Military Technology — A Driving Force Behind the Arms Race and an Impediment to Arms Control and Disarmament

Abstract

Ever since the Second World War, one constant feature has been the uninterrupted arms race, both in quantitative and in qualitative terms, despite numerous arms control and disarmament negotiations. Between 1948 and 1985 global military expenditures (in constant prices) have multiplied five times, by 1985 reaching the staggering amount of US$850–870 billion in current dollars.1 The main actors in this race have been the major nuclear powers and the two military alliances, NATO and the Warsaw Pact. These two alliances alone account for 75 per cent of world military spending. But the arms race has spread also to the Third World: today it is a global phenomenon. Furthermore, since the 1950s the world stockpile of nuclear weapons has surged, from nothing to an unfathomable figure of 45 000–56 000 nuclear warheads of a bewildering variety, tactical and strategic; their estimated explosive power exceeding the potency of one million bombs of the type that destroyed Hiroshima, i.e. 13 billion tons (13 000 megatons) of TNT.2 By way of comparison, all bombs dropped on Germany and Japan by the United States in the Second World War did not exceed 2 megatons of TNT.