Disarmament,Development and a Just World Order *

Abstract

The paper sees the arms race (set in motion and fuelled by the industrialized countries, whether of the West or the East) and the struggle for a just world order (waged principally by the developing countries) as two sides of the same fundamental question: Will the transformation, now unquestionably under way, lead to a world run through global corporate economic management and a framework of political governance operated from global and subsidiary power centres supported by military might? Or will it lead to a world characterized by political national independence, economic self-reliance, respect for diversity in both technology and culture, and end of exploitation? The first, merely a perpetuation of the dominance-dependency structure of the imperialist days, will provide neither justice nor security; and the second will ensure both equity and peace, for a structure of inequity and exploitation is the primary source of conflict and violence. That is why the paper discusses the question of disarmament in the wider context of development such that it provides human beings everywhere with basic necessities of life, which can be made possible only in a just world order.