GRAZIA TANTA

terça-feira, 3 de janeiro de 2012

The Pentagon and the NATO - Military expenditure and armaments

Summary

Framing of the Pentagon’s warlike policy and of its alter ego, the NATO
The amount of military expenditure
The dimension of the armed forces
Armament of the main countries
Armament producing corporations
Armament selling countries
Sellers according to type of armament
Armament purchasing countries

1 – Framing of the Pentagon’s warlike policy and of its alter ego, the NATO

The volume of military expenditure for the great majority of countries is related to the degree of regional conflict, considering that in those cases there are no hegemonic claims at a global level; or with the internal power of the military castes, more or less extensive or influential in the dimension of their resources and privileges. On the other hand, in every country, there are more or less transparent relations, too often corrupt ones, between the civil powers and the military castes, the armament suppliers as well as discreet intermediaries, the latter being beneficiaries of huge commissions. On its bottom there are the populations, and, namely, the crowd of workers and former workers who get very little or almost nothing from those transactions, and whose role is none other but to support the inherent costs which consequently reduce their income.

In certain cases, pertaining to a coalition of States involves relations of solidarity, normally inserted in a hierarchic framework with a domineering power at the top. In this context, small countries, with no capability to develop hegemonic claims at a global or even regional level and with no visible threats to their security, are involved in charges, conflicts and wars resulting from that hierarchic insertion to satisfy someone else’s interests, as if it were a lord’s tribute, unjustifiable before their own citizens.

Naturally, the NATO is the extreme example of coalition - whose top is the Pentagon - which politically encompasses 28 states, in general pleasing the military castes, well paid and ideologically brainwashed to obey and that constitute, in the whole a sort of Praetorian Guard, with acting codes and a common language. The NATO, on the one hand, is the only military organisation - euphemistically designated as being a supplier of a collective and jointly responsible security service amongst its members -, and which allows itself to act in non-member countries and against their peoples within the framework of a planetary intervention claim, dangerously liable to practical application, due to the resources and cohesion degree it holds. The NATO even defines a strategic scale with various degrees of application:

· Pre-emptive protection (the case of sanctions)

· Pro-active management of the crisis (the sort of intervention in Haiti)

· Use of military intervention (Afghanistan)

· Post-intervention stabilization (supposedly, today’s Iraq)

No other formal or informal coalition of States has the same global intervention power, either political or military, founded upon the constant existence of a devastating destruction power, which, on its turn, is cushioned by means of a clearly asymmetric appropriation of the resources and wealth created by mankind.

In 2001 – and, it must be said, before the 11^th of September – under the leadership of the then US vice-president, Dick Cheney, the NEP – New Energetic Policy- was created based upon the following principles:

· The USA national security must be guaranteed, while an axiom, as a non-negotiable and holy principle, and, for that matter, the whole Humanity must subdue to such high purpose;

· The maintenance of the capitalist world order, currently working within the framework of the neo-liberal paradigm (as before under the Keynesian law) demands an overwhelming military power to prevent, on the one hand, any State from frontally challenging the USA, and, on the other, to deny the people the right to social revolution;

· So that the north-American economy keeps on working, it needs huge energetic resources which, being essentially of fossil origin, belong to limited world reserves and, therefore, are the object of very strong disputes;

· The maintenance of the very military forces demands a steady and enormous flux of energetic resources which contributes in itself to exert pressure in what the control of those resources is concerned, if not of the sources, at least of the transport channels – maritime routes, oil and gas pipelines;

· In spite of possessing enormous resources and being a great producer of energetic products, the United States have a consumption volume a lot superior to their own domestic capacities. According to the NEP, the situation, in the long run, as far as oil is concerned, is preoccupying:

	2002	Forecast 2020
Production	8.5	7.0
Consumption	19.5	25.5
Imported	11.0	18.5

Values in millions of barrels a day (Mb/d)

· In order to move in this complex scenario, the USA have defined the advantages of the political destabilisation and fragmentation of the States that best serve their own interests; such is the case of the former Yugoslavia, the former USSR or the Kurdish autonomy in Iraq.

· More recently, James Jones, NATO’s supreme commander between 2003 and 2006, was appointed as Obama’s adviser for national security, and it is known he is a strong supporter of an enlarged NATO to the East and to the South whose purpose is the control of the energetic resources necessary to the USA. This continuity line vis-à-vis the Bush administration together with the USA action in the support of the coup d’état in Honduras reveal the great unity between Republicans and Democrats in what concerns the geographic extension of their common concept about the US national interests. On the other hand, the Pentagon, together with the oil sector and its multinationals as well as with the armament industry, has a great autonomy vis-à-vis the Presidency; it is a state within a state. Condoleeza Rice and Dick Cheney were former high cadres of the oil sector, and Robert Gates remained as maximum authority of the Pentagon, moving from the Bush to the Obama Administration.

