Defense and Development: A Critique of the Benoit Study

Abstract

Although the industrialized member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) remain by far the largest spenders on military-related activities, the share of the Third World in total defense expenditures has risen considerably over the last 2 decades. Particular countries have been raising their expenditures on defense at a rapid rate in recent years.' According to statistics produced by the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), about 30% of the 90 Third World countries for which data were available spent more than 15% of their national budgets for defense in 1977 while approximately half spent over 10%.2 There are good reasons for suspecting that these figures understate the amount spent for security in some of these countries and that the burden of military-related expenditures in developing nations is even higher than these figures suggest. What is the impact of this burden on the development process? For the industrialized countries, it has been shown that high rates of economic growth, investment, and employment are inversely related to high levels of military expenditure.3 For the developing countries the evidence is less clear. Resources devoted to one form of expenditure, such as military, cannot be used in other sectors, such as for investment in productive undertakings or in social services. Nonetheless, the argument is often made that military expenditure may have some net positive developmental effects. The study generally cited as supporting this contention is that conducted by Emile Benoit for ACDA at the end of the 1960s.4 The original goal of the Benoit study was to determine what effect military expenditure has on the development process in Third World