1967 67,466 47,333 20,133 29.8 1968 77,373 50,826 26,547 34.1 1969* 77,790 48,978 28,812 37.0 1970* 78,471 53,074 25,397 32.3
* Estimate.
Source: The Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 1970, p. 74.
__PARAGRAPH_CONT__ costs of all varied military-economic activities involved in that war and distributed under different budget headings. The Joint Economic Committee, for instance, following hearings on the economic effect of Vietnam spending, reported: "It is probable that actual expenditures for the Viet Nam war exceed the official figures by an appreciable margin. The Department of Defense has conceded that it is somewhat unrealistic to establish a definitive distinction between Viet Nam outlays and other defense disbursements.... While the absence of any better guidelines makes it necessary to use these figures, it should be realized that the full effect is probably greater than they indicate.''^^1^^The growing inflation and inflationary price rise in the USA is another cause of increase in military expenditure since the Pentagon has to pay more and more to procure the same amount of military goods and services. The real trends in the Pentagon spending are shown in the table below.
Thus, in the sixties, the Defence Department spending in prices of 1957--59 rose by 59 per cent or 4.7 per cent a year on the average.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Congressional Record, August 29, 1967, Vol. 113, pp. S. 12401-- S 12402.
49 Fiscal year Expenditure (thous. mil. dollars) Fiscal year Expenditure (thous. mil. dollars) 1960 40,929 1966 51,378 1961 43,197 1967 63,587 1962 46,535 1968 67,733 1963 48,108 1969 69,708 1964 49,512 1970 64,944 1965 45,047All direct military outlays authorised in the US federal budget (spending of the Pentagon, the AEG, NASA, and other) amount to over 80 thousand million dollars a year. According to official data, obviously played down, the United States' so-called "national defence" spending during the fiscal years 1960/61--1970/71 added up to over 700 thousand million dollars.
In the 50s and 60s, the American leaders believed that with the US economic potential they could afford the maintenance of huge armed forces to pursue a global expansionist policy, to act as a "world policeman''. According to views current at the time, the United States could afford military outlays equivalent to 15 per cent of the gross national product during an indefinite period without overstraining the country's economy.
The discrepancy between the expansionist plans and the actual economic and financial possibilities of the United States became particularly glaring towards the late 60s. The high growth rates of military spending largely attributable to the war in Indochina became a major cause of growing economic and financial difficulties of the United States: an increased federal budget deficit and negative balance of payments, soaring inflationary price rise, a reduction of the gold reserves, devaluation of the dollar and a deterioration of its status as the world currency, a weakening of the economic positions of US imperialism abroad. The public at large and the US leading quarters had to admit that the unrestrained arms race and political adventures abroad weakened the country's economic potential, exhausted its finances and exacerbated its socio-political problems. It became clear that even the richest capitalist power could not __PRINTERS_P_49_COMMENT__ 4--181 50 afford tremendous regular military expenses in face of its domestic economic and social problems.
The sharp exacerbation of these problems was evidence of a crisis in the economic foundations of the United States military-political line; it indicated that a continuation of this policy would undermine the economic and social basis of American society. This obvious fact was one of the main reasons for the more far-sighted American leaders to reassess the country's political and military-strategic policy with due regard for its actual economic and financial possibilities, to take steps to slow down the arms race. These considerations influenced to a large extent the decisions to change US military policy, to end the war in Vietnam, to conclude the agreements and treaties with the Soviet Union, and other practical measures taken by the Nixon Administration.
In view of the disastrous socio-economic effects and the growing public discontent with the arms race policy the Nixon Administration began its term by slightly reducing the military spending. Since the fiscal year 1971/72 military appropriations have been climbing again. Although the war in Vietnam has been ended, the US Government contemplates a notable increase in military spending in the coming few years. As demonstrated by President Nixon's message on the budget, military outlays are to grow to 81.1 thousand million dollars in fiscal 1974 (4.7 thousand million dollars more than in fiscal 1973) and to 85.5 thousand million in fiscal 1975.
