Military-Industrial Complex Revisited: Main Components

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Main Components of a Preventive Strategy

1. Non-Proliferation

Move to abolish U.S. nuclear arsenal in parallel with international negotiations to eliminate all nuclear weapons worldwide.

Support the McKinney/Rohrabacher Code of Conduct on arms sales—which would sharply curtail U.S. weapons sales to dictators and human rights abusers—support a strengthening of the European Union’s new Code of Conduct, and support the International Code being promoted by former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias and 17 of his fellow Nobel Laureates.

Move to limit licit and illicit transfers of small arms and light weaponry, which are the weapons of choice in the world’s most vicious ethnic and territorial conflicts. Begin by banning covert arms exports by U.S. military and intelligence agencies.

2. Institution Building

Support a strong International Criminal Court, with the power to investigate and prosecute war crimes and human rights abuses.

Pay the United States’ back dues to the United Nations as a first step towards reinvigorating UN and regional peacekeeping initiatives.

Support multilateral efforts to prevent and contain ethnic conflicts in preference to the pattern of unilateral U.S. action that has prevailed throughout much of the post-cold war period.

Press the Clinton Administration to ratify the Oslo Treaty, which bans the production and use of deadly land mines,and has already been ratified by 41 other nations (enough to make it a valid international agreement).

Begin an international dialogue aimed at implementing a new cooperative security system that will promote comprehensive disarmament and render wars among and within states obsolete by the end of the 21st century, following the outlines of the visionary proposal for Global Action to Prevent War, which has been put forward by organizations such as the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies, the World Order Models Project, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

3. Shifting Priorities

Reduce the U.S. military budget by $40 to $100 billion per year by moving away from the Pentagon’s outmoded "two war" strategy, canceling unnecessary cold war weaponry, and focusing U.S. policy on peacekeeping and conflict prevention, not arms sales and military buildups, as suggested by organizations such as Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities.

Support regional and international efforts to cut military spending, such as the Year 2000 campaign to reduce military spending and the proposal for a moratorium on the export of advanced weaponry to Latin America, which have been spearheaded by Nobel Laureate Dr. Oscar Arias and organizations such as Demilitarization for Democracy, the Council on Economic Priorities (of the year 2000 campaign), the Carter Center, and the Council for a Livable World (on the Latin America intitiative).

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