Invest in Hungry Children, Not Weapons

As the world’s foremost arms merchant, the United States has a responsibility to take the lead in curbing the weapons trade. Since 1991, the United States has entered into more new agreements to sell arms than all the other major arms suppliers combined. Shamefully, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council--the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain--supply 85% of all weapons delivered on the international market.

This situation is simply unacceptable. The world’s major powers must recognize that they cannot create a world at peace by promoting arms sales in the name of short-term profits or political expediency.

The continued support of this commerce in death wreaks havoc and disaster for innocent civilians around the world. Since the end of World War II, most deaths during violent conflicts have occurred in the developing world. Not surprisingly, most of these skirmishes were fueled and kept alive by weapons that flow freely from the developed nations. Kuwait, Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Zaire--the roll call of nations that have suffered the ravages of armed conflict during this decade is far too long.

Fifteen Nobel laureates have joined me in drafting an international code of conduct on arms transfers. The code asks that weapons-producing countries refrain from selling arms to states that live under dictatorships, commit human rights abuses or are engaged in aggression against other nations or peoples. We must begin to build a new security paradigm that gives precedence to addressing basic human needs for food, shelter, health care and personal safety rather than to amassing armaments and expending arsenals. Unfortunately, as the turn of the century approaches, most leaders show more short-term concern for expanding global markets than for investing in education, affordable housing and health care. In 1996, the U.S. government gave arms manufacturers $7 billion in subsidies to export their wares. In today’s world, where nearly 1 billion people are illiterate, more than 1 billion lack access to potable water and 1.3 billion earn less than $1 a day, the arms trade simply perpetuates poverty. Our children need schools, not tanks; playgrounds, not guns; health clinics, not fighter jets.

The United States now has an unprecedented opportunity to take the lead in this international effort. Congress is considering an arms transfers code of conduct bill cosponsored in the House by Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) and Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) and in the Senate by John Kerry (D-Mass.). The bill rests with a House-Senate conference committee that may finish deliberations as early as this week.

Human security, not just national security, must be our mantra for the 21st century. By adopting the code of conduct, Congress can begin to deconstruct the military-dominated mind-set that prevailed throughout the Cold War and move toward a more sustainable ideology of stability and peace.