Apart from this summary panel, some developments and options which lead to the promotion of conflicts and other actions carried out by the USA, with a stronger or lesser involvement of its NATO allies or other circumstantial ones, as Russia, Israel or the Magreb countries in the Active Endeavour operation, the Persian Gulf countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, or even India in the Malaca Strait patrolling.

· In order to find a solution for the energetic issue, the US frame the necessity to raise the number of suppliers, the appearance of new quarries, the use of clean alternative sources (solar, aeolian…) or polluting ones (nuclear, coal), knowing that these are meagre contributes to the problem. There are other great consumers, namely China, eager to guarantee vital supplies for its high economic growth, and are active both regarding exploration contracts in other countries and constructing new conducting channels for oil and gas. On the other hand, the discovery of great quarries is no longer so frequent and the exploration conditions (for example, in the sea) are increasingly getting more costly. At last, the renewable energies are still a long way away from substituting oil, namely in the transports, while the nuclear energy has no particular acceptance amongst populations;

· The great oil and gas reserves are located in Russia, Central Asia, Middle East and Venezuela, while the great consumption is located in the US, in Europe, in Japan and in China, apart from a long list of other producers, namely in Africa or Norway and other consumers of rising importance as is the case of India. This non-juxtaposition raises serious technical logistic problems as well as transport difficulties which worsen the disputes among the various operators but which also serve them as instruments within a geo-political and more enlarged frame;

· The control of the fluids out of the wells and their conduction demand the political control of the producing States as well as other States which play a relevant role for the energetic availability next to the great consumers;

· Among other factors very little favourable to the USA, Russia comes in the first place and whose geo-strategic power is not surmountable with sanctions or warlike policies. Russia possesses enormous resources, also a strong political power, around its emblematic figure Putin, which dominates the energetic resources of the country and uses them as the spinal cord of the Russian economy. The country is also Western Europe’s natural supplier, directly or as passage to the exportations of Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, which, on their turn, have the advantage to be close to Japan and China, both great importers;

· That liaison to the EU takes place by means of various pipelines which, necessarily, will have to go through Ukraine or, and less problematically, through Belarus, which is a Moscow abiding State, both ready to be fodder for difficulties provoked by the CIA agencies, as was the case of the Ukrainian “orange revolution”, whose enticing smell and colour seem to have gone astray;

· The Central Asia great producers, together with Russia and China, integrated in the Xinghai Cooperation Organization , tend to coordinate their economies with those of their gigantic neighbours, gone as it is a period of permeability to the North-American adulation and the weakness of Ieltsin’s Russia;

· In the South, the Iranian resources are insurmountable due to their dimension, the same way the Iranian regime is absolutely intolerable to any North-American administration, no matter whether it is evangelical fundamentalist with the Republicans or, somehow less ideological, with Obama. In that context, the intimidating and encircling manoeuvres seem to be there to stay, having as an argument the military use of nuclear energy, the carrying out of inefficient sanctions under the auspices of that diffuse entity called “international community” together with the refrain of Israel’s aggressive ways, always ready to warlike adventures, although it has won none since 1967;

· Still in the South, is located Afghanistan, where the North-Americans had great hopes of constructing the exit to the Indian Ocean for the Central Asia oil – out of the reach of Russians or Iranians – but which will never be built within a context of civil war, whether it is as now with the Kabul mayor (Karzai) and the Taliban or, as an alternative, the war lords among themselves over the drug trafficking;

· In the Persian Gulf, the USA built a network of oil protectorates and military bases – Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman – having to deal simultaneously with the Saudi everlasting suspicion of infidelity;

· In the Caspian Sea, western interests built the BTC pipeline which links the eastern bank (Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan) to the western bank, limited to Azerbaijan of the Aliev family, and whence it extends through Georgia and Turkey up to Ceihan, in the Eastern Mediterranean, very close to the Syrian border;

· Finally, Venezuela, although it keeps on being an important energetic supplying source for the United States, it presents a social model whose example for other Latin American countries is not to be tolerated by the United States, accustomed as they have been to monitoring the evolution of the Latin-American societies so that they will not even dare to scratch the imperial power. Therefore, the reinforcement of the military presence in Colombia, in Aruba, together with the reactivation of the IV South Atlantic Squad, coincident with the recent discoveries of oil in the Brazilian Seas, is understandable.