The increase in military outlays is mainly attributable to the effort of the US Department of Defence to continue a military build up by modernising armed forces, especially strategic sea-based forces. For this purpose, intensive work is in progress on new strategic offensive arms and other weapons systems. The development and production of sophisticated and costly up-to-date weapons systems demand huge outlays. For example, according to American press reports, the total spending on the programme of developing and manufacturing the B-l strategic bomber will run into over 11 thousand million dollars. According to the US Department of Defence, the estimated cost of one B-l aircraft, taking account of the total spending on the programme as 51 a whole, including R & D outlays, will amount to 45.G thousand million dollars. The continued development and manufacture of new weapons systems to secure improvement in armaments is fraught with the danger of a new escalation in the arms race.
The total and relative scale of US military spending in the near future will be dependent on many factors and, mostly, on changes in the policy, economy, strategy and military technology of the United States, as well as on the international situation. It is difficult to make an exact forecast of the impact these rapidly changing factors will have on the volume and structure of US military outlays in the coming few years. It can be assumed, however, that if no changes are made in the current military plans and programmes of the United States, the upward trend in its military spending will continue in the coming few years as well. According to estimates of Brookings Institution, towards 1978 the US military budget in current prices may go up to 104 thousand million dollars, almost 25 per cent more than what was requested for the fiscal year 1974.
Heated debates are under way in the United States on the order of priorities in the allocation of government resources for military and civilian purposes, on the effectiveness of continued military spending at its present enormous rate, and fairly well grounded ways and means to reduce it are proposed.
For example, in September 1973, Senator Hubert Humphrey tabled a resolution demanding a 5-7 thousand million dollar cut in the US military budget, the funds released to be spent on education and social security. In the summer of 1973, Brookings Institution published a report containing well-considered suggestions for cutting US military spending by 10--25 thousand million dollars a year through a reassessment of its military strategy and the organisation of its armed forces.
To put an end to the arms race is a No. 1 problem. At the World Congress of Peace Forces which met in Moscow from October 25 to 31, it was specially emphasised that the peoples of the world should no longer put up with a situation in which the world's huge resources are squandered on military work. The appeal adopted by the Congress said in 52 particular: "The atmosphere of detente should be used for a practical solution of the problem of preventing the arms race and achieving disarmament.''
A restraining influence on the arms race is produced by the Soviet-American treaties and agreements on strategic arms limitation. These agreements create favourable prerequisites for new talks on limitation of military work. An agreement to limit the development and production of weapons systems of the latest design would be of primary importance for slowing down and ending the continuing arms race. Implementation of the resolution calling on the permanent members of the Security Council to cut their military budgets by 10 per cent and to use part of the money thus released to assist the developing countries adopted by the UN General Assembly on the initiative of the Soviet Government would be a major real step to ending the arms race.
Termination of the arms race is in the vital interests of all the peoples, including the American people. A substantial reduction in military spending and disarmament would relieve the world of the arms race burden and make it possible to switch over the manpower, material and financial resources released to solving the outstanding acute economic and social problems, the problems of environmental pollution control, greater aid to the developing countries and to attaining many other civilian objectives put off year after year for lack of funds. An end to the arms race is necessary, above all, for securing military detente, eliminating the danger of a world war and strengthening peace throughout the world.
[53] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ CHAPTER II __ALPHA_LVL1__ MILITARISM AND THE ECONOMY __ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. THE ROLE OF THE ECONOMY IN WARThere is a close relationship between war and the economy. A country's economic potential is the decisive factor of its military power. In antiquity, the Middle Ages and in the early period of capitalism, this relationship was hardly appreciable. In those times, economically backward states often won their wars against more advanced and larger states, because the course and outcome of a war were decided mostly by the numerical strength of the opposing armies, the standards of their training and organisation and their mastery of the art of warfare. This is illustrated by the military defeats inflicted on the European peoples by the Huns, the Mongols, and Ottoman Turkey.
As productive forces developed and weapons of war became more sophisticated, the dependence of war on the economy grew, as did the absolute and relative demand for material resources and manpower during military conflicts. This was pointed out in their day by the classics of bourgeois political economy. Adam Smith, for one, wrote:
``The great change introduced into the art of war by the invention of firearms has enhanced still further both the expense of exercising and disciplining any particular number of soldiers in time of peace, and that of employing them in time of war. Both their arms and their ammunition are become more expensive.... In modern times many different causes contribute to render the defence of the society more expensive....
