Dear Robin and others

Thank you for picking up my thoughts and providing a different view of the
question.  I would urge you all to take a look at the Soldiers in the
laboratory report which goes into some detail about the whole immensely
complex area of military funding at www.sgr.org.uk.  I have also written
about the need for us all to re-examine just what security should be about -
the Oxford Research Group have just published an excellent briefing on just
this topic at www.oxfordresearchgroup.org entitled Global responses to
global threats.

No one supposes that simply because the US or UK or any other country might
be convinced that military spending is not actually achieving a great deal
at the levels currently pursued that the money is going to be used for
responsible purposes over night.  But what one might hope is that there
would be some rather more vigorous analysis of whether spending on weapons
systems is actually cost-effective in making one's country and the world
safer.  The simple answer from all that is in the public domain is that it
is not.  The powerful voice of the military corporations also play a massive
role in deciding the security agenda, but to be aware of the extent of this
influence and the real threats to security really are the first steps to
making an agenda for change.  We really must abandon this notion that there
must be something good coming out of the obscene amounts of money the world
spends on weapons, whilst significant numbers of the world starve or die
from simple infectious diseases.  Security involves social justice,
technology transfer for the common good and so many other projects in need
of the expertise of scientists, engineers and those in the universities of
the world - now that is where the rich nations could act for good.

Chris
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robin" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2006 3:58 PM
Subject: Re: Universities and the military


> Just a couple of comments from the US side of things.
>
> One should not make the assumption that monies NOT spend on weapons, etc.
> will be spent on things for civic and social good.  Because we (the US)
have a trillion $
> +++ debt, the money not spent just doesn't exist.  Further, one STILL has
to make the
> case that tax dollars should be used to fund efforts to, for example,
reduce carbon
> emissions or to provide free health care - rather than just reduce taxes.
At the federal
> level, such discussions may never see the light of day ... but maybe, just
maybe the
> states will ... but the funding won't be from military dollars (maybe from
prison dollars!).
> One of the most bizarre debates in Congress this year is on the removal of
a tax of
> very large inherited estates (the socalled estate-tax or as the one side
puts it the death
> tax) ---- all this while we keep raising our debt ceiling.
>
> robin
>
> -----Original Message-----
> >
> >The extent of military spending globally is currently around 1.4 trillion
dollars, which is likely to be an under estimate.  This level of spending
which has risen year on year in the last five years is now at levels in the
USA that were last seen in the Cold War.  But the burden of that global
spending is not shared equally across the world and will deny funds being
spent on the real security threats like climate change, resource depletion,
poverty and international terrorism.  The UK and USA spend significant
proportions of public taxes on both procurement of weapons systems (figures
already mentioned by others) and R&D for those weapons and their support
systems - the decision to support certain purchases is not open to
independent science based audit.
> >
> >The link between military funded R&D, either in the universities or in
corporations, and any resultant products of broad social usefulness as
against offensive ones is long, expensive and complex - more detail to be
found in the SGR Report.  In the last ten years the military sector has
increasingly 'bought-in' from the civilian sector.  This feature is
noticeable as the G8 countries embrace the new forms of waging war which
depend upon information and communications systems wedded to computational
technology.
>
> ...
>
>   I would prefer that my taxes went to provide clean water and decent
sanitation and the end of poverty for both social justice purposes and also
as a more insightful way of addressing the drivers of international
terrorism, rather than producing at great expense either the internet or yet
another jet fighter.
> >
>
>