Currently, the USA, in spite of their undeniable military power, have registered strategic setbacks which can be considered as withdrawal and decadence factors thus forcing them to successive interventions in other States, instead of the use of the so-called “soft-power”, to an increasing use of the dissemination of their military presence and at the same time diluting their leadership in formal contexts of multilateral action. The NATO here plays a role of the utmost importance in the military-strategic apparatus of the western capitalism.

· The strong points the United Sates have on this vast table are multiple. One is Turkey, which historically dominates the straits between the Black and the Aegean Seas, but which has been trying to keep a great strategic autonomy. While maintaining excellent relations and armament deals with the North-Americans or the friendship with Israel, Turkey tries to moderate this fact by keeping good relations with Iran as well and refusing to support the United States in the Iraqi invasion;

· Another strong point has to do with the Israeli fortress whose relevance in the patrol of the Middle East forces the US to tolerate the Palestinian genocide gaining, in rebuttal, the anti- Americanism of the “Arab Road”; distracted as far as the nuclear proliferation of Israel is concerned, also aggregating the latter in alternative projects for oil routes from Ceihan to Eilath, an Israeli port in the Red Sea, thus averting the Suez Canal as liaison between the Indian and the Mediterranean;

· The military power allows the US and the NATO great advantages as far as the aero-naval domination at a global scale is concerned, with a logistic system going through an adapting phase, whose purpose is a better and greater mobility, with the use of a vast network of bases where they station soldiers and equipments in a state of high readiness and tactical malleability;

· From a strictly politico-ideological view point, Obama’s administration let aside the Huntington xenophobe thesis about the shocks of civilizations, where the enemy was focused on the Islamic world and on the Christian orthodox countries. On the one hand, several attempts to co-opt Russia for the western strategy have been witnessed, with the abandonment of the construction of the Eastern Europe Missile Shield platform, the involvement in Iran’s isolation, in the patrolling of the Somali Seas, liable to please the European Union, the latter being very little interested in tensions with its great energy supplier. Simultaneously, their purpose is to divide the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which congregates Russia, China, the Central Asian countries and which has as interested observers India and Iran. On the other hand, they try to establish a dichotomy between the moderate Muslims and the Jihad supporters, the terrorists, the fundamentalists, with obvious purposes to entice them against each other, even if the border between segments is not at all clear;

· A great part of the world trade circulates through the Indian Ocean and links Eastern Asia (China, Japan…) to Europe – without referring to origins/intermediary destinies such as Northern and Eastern Africa or Southern Asia – through a number of ways or, in a more explicit way, via straits. The same way, and in spite of using other possible alternatives, the Middle East oil is led to the Far East and to Europe through the same straits, which thus become crucial and potential strangulations points. These routes are vital to Europe, to East Asia and even to South Asia (i.e. India), with strong business relations among them, due to the energetic supplies. Nonetheless, the same does not apply to the USA, which by way of assuming the control of such supplies, permanently hold the right as well as determinant instruments to the economic (de) stabilisation of their allies, of their friends and also of those not quite their friends. The US national interest is paramount.

· In fact, the liaisons between the US and the Far East, as well as with Europe, do not cross the Indian ocean, and, on the other hand, the US, as for the oil question, have been increasing the sources of the oil they consume which are situated elsewhere, e.g. on the African Atlantic Coast, also Venezuela and Mexico, in the American continent, thus reducing their dependency on the Middle East;

· The control of the Indian Ocean and its straits proves to be crucial for the whole of the global maritime transport system. In 1510, Afonso de Albuquerque, second Portuguese vice-Roy in India, tried to control the navigation in the Indian Ocean – to the loss of Turks, Persians and Indians – by conquering Ormuz (Persian Gulf access), Malaca (entry to the strait), only failing the seizure of Aden in order to dominate the Red Sea access (Bab el Mandeb). Later, the English managed to do so, the situation thus lasting until the decolonization;

