Re: Why China and Russia supported SPDC

Perhaps no single policy is more at odds with President Bush's pledge
to "end tyranny in our world" than the United States' role as the
world's leading arms exporting nation. Although arms sales are often
justified on the basis of their purported benefits, from securing
access to overseas military facilities to rewarding coalition allies in
conflicts such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, these alleged
benefits often come at a high price. All too often, U.S. arms transfers
end up fueling conflict, arming human rights abusers, or falling into
the hands of U.S. adversaries. As in the case of recent decisions to
provide new F-16 fighter planes to Pakistan, while pledging comparable
high-tech military hardware to its rival India, U.S. arms sometimes go
to both sides in long brewing conflicts, ratcheting up tensions and
giving both sides better firepower with which to threaten each other.
Far from serving as a force for security and stability, U.S. weapons
sales frequently serve to empower unstable, undemocratic regimes to the
detriment of U.S. and global security.

In 2003, the last year for which full information is available, the
United States transferred weaponry to 18 of the 25 countries involved
in active conflicts. From Angola, Chad and Ethiopia, to Colombia,
Pakistan and the Philippines, transfers through the two largest U.S.
arms sales programs (Foreign Military Sales and Commercial Sales) to
these conflict nations totaled nearly $1 billion in 2003, with the vast
bulk of the dollar volume going to Israel ($845.6 million).

In 2003, more than half of the top 25 recipients of U.S. arms transfers
in the developing world (13 of 25) were defined as undemocratic by the
U.S. State Department's Human Rights Report: in the sense that
"citizens do not have the right to change their own government" or that
right was seriously abridged. These 13 nations received over $2.7
billion in U.S. arms transfers under the Foreign Military Sales and
Commercial Sales programs in 2003, with the top recipients including
Saudi Arabia ($1.1 billion), Egypt ($1.0 billion), Kuwait ($153
million), the United Arab Emirates ($110 million) and Uzbekistan ($33
million).

When countries designated by the State Department's Human Rights
Report to have poor human rights records or serious patterns of abuse
are factored in, 20 of the top 25 U.S. arms clients in the developing
world in 2003-- a full 80%-- were either undemocratic regimes or
governments with records of major human rights abuses.

The largest U.S. military aid program, Foreign Military Financing
(FMF), increased by 68% between 2001 and 2003, from $3.5 billion to
nearly $6 billion. These years coincided with the aftermath of the 9/11
attacks and the run-up to the U.S. intervention in Iraq. The biggest
increases in dollar terms went to countries that were directly or
indirectly engaged as U.S. allies in the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan,
including Jordan ($525 million increase from 2001 to 2003), Afghanistan
($191 million increase), Pakistan ($224 million increase) and Bahrain
($90 million increase). The Philippines, where the United States
stepped up joint operations against a local terrorist group with
alleged links to al-Qaeda, also received a substantial increase of FMF
funding ($47 million) from 2001 to 2003. Military aid totals have
leveled off slightly since their FY 2003 peak, coming in at a requested
$4.5 billion for 2006. This is still a full $1 billion more than 2001
levels. The number of countries receiving FMF assistance nearly doubled
from FY 2001 to FY 2006-- from 48 to 71.

The greatest danger emanating U.S. arms transfers and military aid
programs is not in the numbers, but in the potential impacts on the
image, credibility and security of the United States. Arming repressive
regimes in all corners of the globe while simultaneously proclaiming a
campaign for democracy and against tyranny undermines the credibility
of the United States in international forums and makes it harder to
hold other nations to high standards of conduct on human rights and
other key issues. Arming undemocratic governments all too often helps
to enhance their power, frequently fueling conflict or enabling human
rights abuses in the process. These blows to the reputation of the
United States are in turn impediments to winning the "war of ideas" in
the Muslim world and beyond, a critical element in drying up financial
and political support for terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda. Last
but not least, in all too many cases, U.S. arms and military technology
can end up in the hands of U.S. adversaries, as happened in the 1980s
in Iraq and Panama, as well as with the right-wing fundamentalist
"freedom fighters" in Afghanistan, many of whom are now supporters of
al-Qaeda.

At a minimum, the time has come to impose greater scrutiny on U.S. arms
transfers and military aid programs. The facile assumption that they
are simply another tool in the foreign policy toolbox, to be used to
win friends and intimidate adversaries as needed, must be challenged in
this new era in U.S. security policy. A good starting point would be to
find a way to reinforce and implement the underlying assumptions of
U.S. arms export law, which calls for arming nations only for purposes
of self-defense, and avoiding arms sales to nations that engage in
patterns of systematic human rights abuses, either via new legislation
or Executive Branch policy initiatives. Equally important, the
automatic assumption that arms transfers are the preferred "barter" for
access to military facilities or other security "goods" sought from
other nations should be seriously re-considered. Economic aid,
political support and other forms of support and engagement should be
explored as alternatives whenever possible.


Sources:

U.S. Weapons at War 2005: Promoting Freedom or Fueling Conflict? by
Frida Berrigan and William D. Hartung, with Leslie Heffel
Source:
http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/wawjune2005.html

Militarization of U.S. Africa Policy, 2000 to 2005
A Fact *** Prepared by William D. Hartung and Frida Berrigan March
2005
http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/AfricaMarch2005.html

Human Rights Records of Top 25 U.S. Arms Recipients in the Developing
World
http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/wawjune2005.html

Table III: Increases in U.S. Military Aid between 2001 and 2006 under
the FMF Program
http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/WatWTable2.html

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