Abstract
The paper takes note of a contemporary phenomenon that is at once a spectacular economic paradox and a shocking moral predicament, brought into sharp focus, on the one hand, by the astronomical defense budgets of the major industrialized military powers and, on the other, by the abysmal poverty of the large majority of mankind, particularly in Asia, Africa and Latin America. It is no longer generally disputed that even with a little disarmament (that would in no way jeopardize national security) on the part of the big military powers vast economic resources could be released, and that the transfer of even a small portion of these resources to the developing nations could make a major positive contribution to the letter's economic growth. The United Nations has been seriously concerned with this question since 1959, largely as a result of a persistent demand from Third World countries. And yet, if no progress in this direction is being made, it is because the domestic structural obstacles, both systemic and subsystemic, built into the socio-politico-economic systems of these industrialized countries, whether of the West or of the East, have proved too strong. To dismantle them, a concerted and sustained attack will have to be launched on those forces (comprising the political-military-industrial complex) within the domestic subsystems of the United States and the Soviet Union which fuel the arms race in their own interests. The strong external inputs and stimuli that will be inevitably needed to help the domestic factors and forces working in this behalf can be provided only by the United Nations, two-thirds of whose membership is made up of the developing countries now striving for the restructuring of the entire international order such as to make it more just and equitable and, hence, more peaceful.
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