54``In modern war the great expense on firearms gives an evident advantage to the nation which can best afford that expense, and consequently, to an opulent and civilized, over a poor and barbarous nation.''^^1^^
The founders of Marxism were the first to give an exhaustive scientific explanation of the dependence of war on the economy and of the impact of progress in weaponry on the methods of warfare, on the concepts of military art. In a letter to Engels, Marx wrote: "Is our theory that the organisation of labour is determined by the means of production confirmed anywhere more splendidly than in the manslaughtering industry?''^^2^^
In his writings, Engels, a brilliant expert on military matters, dealt with problems of war in great detail. Referring to the relation between war and the economy he wrote in AntiDiihring that "nothing is more dependent on economic prerequisites than precisely army and navy. Armament, composition, organisation, tactics and strategy depend above all on the stage reached at the time in production and on communications. It is not the 'free creations of the mind' of generals of genius that have had a revolutionising effect here, but the invention of better weapons and the change in the human material, the soldiers; at the very most, the part played by generals of genius is limited to adapting methods of fighting to the new weapons and combatants.''^^3^^
In his works, Engels traces the history of changes in the art of war brought on by advances in military technology, pointing out in particular the new elements introduced by the revolutionary war the insurgent North American colonies waged against Imperial Britain. That war was quite unlike feudal wars. The American rebels had revised not only the methods of warfare but also the very content of war. They were fighting a revolutionary war for their freedom and independence.
Large manpower and material resources are required to prepare and wage war. The quality and quantity of means _-_-_
~^^1^^ Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, New York, London, p. 555.
~^^2^^ Marx and Engels, Selected Correspondence, p. 218.
~^^3^^ Engels, Anti-Diihring, Moscow, 1969, p. 200,
55 of warfare vary with the development of productive forces. The history of wars shows that the development of military technology involves an absolute and relative increase in material expenditure on the preparation and conduct of wars. It has been estimated that 19th-century wars consumed an average of 8 to 14 per cent of the national incomes of the belligerents, the first and the second world wars just under 50 and over 50 per cent respectively.As Engels described it, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-- 71 marked a turning-point in the history of the art of war, militarism and the arms race. Engels wrote: "The army has become the main purpose of the state, and an end in itself; the peoples are there only to provide soldiers and feed them. Militarism dominates and is swallowing Europe.''^^1^^
In the imperialist epoch, militarism and the arms race have assumed a vast scope and spread to all continents. The law of the uneven economic and political development of capitalist countries under imperialism results in a disturbance of the balance of power among the bourgeois states followed by wars for a redivision of the world "according to power''. But since the transition of capitalism to its imperialist stage has greatly enhanced the importance of market outlets and raw material sources and has strengthened economic and political ties between individual countries, even a minor military conflict is likely to affect the interests of many nations. As a result, wars have grown in scope and intensity. For instance, within the first half of this century, the imperialist rivalry for a redivision of the world plunged the mankind into two sanguinary world wars. The First World War involved a total of 36 countries which committed some 70 million officers and men to the battlefield. World War II involved 61 countries and a total of 110 million officers and men.
World War I differed from all previous wars in scope and character. It saw the advent of novel types of armaments and combat equipment, such as aircraft, machineguns, motorised heavy artillery, tanks, and so on. For the first time in history the belligerents used combat equipment driven by internal combustion engines.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 204,
56The vast scale of hostilities in World War I, the appearance of new, sophisticated types of weapons and combat equipment combined to swell the demand for material resources to be used in war. For instance, at the height of hostilities between 1914 and 1918 the daily consumption of ammunition exceeded that expended in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870--71. The weight of metal fired in a single offensive of the American forces on the Continent in 1918 was greater than the total used by the North in the whole of the Civil War of 1861--65.^^1^^
The first few days of World War I showed that the stocks of armaments and ammunition accumulated prior to the outbreak of hostilities were insufficient for the continuation of the war and that the General Staffs of almost all the belligerents had overrated the amount of war supplies at their disposal and had failed to anticipate the actual requirements of the impending war. It became perfectly clear that the government arsenals alone were incapable of meeting the needs of the war which made qualitatively new demands on the economy and called for gearing the bulk of the belligerents' economic potential to the war effort. In 1918, the share of war production in total industrial output was 75 per cent in Germany and France, 65 per cent in Britain, and 40 per cent in the USA. The total of basic types of weapons and material produced by the main belligerents in the First World War is shown in Table 7.
