Guns, butter and man in the street?
IN a topsy-turvy world of today, what hope is there for the wretched man in the street? Particularly if the said man in the street comes from a country that is euphemistically called ‘developing’.
In a world awash with the concept of ‘pre-emption’ as the best defense, the wretched individual is hard put to find the knight in shining armour who could boast of having the leading hand in imposing – or at least yearning for – world peace.
The United Nations did precious little to live up to the ideals of the exalted status it enjoys.Our own region – and in particular the Land of the Pure – is caught up in a war-on-terror crazed world, in which the age-old defense doctrines appear to need another make over.
The classical conundrums that have been exercising the lofty minds of military strategists – not to forget economists – over the ages would call for a fresh going over.
For one, how about taking a closer look at the oft-posed fundamental choice: guns or butter?
This happens to be one of the classical choices as formulated by strategists. The first thing that deserves attention is that the choice purported to be made is between ‘guns’ and ‘butter’; never between ‘guns’ and ‘bread’ as some misguided people have advocated over the years.
This clearly signifies that ‘necessities of life’ take first precedence and are not negotiable.
A person, in other words, needs to be alive in order to be able to make a choice! So, bread comes first.
Man can forego butter; never the bread! This is a fundamental fact of life. This having been got out of the way, let us have a look at what ‘butter’ signifies.
Butter strictly relates to the trimmings, those that follow the necessities. Going without butter means that a nation or state is willing to forego the trimmings.
In other words, the people are agreeable to lead a Spartan existence, at least in the short run, in order to divert the state’s scarce resources to other, more important ends.
‘Guns’ signify the state’s means of defense. When resources are scarce – as is the case with most developing economies – the question of how much to divert for defense assumes added importance.
Needless to state, defense needs vary from state to state. Some states are more vulnerable than others.
Geopolitics, therefore, must represent the decisive factor in determination of the minimum defense needs.
The aforesaid notwithstanding, unraveling the relative equation between guns and butter for a particular state is no easy exercise.
This is because, human nature being what it is, several extraneous and subjective factors – both internal and external – come into play.
What criteria, then, are to be adopted to determine a state’s defense needs? Who is to be the arbiter?
The countries with volatile borders are the hardest hit. For them, defense requirements assume added and, it may be said, bloated importance.
Who is to determine when to draw the line and where? Also, how are the objective criteria to be sifted from subjective considerations?
These are some of the perennial questions that present themselves begging for answers. Objective determination of the defense needs of a state is the moot exercise.
How much to spend on defense is to be determined through an equation in which several variables figure.
Co-relating these variables is the name of the game. Looking at it in another way, a state’s defense can be visualized as the construction of a boundary wall around one’s abode.
How high should the wall be to make it impregnable?
It would need to be tall enough to keep the invaders out and yet low enough to let in fresh air so that people inside do not suffocate.
Several countries in the developing world are wallowing in the mire of over-reaching in their mad quest for guns.
They have made their security wall so high that they are in grave danger of suffocating within.
The confusion has been worse confounded by the international money lenders, both ‘aid’ donor countries and international agencies.
They are the ones who are guilty of distorting the classical guns versus butter equation by lending money left and right.
Such loans – most of them tied – enable poor states to go for guns in a big way, without being bound by the economic parameters.
Since the money lenders –and arms merchants – go about dealing with both sides in an armed conflict, it sets into motion an arms race of alarming proportions.
It is an irony of nature that the more armaments a country acquires, the more insecure it feels.
All it gives rise to is a vicious circle of sorts getting out of which is well nigh impossible. The only gainers in this sorry state of affairs are the armaments exporting states whose economies flourish.
Matters are made worse by the speed with which armaments become obsolete. The loan relating to one consignment has hardly been accounted for before the next one becomes due.
And so the cycle continues! It is the duty of the international community to do something to set matters right.
The United Nations, the charter of which is supposed to be the voice of the ‘Peoples of the United Nations’, cannot absolve itself of the blame.
International disputes (and every dispute between any two member-states is, by definition, an international dispute) that fester around the globe need to be tackled purposefully.
The secret is to remove the cause for the conflict rather than paper-over the cracks, as hitherto.
The UNO is the logical arbiter in such disputes and would it be too much to expect it to assume its responsibilities in real earnest.
Harking back to the equation between guns and butter, perhaps the gurus in responsible planning positions in the Land of the Pure could also sit up and do their sums for a change!
— The writer is a former Ambassador and former Assistant Secretary General of OIC.