· Currently, in what concerns the Bad el Mandeb, the US troops are stationed in Djibouti with the possibility of moving on to a military facility in Yemen, having the existing conflict in the latter country as a starting point. The US troops together with other countries - NATO countries or not - also patrol the contiguous sea, under the pretext of the so-called ‘Somali pirates’. In the vicinity of the Ormuz Strait, the USA control Kuwait where they hold a number of military facilities. They are strongly present in Iraq and Afghanistan, and possess military bases in Saudi Arabia (in Dharam, coincidently situated very near the oil terminal of Ras Tanura), Bahrain, Qatar (al-Ubaid) and Oman. Finally, the Malaca Strait, due to its vulnerability and the existence of pirates somehow less media publicised, is patrolled by the American navy together with India, and still benefit from the strong support of Singapore. In order to understand how fragile this whole system is, one has only to imagine the impact of the blockade in the Malaca Strait, which, as a consequence, will increase in 10 to 12 days the length of the voyage from the Indian Ocean to Japan. On top of all this, the V Squadron and the Diego Garcia base should be referred to, the latter well located in the centre of the Indian Ocean and whose population was expelled in the 70’s of last century;

· There are natural and growing strategic weaknesses for the Pentagon and its NATO allies. The purpose of isolating Russia proposed during the Bush administration has failed, in spite of the absorption of Eastern Europe by the NATO, the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, the ‘independence’ of Kosovo, created to host the great base of Bolsdteel, the ‘little Guantanamo’ for the control of the Balkans and the ‘orange revolutions’ in Ukraine and Georgia. Russia continues to supply Europe with energy, and has been diversifying those channels with direct connections through the Baltic Sea and Murmansk thus dodging Ukraine. This way, Russia has guaranteed the use of its pipelines for the Kazakh and Turkmen hydrocarbons; it is a member of an economic-military alliance – the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) – that conglomerates a huge geographical mass rich in oil and gas, which includes the Chinese dynamic power, the Chinese and Russian capitals, the largest world army and the Russian nuclear arsenal;

· The Iraq and Afghanistan invasions are far from being successful cases for the USA. In Iraq, the invasion, although it had made easier the exploration of the Iraqi oil to the western multinationals (1), did not guarantee the stability of the region, increased the inner tensions in Iraq between Kurds, Sunnites and Shiites and the scenario seems to be little optimistic when the withdrawal of the American army and its mercenaries takes place. On the other hand, the intervention in Afghanistan has not produced economically useful impacts for its promoters, if the weaponry producers are to be excluded. As for the construction of pipelines through the Afghan territory to conduct the Central Asian oil to the Indian Ocean, to India and Pakistan, without having to cross Iranian territory, is increasingly and virtually impossible;

· The solid position and stability of Iran have been maintained, and, rather than being isolated, the country has intensified its relations with its neighbours. Iran is going to build a pipeline to supply Pakistan, India might as well benefit (2), and a connection with the Turkmen transport system has been established. Concomitantly, it imports Turkmen gas for inner consumption as well as for supplying Turkey; it also became an importer of the Azeri gas in what is a compensation arrangement which reduces the transport of a homogeneous product, thus promoting its exportations via sea.

· China has established gas and oil supply land connections with Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, thus a new opportunity is going to be opened with the Russian exportation through the Nakhodka port, in the Russian Far East and Sakhalin, which may also make Japan less dependent on the oil vessels coming from the South. On the other hand, the same Turkmenistan, which holds the world’d four greatest oil reserves, has dedicated its exportations to Russia, China and Iran. On the other hand, the USA pay China the necessary attention to any naval blockade by maintaining 1000000 soldiers in Japan and South Korea - the VII Squadron -, Okinawa and Singapore, once Taiwan’s support is taken for granted, and still consider the possibility of returning to Cam Rahn, in Vietnam, of which they must keep extremely sad memories.

· Finally, the North-American budgetary deficit is enormous, and, as a result, the US end up by having a huge debt, which, considering only China and Japan, amounts to $1.5 billion to which annual interests of $ 250000 million should be added. For such situation the military budget is highly responsible since $1 billion goes to it alone, and of which $880000 million go to the Pentagon. The secret military programmes are excluded from these amounts ($70000 million), the military aid to foreign countries, namely to Egypt, Israel and Pakistan, the hiring of 225 000 elements for military services, the costs with the veterans plus the $ 75000 million on the 16 intelligence services. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan only will cost, in 2010, $200/250000 million, while the recent reinforcement of 30000 men decreed by Obama for Afghanistan will represent a financial effort superior to the whole of the defence budget of a country such as Germany (4).

A balance between these synthesis of the Pentagon’s strong and weak points, also the NATO and the North-American domination strategy in the world, focused on the geopolitical and military aspects is not and will never be satisfactory to its promoters. The USA and the so-called developed countries’ economic and financial difficulties, facing serious unemployment problems, growth of poverty, labour devaluation, deficits as well as stagnation, together with the lack of credibility of their political system and leaders, is not favourable to a global resolution of the problems as their expectations might have been.