The mobilisation of the economic resources and the organisation of arms production on a vast scale made it possible to make up for the current losses on the battlefield and to improve substantially the equipment of the armed forces. Indeed, on the eve of the war the armies of the West European countries had an average of 400 rubles' worth of weapons and equipment per serviceman, whereas towards the end of the war the figure rose to 2,000 rubles.^^2^^
The colossal claims of the war upon material resources compelled the belligerent powers to place their entire economy on a war footing. The imperialist war accelerated the __PARAGRAPH_PAUSE__ _-_-_
~^^1^^ Economic Problems of War and Its Aftermath, ed. by Chester W. Wright, Chicago, 1942, p. 56.
~^^2^^ The World War in Figures, Moscow, 1934, p. 28 (in Russian).
57 Table 7 g P Production of Armaments and Military Equipment in World War I (1914--18) (thous. pcs) Types of armament and equipment USA Germany Britain France Austro-Hungary Russia Italy Total Rifles . . . 3 500 8,547 3 854 2 500 3 500 3,300 2,400 27,601 Heavy machine-guns . . 75.0 280 239.0 87.0 40.5 28.0 101.0 850.5 Submachine-guns .... --- --- --- 225.0 --- --- --- 225.0 Artillery pieces .... 4.0 64.0 26.4 23.2 15.9 11.7 6.5 151.7 Mortars 0.6 12.0 2.5 3.0 __ _ ._ ____ 18.1 Tanks ....... 1.0 0 1 2.8 5.3 _ 9.2 Aircraft 13.8 47 3 47.8 52.1 5.4 3.5 12.0 181.9 Ordnance ammunition (mil.) ........ 20.0 306.0 218.0 290.0 80.0 67.0 70.0 1,051.0 Small arms ammunition (thous. mil.) ..... 3.5 8.2 8.6 6.3 4.0 13.5 3.6 47.7 Motor vehicles 30.0 65.0 87.0 110.0 __ 20.0 28.0 340.0 z D Pi n o oSource: Militarism. Disarmament, Handbook, Moscow, 1963. p. 17 (in Russian).
58 __PARAGRAPH_CONT__ development of monopoly capitalism into state-monopoly capitalism. The vast scale of hostilities dictated the need for government interference in national economic affairs. Lenin wrote in this connection: "Monopoly capitalism is developing into state-monopoly capitalism. In a number of countries regulation of production and distribution by society is being introduced by force of circumstances. Some countries are introducing universal labour conscription.''^^1^^Lenin repeatedly emphasised the decisive role of the economy in war. In his article "On a Businesslike Basis" he pointed out that "to wage the war in earnest we need a strong and organised rear. Even the best of armies, even people most sincerely devoted to the revolutionary cause will be immediately exterminated by the enemy, if they are not adequately armed, supplied with food and trained.''^^2^^ In another work Lenin wrote: "Victory in war goes to the side whose people has greater reserves, greater sources of strength and greater endurance.''^^3^^
The all-important role of the economy as the material and technical basis for war was dramatically demonstrated during World War II, which saw radical changes in the methods and means of warfare, the use on a vast scale of new, more effective means of destruction. The use of machines assumed a mass scale, and the degree of mechanisation of military operations sharply increased. In 1914, there was an average of 0.3-0.4 h.p. of mechanical energy per serviceman, in 1918, 1.5-2.0 h.p., whereas on the eve of World War II the figure rose to 10 h.p. and more.^^4^^ In the course of the war, the powerto-man ratio continued to climb. The vast scale of hostilities, the advent of new, more sophisticated weapons and equipment led to a steep increase in the demand for material resources. To meet the needs of the war the belligerent powers had to gear to it the bulk of their economic and manpower resources, to place their entire economies at its service. The higher level of their productive forces enabled the belligerent capitalist countries to organise war production on a scale many times that during World War I.
