Conversation with Mother
(Page 8 of 11)
September/October 1986
By Lester Brown
For many countries, however, the real threat to security is not the loss of territory through aggression, but the loss of topsoil through erosion. The most pressing danger may not be invading armies, but encroaching deserts. And many people can't quite grasp this yet. We still think that security comes from armaments. Last year, the government of Ethiopia actually spent 42% of its budget for military purposes, and this was at a time when people in the United States were holding bake sales to raise money to feed the starving Ethiopians.
RELATED CONTENT
With a few simple tools and these step-by-step instructions from an expert mechanic, you can change...
Hovering on extinction's edge, West Africa's last giraffes make a surprising comeback...
The natural cycle of rainfall and evaporation is our earth's method of cleansing itself. However, t...
A Plowboy Interview with Lester Brown who has spent the last 20 of his 44 years studying and writin...
MOTHER: What's causing this preoccupation with one type of threat in the face of so many others?
BROWN: The notion that mankind should be in a state of war preparedness on a continuing basis is a very modern — yet very well entrenched — concept. It began after World War II with the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, which pulled in almost all of the industrial world and much of the Third World. At that time, we began to think of security almost exclusively in military terms, but now at least a few countries are beginning to see that real security doesn't come from having an enormous military establishment, but from having a highly productive, efficient, modern economy.
MOTHER: I guess Japan would be the prime example of that.
BROWN: Japan, which was prevented from arming by the treaty that ended World War II, now sees, I think, that this restriction was a blessing in disguise, since political influence in the world today comes from economic strength, and economic strength comes from investing in technology and in economic modernization. The Japanese, more than anyone else, realize that in the nuclear age there isn't very much you can do with military power.
MOTHER: But aren't they pretty much alone in that realization?
BROWN: Not entirely. There are three countries in the Third World that are literally redefining security, and doing so largely for economic reasons. China has reduced the share of its GNP used for military purposes by nearly half over the last decade — despite the fact that it has a 1,900-mile border with the Soviet Union. China is shifting resources away from the military sector and toward environmental restoration, family planning, technological advancement, and overall economic development. Another country that is starting to redefine security and, in effect, develop a new theory of geopolitics is Argentina. It, like China, has cut the share of its GNP being used for military purposes in half within the last three years alone. Peru appears to want to move in the same direction.
Also, as China has scored these spectacular successes in recent years, it has indirectly put a lot of pressure on the Soviet Union, because the Soviet economy is suffering a great deal. Russia's the only major industrial country in the world whose grain production is declining in absolute terms — not merely in per capita terms. Its grain production has been declining since 1978 and its oil production since 1983, so we have an economy where the production of the two major commodities is going down. The Soviet Union, with more cropland than any other country in the world, is also importing more grain than any nation in history. In some recent years, that figure has reached over 50 million tons. That's five times as much as India imported after its worst monsoon failures!
Page:
<< Previous 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 | 8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
Next >>