The substitution of the postulate of the shock of civilizations, in a more subtle way “shock of values” (5), does not change the seeking for the domination of the Humanity and the appropriation of the planet’s resources. Naïve people might have thought that the human rights key played by Reagan was dead, but the recent Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo or Kunduz scandals have shown it was otherwise, thus it sounds fake and offensive that the USA governors and their aids speak to the world about values.

The USA, the Pentagon and the NATO’s strategic difficulties will not make them draw back – on the contrary – from their intent to make war, to make use of torture, destruction of cities and villages, dislocation of populations, to make the North-American and European peoples pay for the costs and risks linked to that infinite war decreed by Bush, as an enraged animal, in front of the fumes and smokes coming from the Twin Towers. Only the workers’ struggle, their interaction and organization against the war, will enable the militarism and the military-industrial systems to stop this crave for war. Such action can only be defined by means of a humanitarian goal when framed within the struggle for democracy and the end of capitalism.

2 – The amount of the military expenditure

The amount of the military expenditure is an elementary indicator but it also sheds light over the burden the peoples have to bear with the maintenance of their respective countries’ troops. Table I deals with the military expenditure per inhabitant, compared to the average contribution of each citizen to create wealth for the years 1998 and 2008. This analysis includes all the NATO countries, the neutral European countries and Israel, taking into account the complete integration of the latter in the Western military-strategic apparatus.

Table I – Per capita expenditure on defence and capitation of the GDP ($ of 2005)

	1998		2008		Defense/GDP (%)
	Defense	GDP	Defense	GDP	1998	2008
Albania	19	3.767	62	7.160	0,51	0,87
Austria *	340	29.721	336	36.037	1,14	0,93
Belgium	447	28.411	415	33.605	1,57	1,23
Bulgaria	65	6.319	93	11.239	1,02	0,83
Canada	369	29.902	494	36.077	1,23	1,37
Croatia	411	11.951	204	17.520	3,44	1,16
Cyprus	844	21.101	486	26.453	4,00	1,84
Czech Rep.	182	16.042	199	23.211	1,13	0,86
Denmark	698	30.016	651	34.140	2,33	1,91
Estonia	62	9.956	273	18.882	0,62	1,45
Finland *	472	25.073	527	33.596	1,88	1,57
France	833	26.704	827	30.624	3,12	2,70
Germany	499	29.074	451	33.714	1,72	1,34
Greece	724	19.134	871	27.124	3,78	3,21
Hungary	119	12.563	135	17.997	0,94	0,75
Iceland	0	28.251	0	36.209	0	0
Ireland *	283	27.354	275	39.115	1,03	0,70
Israel	1.543	21.535	1.752	25.353	7,17	6,91
Italy	535	26.360	545	28.272	2,03	1,93
Latvia	23	7.607	176	15.597	0,31	1,13
Lituania	59	9.188	153	17.571	0,65	0,87
Malta *	100	18.000	96	22.426	0,56	0,43
Nederlands	576	31.402	601	38.078	1,84	1,58
Norway	1.010	41.979	1.026	49.072	2,41	2,09
Poland	132	10.833	195	16.440	1,22	1,18
Portugal	317	19.086	355	21.194	1,66	1,67
Romania	85	6.792	102	11.704	1,25	0,87
Slovakia	138	12.538	168	20.518	1,10	0,82
Slovenia	198	17.990	337	27.188	1,10	1,24
Spain	263	23.148	332	28.313	1,13	1,17
Sweden *	672	26.599	571	33.610	2,53	1,70
Turkey	225	9.702	156	12.408	2,32	1,26
UK	813	27.714	941	34.061	2,93	2,76
USA	1.162	37.238	1.771	43.671	3,12	4,05
* UE countries non-NATO members					Increasings in bold

Source – SIPRI – Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

It is worth noting that in the first place Iceland is the only one of these countries that, since 1859, has not possessed formal armed forces, in spite of being a NATO member and maintaining security agreements with the latter, with the USA, Denmark and Norway, among other countries. The Keflavik base was run by the USA between1951-2006 and the Icelandic Defence Force was stationed there. That base is now kept by the Icelandic Defence Agency.

The countries where the military expenditure per capita is higher – USA, Israel and Norway – are the same in the two years here considered. The USA, as a consequence of the 52.3% increase, in 2008, related to the occupation of the Middle East present a higher figure than Israel in spite of the latter’s situation of permanent war.