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 24, p. 309.
~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 27, p. 76.
~^^3^^ Ibid., Vol. 30, p. 74.
~^^4^^ Militarism. Disarmament, p. 16,
59 Table 8 Production of Armaments and Military Equipment in World War II (1939--45) (thous. pcs) Types of armament and equipment USA Britain Germany 296.1 102.6 104.0 Tanks 86.5 25.1 65.1 253.0 113.8 174.5 110.0 48.3 82.0 14,623.0 5,415.0 12,309.0 Ordnance ammunition (mil.) Small arms ammunition 331.0 31.5 294.7 9.3 357.0 16.5Source: Militarism. Disarmament, p. 18.
The production of armaments and military equipment on such a vast scale was made possible by the intensive mobilisation of the economic resources and manpower of the belligerent countries for the war effort. According to some estimates, between 1941 and 1945 the share of military production in the total of US industrial output averaged 60.6 per cent.^^1^^
For the quantity of arms and equipment used on the battlefield, World War II surpassed by far World War I. During World War I, the American expeditionary force fired less than 10 million artillery and mortar shells, whereas during World War II US forces fired 8 million shells a month in Europe alone. The enormous demands of the war for weapons and equipment, as well as their quick destruction on the battlefield, called for the all but full utilisation for war purposes of many types of equipment and raw materials at the disposal of the belligerents, their allies and even neutral states.
World War II showed that success in modern war largely depends on the quantity and quality of the economic resources available, on the efficiency and speed of mobilisation and _-_-_
^^1^^ Ibid., p. 15.
60 supply of fighting equipment and ammunition to the active forces. The war also demonstrated the difficulty and complexity of measures involved in placing the national economy on a war footing, in mobilising a nation's material and manpower resources for large-scale production of sophisticated and labour-consuming military equipment. To start war production, it is necessary to build arms factories and supply them with industrial plant and raw materials. This, as well as the manufacture of end-products, takes time. This factor has great military significance in the sense that a country prepared for war well in advance has an enormous advantage over a country which is not and which, irrespective of the size and standard of her economic potential, finds herself at a disadvantage at least in the initial period of the war. Such was the situation during World War II when nazi Germany, fully geared for war, was able to achieve temporary successes early in the war with smaller economic resources than those of the Soviet Union and its Allies.The experience of past wars shows that technological progress, the improvement and increasing sophistication of weaponry and methods of warfare went hand in hand with the increase in the importance of the economy, the level of the productive forces and science for a country's militaryeconomic potential. The advent of missiles and nuclear weapons and other advanced and costly weapons of war enhanced the role of the economy and science in war. After World War II, other factors emerged which are responsible for new requirements for the economic preparation of wars.
First, it is the unprecedented growth of militarism in capitalist countries. The fact that modern militarism seeks to turn back the clock of history and preserve capitalism and the colonial system and that the military activities of the imperialist powers are directed primarily against the socialist countries combine to stimulate the unprecedented growth of the military establishment.
Second, it is the extraordinary sophistication and dynamic evolutions of modern armaments. The intensive use of scientific and technological achievements for military purposes, the unprecedented militarisation of science and large-scale military research and development (R&D) entail a rapid 61 increase in costs and labour intensity in the production of weaponry. The multiple increase in and the extremely high cost of modern armaments are illustrated by the following data: since the Second World War to date the cost of an aircraft carrier has grown from 55 million dollars to 750 million; a submarine, from 5 million dollars to 170 million; a destroyer, from 6.5 million dollars to 90 million; a bomber, from 0.5 million dollars to 25 million; a fighter plane, from 50 thousand dollars to 11.5 million; a tank, from 70 thousand dollars to 600 thousand dollars; a rifle, from 50 dollars to 164 dollars.
Modern advances in military technology make it possible to develop a large variety of intricate weapons system with impressive performance characteristics. It is precisely this increased design complexity of weapons and equipment which is the main reason behind the greater labour-intensity of their manufacture and the rapid growth of prices for them. The manufacture of modern military equipment calls for immense outlays on R&D, the procurement of top quality special materials and costly radioelectronic equipment, adequate industrial facilities and the maintenance of skilled personnel.
Labour expenditure on the development of similar weapons systems can serve as an aggregate, summary index of the complexity of R&D involved. A total of 200,000 manhours was needed to develop the B-17 bomber (completed in 1937), 10 million man-hours was spent on the B-58 (1957) and 15 million man-hours, on the XB-70 (1965).
The impact of R&D on labour intensity and consequently on the cost of weapons systems can be gauged from the following data. R&D spending involved in the building of nuclear-powered submarines in 1957/58--1960/61 amounted to 1,400 million dollars, or about 33 per cent of the total construction costs of the first 19 nuclear-powered submarines (4,200 million dollars). During World War II expenditure on designing a submarine accounted for 20 per cent of what it cost to build her, whereas in the sixties designing a firstline submarine cost as much as it did to build one submarine of her class. Table 9 illustrates the large share of R&D in the total cost of modern military equipment.
A sizable share of expenditure on military equipment goes to radioelectronic hardware. For instance, in 1962/63 it __PARAGRAPH_PAUSE__ 62 Table 9 Cost of Research and Development Compared with Unit Cost of Production and Total Cost Equipment R&D cost Unit cost minus H&D Ratio of R&D to unit cost Number of R&D cost as percentage of the million dollars equipment total cost Leopard Tank (FRG) 25 0 275 91 1 500 5 7 TSR aircraft ( United Kingdom) Minuteman Missile, Version "C" (USA) ..... 700 450 5.6 3 0 125 150 100 300 56 33 Polaris Missile (USA) ..... 1,475 2.0 737 1,000 42
Source: The Review of Economics and Statistics, November 1967, p. 533.
__PARAGRAPH_CONT__ accounted for an average of 21 per cent of the total expenditure on the procurement of aircraft and warships, 35 per cent in the case of communication equipment and instruments, and 21.5 per cent in the case of ordnance, small arms, ammunition, tanks and armoured vehicles. With certain types of weapons systems radioelectronic equipment accounts for over half the total cost. For instance, in the case of air-to-air missiles with infra-red homing devices the cost of radioelectronic hardware accounted for 50--80 per cent, and in the case of guided tactical missiles, for 50--60 per cent.The growth of military equipment prices is attributable not only to the increasing design complexity, which calls for considerable R&D outlays and extensive use of radioelectronic equipment, but also to the relatively small scale of production of certain types of equipment in peacetime, which precludes any appreciable reduction in production costs through automation and cutting the share of R&D outlays and other indirect expenditures.
The growing sophistication and high cost of modern weaponry, as well as the drastic reduction in the average service 63 life of weapons systems due to their rapid obsolescence, call for increasing consumption of economic resources for the maintenance and expansion of a country's military potential. There was time when armies could use their equipment until it became useless through wear and tear. The progress of military technology and the appearance of novel and more effective weapons systems compel armed forces to replace all obsolescent military equipment with new models. Therefore, fully operational weapons systems often have to be scrapped as obsolescent. For instance, the United States has discarded certain types of obsolescent aircraft, missiles and other weapons systems to replace them with new, more advanced models at an extravagant additional expense.
Military equipment develops and becomes obsolescent at a faster rate than civilian goods. The acceleration of obsolescence and increasingly shorter service life of military equipment inevitably lead to enormous additional expenditure of financial and material resources for military purposes.
These and other factors are responsible for the increase in the labour intensity and cost of war, the cost of maintenance of a single serviceman and a country's armed forces as a whole. According to the American economist M. Slade Kendrick, average annual expenditure per US serviceman (in 1926 prices) was under 1,000 dollars between 1861 and 1865, 2,700 in 1898, 3,300 in 1918, 2,300-4,200 between 1922 and 1938.^^1^^ According to our estimates, similar US expenditure (in 1926 prices) was 6,800 dollars in 1943 during World War II, 8,200 during the Korean war, 9,900 in I960, 10,900 in 1965 and 11,300 dollars in 1967.