Other cases of great growth per capita in what concerns the military expenditure are the Baltic and the Eastern European countries, formerly integrated in the Warsaw Pact. Currently, these countries renew their armament and their armed forces by replacing the obsolete former USSR armament by armament supplied to them by the western countries within the framework of their integration in the NATO.

Although no country has yet reduced the GDP value of the capitation – 2009 data will prove this statement not to be accurate as a result of the current crisis – the amount spent on the military has decreased in eleven countries – Germany, Austria, Belgian, Cyprus, Croatia, Denmark, France, Ireland, Malta, Sweden and Turkey.

This fact can be justified by focusing on very distinct elements. In Northern Europe, the dislocation of the NATO conflict axe towards South, towards the Mediterranean, together with the contestation of the pacifist and anti-militarist movements in the region were fertile ground for that development; in the case of Croatia, it has to do with the end of the Balkan war; in Turkey it is linked to the reduction of the armed forces traditional role while holding power, to the appeased conflict in Kurdistan and to the US strong military presence which thus partially substitute the Turkish expenditure on the defence sector; finally the case of Cyprus - being integrated in the EU and although it does not belong to NATO, it will feel more secure, namely before a possible Turkish threat, which on its turn is mitigated by its wish to join the EU.

The slice of the product each country reserves to the defence is higher in Israel, with 7.17%, in 1998, and slightly decreased to 6.91%, in 2008. The US, whose deviation of resources to the defence sector increased, in 2008, almost one percent in relation to ten years ago, occupy the second place. In the third place is Greece, with 3.21%, in 2008, which, very legitimately, questions the continued and huge military expenditure considering the current difficulties of the Greek State.

A reduction in the weight of the military expenditure in 24 countries was to be registered, the most significant reductions were registered in Croatia, Cyprus and Turkey for the reasons already stated. Of those 24 countries, there are 11 of them where the fact is concomitant with the reduction of the military expenditure per inhabitant, regardless of the GDP. In the remaining countries, the weight of the GDP military expenditure has been reduced, independently of the fact, in some cases substantial, of the slice each citizen is summoned to contribute with.

During the same period, in nine countries – Albania, Canada, Slovenia, Spain, Estonia, USA, Latvia, Lithuania and Portugal – the charges with the defence sector in the total amount of the GDP increased, although only marginally in both Iberian countries.

If in the other cases the reasons have already been explained, in Portugal and Spain, taking into account the absence of conflict in their geographical area, everything leads us to believe that the militarization of the society is increasing, and an attempt to recuperate the armed forces “prestige” is underway. In fact, after the fall of the dictatorships, it was made clear the criminal character of the peninsular armed forces as far as the support to the fascist regimes was concerned and, in the Portuguese case, also their involvement in the colonial wars. Currently, with the consolidation of the right-wing in power, we are going through a phase of re-legitimacy of the armed forces, taking advantage of the end of the compulsory military service to re-affirm their caste character and a more aggressive posture of the Pentagon seeking for firm and docile allies. On the other hand, the enormous unemployment rate among the young population gives rise to a social opportunity for recruiting new mercenaries, which is, however, marked by precariousness. In the case of Spain, and taking into consideration the extension of its territorial waters in the Mediterranean, the great physical proximity with Africa as well as the strong connections with Magreb, the armament question and the reinforcement of the armed forces, in the militarist context, seem to be more justifiable than in the peripheral Portugal.

In all countries included, there are six where the growth of the capitation of the military expenditure is superior to the growth of the GDP per inhabitant in the 1998/2008 period;

% change

	Military expenditure	GDP
Canada	33.8	20.7
Latvia	654.8	105.0
Lithuania	157.2	91.2
Portugal	11.9	11.0
Slovenia	69.8	51.1
USA	52.3	17.3

The US military expenditure is circa 1 billion dollars and corresponds to a half of the world expenditure in that sector. If their NATO allies and Japan are to be added, the total participation of that group increases to 75%. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan alone, during the Bush mandates, despite the debt which made them possible, represented a charge of $ 25000 to each American family (4) (6).

3 -The dimension of the armed forces

The elements that compose the armed forces are not always known due to various reasons. The first reason has to do with matters of secrecy the States like to keep about such matters, well in the core of their DNA, considering that it is a guarantee for their sovereignty. In the second place, there are several concepts which may or may not involve the reservists, paramilitary elements, praetorian guardians of the regimes, all amounting to significant figures. Those situations may pose various reserves to international comparisons, increased with the differences, sometimes of several years, of the dates the data refer to.