An important factor requiring a new approach to the economic preparation of a modern war is the unprecedented destructive capacity of nuclear missiles and the fact that a country's economy and rear have now become extremely vulnerable to attack. The imperialists know full well that should they unleash a nuclear war against the Soviet Union and other socialist countries their own territory will be immediately subjected to devastating nucler-missile retaliation. This awareness compels the imperialists to take measures well in _-_-_
~^^1^^ M. Slade Kendrick, A Century and a Half of Federal Expenditures, New York, 1955, pp. 95--97.
64 advance to prepare the population and the economy for a war emergency, ensure the survivability of the economy, develop large stand-by production capacities, accumulate stocks of strategic materials, etc.The experience of past wars shows that as military technology develops it is necessary to spend more and more to achieve analogous war objectives. For example, in 54 B.C. Julius Caesar spent about 75 cents per enemy soldier killed, in 1800 Napoleon spent about three thousand dollars, in World War I the United States spent about twenty-one thousand dollars per man killed and in World War II about two hundred thousand dollars.^^1^^ It has been estimated that during the Korean war, the USA spent up to 570,000 dollars per man killed.
In comparing these rather rough estimates one has to take into account the fact that unlike the past, when the primary target of military operations was enemy manpower, in modern war prime significance is attached to destroying enemy military equipment, defence facilities, industrial centres and similar targets in the enemy's rear apart from annihilating his armed forces. That is why for an assessment of the military effect in wars of different periods the number of enemy soldiers killed is not a very reliable criterion.
So far, there is no method for estimating the effectiveness of military expenditures by a universal index. The reason is that changes in military power and in the effects of its use call for examination of a large number of factors. In our view, a country's military power can be gauged in two ways:~
first, from the standard of her armed forces viewed irrespective of enemy power; a rough idea of that is given by their total firepower, and power-to-man ratio, logistical support and mobility, by the value of property in possession of the defence ministry, etc.;~
second, from the prospective ultimate results of the use of her armed forces, i.e., their capacity to achieve major military-political objectives directly in the course of the war. _-_-_
~^^1^^ Henry E. Eccles, Logistics in the National Defense, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 1959, p. 7.
65 This calls for a special comparative analysis of her military power, possible belligerents and opposing coalitions, which is not the subject of the present volume.This dual approach enables one to assess the effectiveness of military expenditures and make a comparison of the relevant indices to ascertain the effectiveness of different variants of solving concrete military problems both at the given stage in the development of military technology and in different historical periods. This method for the assessment and comparison of the effectiveness of military expenditures discloses the following historical tendencies:
1. The growing effectiveness of military expenditures per unit of military power viewed irrespective of enemy power and the ultimate war objectives. The development of military technology is attended with reductions in unit cost of destructive power and means of its delivery to target. It is assumed that the destructive power of one H-bomb is several times that of all the explosives used in the history of wars, though its cost is probably a fraction of the latter's.
2. Although unit cost of military power tends to be cheaper, more and more funds are needed to prepare and wage war in terms of both total ancjf per capita expenditure. For instance, the US total direct military spending (in 1926 prices) grew from 1,394,200,000 dollars in 1938/39 to 42,280,300,000 in 1967/68. Over the period, direct military expenditures per serviceman grew 180 per cent to reach 11,919 dollars in 1967/68. Expressed in current prices, this expenditure amounted to over 24,000 dollars in 1967/68.
The tendency towards increased labour intensity in preparing and waging war is attributable to progress in military technology, the increased material support of armed forces and the improvement of weaponry, both offensive and defensive. This warrants the conclusion about the declining effectiveness of military expenditure for the achievement of ultimate war objectives, which largely depend on the alignment of opposing forces.
So, the development of military technology is accompanied by two contrary tendencies: the growing effectiveness of military expenditures as far as the destructive capacity of armed forces is concerned and their falling effectiveness as regards the achievement of basic war objectives.
__PRINTERS_P_65_COMMENT__ 5---181 66The history of wars shows that as military technology advances and means of warfare become more sophisticated, the interconnection between war and the economy becomes closer and the role of a country's economic potential in the course and outcome of a war increases. The economy is the material basis for preparing and waging war and is the decisive factor of military power. However, it would be a mistake to assess and compare the military potential and power of different states solely on the basis of their respective economic potentials. The level of development and the scale of the economy provide objective prerequisites for and determine the ultimate limits of using the material and manpower resources for military purposes. Apart from the economy, military potential depends also on such factors as the mode of production, the moral and political strength of a country, the combat efficiency of her armed forces, the skill of her military leaders, the organising ability of the government, etc.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. THE ECONOMICThe economy is the material and technical basis for military work and war. Other things being equal, the higher the economic potential of a country the greater her military power. That is why to assess the military potential of a country and her possibilities for building up and maintaining armed forces the attention should be focused on the scale, development level and structure of its material production and the existing objective prerequisites for expanding economic activity in a war emergency.
Soviet publications on military and economic subjects contain definitions of ``economic'' and "military-economic potentials''. A country's economic potential is her biggest possible output of goods with the existing productive forces and mode of production.
Theoretically, the economic possibilities of a country are limited by the size and quality of such basic elements of productive forces as manpower reserves, natural fuel and raw material resources, available fertile land, the quality 67 and quantity of means of production, the level of scientific and technological development, the efficiency of economic management, etc.
Out of the whole body of statistical data furnished by bourgeois economists the most suitable index for estimating the economic potential of capitalist countries is the gross national product (GNP) expressed in market prices as the total of goods and services produced in a year. However, the GNP is but an approximate index of economic potential. First, calculated by methods adopted in bourgeois economic science, it contains a good deal of repeated counting owing, among other things, to the inclusion of the services. Second, it is not concerned with idle capacity, manpower reserves and existing national wealth, which may contribute substantially to a production increase whenever necessary. Third, it does not show the economic possibility to meet specific demands in definite terms of output.
Table 10 GNP of Main Capitalist Countries Constant (1970) dollars GNP (thous. dollars) mil. Per capita (dollars GNP 1950 1960 1970 1950 1960 1971) USA ........... 487.2 668.3 993.3 3,200 3,700 4,850 FRG ........... 55.8 117.1 186.2 1,120 2,110 3,020 Japan .......... 31.0 69.2 197.8 370 740 1,910 France .......... 54.6 84.3 148.2 1,310 1,840 2,920 Great Britain ....... 72.1 91.7 119.9 1,430 1,750 2,150 Italy ........... 30.9 53.5 92.9 660 1,080 1,700 Canada .......... 31.8 46.6 76.1 2,320 2,600 3,550 Australia ......... 14.6 21.7 36.2 1,790 2,110 2,880 Sweden .......... 14.2 19.6 30.8 2,020 2,620 3,820 Netherlands ....... 11.8 19.0 31.3 1,160 1,650 2,400 Belgium ......... 11.6 16.1 25.9 1,350 1,750 2,670 Switzerland ...... 8.4 13.2 20.4 1,800 2,450 3,260 Denmark ......... 7.3 10.0 15.7 1,690 2,190 3,200 Austria . . ..... 5.2 9.0 14.4 760 1,280 1,940 Norway . . .... 4.3 -*7 0 11.2 1,310 1,950 2,900Source: World Economy and International Relations, March 1972, p. 150 (in Russian).
68The GNP can also be used as the basis for comparing the economic potentials of different countries and their possibilities for military work. For this purpose, the GNP values of the countries involved estimated in national currency must be expressed in one monetary unit, for instance, in the US dollar on the basis of its official rate of exchange.
Table 10 shows the great superiority of the United States over other capitalist countries both in terms of output and in terms of GNP per head of population. However, this simple method of comparison fails to produce a true picture of the correlation of the GNPs of the countries involved. The point is that the rate of exchange does not correspond as a rule to the average purchasing power of currencies on the home market. Besides, the rate of exchange indicates the relative purchasing power of currencies only in respect of goods and services handled in international trade. As a result calculation of the GNP according to the official rate of exchange misrepresents the actual correlation of the production indices of the countries involved.
To get a better estimate of the GNPs of differ