As an example, in what concerns the paramilitary, above 400 thousand, in 2008, six countries were registered, and in the case of the most important – Iran – the figures were impressive (7):

1000

Iran	11 390	Venezuela	600
China	3 969	USA	453
India	1 293	Egypt	405

Crossing various information sources (8), we were able to produce Table II which includes the number of active troops, in general, for the year 2008, per 1 000 inhabitants, or the cost per active soldier in the same year with the comparison of the elements related to the NATO countries, the EU countries that do not belong to that military organisation and a number of other countries possessing armed forces of great dimensions.

Table II - Number of active troops (aprox. 2008)

Nº Military (1000)

Nº military/1000 inhab

Military expenditure/military ($ 2005)

World (estimate)

19.669

Albania

3,1

Austria *

4,1

Belgium

3,8

110

Bulgaria

5,1

Canada

1,9

257

Croatia

4,4

Cyprus

11,7

Czech Rep.

5,6

Denmark

4,2

155

Estonia

3,7

Finland *

France

225

3,5

234

Germany

285

3,4

131

Greece

177

15,9

Hungary

3,3

Ireland *

2,4

113

Italy

240

4,1

134

Latvia

2,4

Lituania

Luxemburg

1,9

352

Malta

5,3

Netherlands

3,2

186

Norway

5,9

175

Poland

155

4,1

Portugal

4,2

Romania

4,2

Slovakia

4,9

Slovenia

4,5

Spain

177

Sweden *

3,7

154

Turkey

514

6,9

195

3,2

294

USA

1.474

4,8

372

Brazil

287

1,5

China

2.255

1,7

Egypt

450

India

1.325

1,1

Iran

545

7,7

Israel

187

Japan

239

1,9

179

Pakistan

650

Russia

1.245

8,7

South Korea

687

14,2

Ukraine

149

3,2

Vietnam

484

5,5

Others (estim)

7.042

*UE countries non-NATO members SIPRI

It is estimated that in the whole, the number of active troops in the armed forces is between 19/20 million of elements. In that whole amount, the four countries which possess over a million soldiers are: China, the USA, Russia and India, which represent circa one third (32%) of the active troops.

As for the US armed forces, apart from the natural presence in their own territory, they are disseminated in 750 military bases scattered throughout fifty countries. This logistic apparatus, this network integrated and lead by the Pentagon, allows the latter a strategic and tactical power which is unique in the world and turns all the human beings and the global environment dependent on both their permanent threat and destruction.

Turkey holds the second biggest military NATO corps, whose effective members present a dimension which is similar to that of South Korea and Pakistan (fifth and sixth respectively in the world hierarchy), and of Iran immediately followed by Vietnam and Egypt.

In the remaining NATO countries the dimension of the armed forces is very heterogeneous, and does not always show a great proportionality in accordance to the country’s population. The most astounding cases are those of Israel (here considered as a NATO country, and a unique case of a true military order), as well as Greece, also possessing an enormous military apparatus, whose size seems not to have been put in question by the guardians of the “markets”, much more motivated to impose sacrifices to workers and under-privileged people.

When the number of active soldiers per 1 000 inhabitants, apart from those mentioned above, Israel and Greece, a relevant place is occupied by South Korea and Cyprus, all of them having over 1% of the population in the military. In Israel the figure is even 2.7%, but in reality it may amount to a higher figure considering that the Arab population, which constitutes a considerable slice, is kept away from the participation in the armed forces of the Zionist entity as well as from a full citizenship.

Among the NATO or neutral European countries, Turkey, Finland, Norway, the Check Republic, Malta and Bulgaria are relevant for their high ratios (>5.0, i.e. > 0,5% of the population. The same applies to others, such as Russia (heir of the USSR superpower), Iran and Egypt, well implanted in the instability axe which crosses the Middle East, in the centre of the raw dispute over the domination of the fossil combustibles.

Among the NATO counties or neutral countries of the EU, the situations of relative weight of the military corps in the whole of the population is to be registered in Canada and Luxemburg (1.9). Note, however, that those indicators are even smaller in countries of great population like India (1.1), Brazil, China and Japan.

The unit cost of each soldier is particularly high in the USA, which possess the most powerful military forces of the whole planet, largely possessing technological means for making war. At the technological level, it is relevant the role played by the “drones”, planes without pilot, remotely controlled from land by civilian hired by the North American State. Luxemburg also, a minute State, but very relevant as far as the financial system is concerned, presents a unit cost per soldier.

In a second plan, are situated Great Britain and France, sub-imperialisms the two of them, former colonial powers and holders of nuclear weaponry. All the most developed countries have a high cost per soldier above $100, except for Austria and Finland which are not NATO members.

Among the countries with armed forces above the 100000 troops, only the US, France, Great Britain, Italy and Japan have a unit cost per soldier above $100. On their turn, outside the NATO frame, only Japan, Sweden and Ireland overcome that amount, the two latter countries are the only ones whose population is inferior to ten million inhabitants.

On the reverse, the lowest costs per soldier are to be registered particularly among the armed forces of great size, and, simultaneously of a lesser wealth, thus indicating their difficulty in acquiring the expensive pieces of equipment available to the rich countries. On the other hand, once the work force is abundant and cheap and the sub-employment rather high, it is convenient to maintain large armies in order to keep the population busy. From a strictly economic view point, it is more relevant to the GDP the stimulation to inner consumption with the payment of salaries to the military than importing very expensive equipment (by spending currency) and having a high rate of unemployment or acquiring technical competence. The problem arises when an open conflict breaks out which forces the acquisition of those equipments without the reduction of the active elements.

Both, in the countries with a high number of military elements and a low index of technological incorporation, and those where the reverse is to be observed there is always a military caste which may dominate the political life or become a real state within the state, as in Pakistan, Israel or the US, where the Pentagon’s economy is such that it imposes its own choices as far as the leadership is concerned.

The human dimension of an army is not a determinant question in an epoch in which the technology applied to the armament is, generally, allowed special attention and to which the States do not discuss much over the financial question. Cases are known in which certain technological innovations start by having, on their bases and objectives, a military application before they are used by the world in general, the internet being the most paramount example. In that context, the human dimension of the armed forces, within certain proportions, does not supply much information about the potentially destructive material, the mobility and the degree of readiness of that military apparatus. As it is widely known, the Iraqi army at the time of the American invasion in 2003, had a much higher human effective than the “allies”, and that proved to be manifestly insufficient to face the fire power and use of technology of the Pentagon hordes.

If a military effective belongs to a developed country, it will, a priory, be supplied with sophisticated and expensive equipments, with well prepared and highly technically prepared users to handle complex equipments. That high technical capacity is one of the reasons to slowly extinguish the recruitment regimes based on the compulsory military services, for short time gaps (till 2 years) not liable to create cumulative experience in dealing with those equipments. Even when the military service was compulsory, certain expertises, namely in the navy and air forces, went through a special recruitment, with long period expectations as far as permanence was concerned and by, among others, technical reasons. On the other hand, it is of the governments’ and of the capitalist power interest the existence of a stable and reliable military corps, which, articulated with the police forces, can perform mixed functions necessary to the bio-political control of the crowd.

That fusion of military and police functions is well expressed in the NATO doctrine, with the validation of its new bible – new strategic concept – for the coming November, in Lisbon. When in the NATO preoccupations problems such as illegal migrations, there must be an articulation with the border polices; when the organisation intends to include in its objectives the organised crime, the drug-traffic or the “hackers” action, they force themselves to work as a criminal police.

In this context, the defence of a return to the compulsory military service is an illusion. First, the current form of bio-political domination of the societies makes the mingling of the police and the military one of the essential instruments for maintaining the capitalist system on a durable basis, and the defence of the compulsory military service has something parallel to the creation of the Icarian Community, in the 19th century. On the other hand, even the armies based upon the compulsory military service, only seldom have they been the protagonists of progressive interventions in the peoples’ lives; the hierarchical structure and the authoritarianism existing in the military ranks does not favour the soldiers’ relation with the people without a significant support of the rank officers. As it is widely known, the Portuguese 25th of April was determined by the low officers’ ranks naturally with the enthusiastic adherence of the rank and file. Normally, the profound social changes go through the dismantling of the armies, even if, regrettably, with the edification of others who substitute the former with the same spirit and vices of caste.

On the other hand, in a globalization context, with open borders, of economic and political integration of countries in geo-strategic groups of a variable geometry, of the multinationals domination, of deliberate bet on the “global market”, of the exports, the defence of the inner market - the nation, as a realm defended by devoted and patriotic warriors, is finished. The national bourgeoisies find themselves resources for the defence of the “national unity” as a justification for the maintenance of their armed forces, since power is essentially a matter that concerns regional or world institutions.

Thus, the armed forces as a cohesion factor are no longer necessary, so secondary became the concept of homeland before the regional or market integration, as one may put it. For the populations, however, the nationalist issue and the traditional homeland defence - increasingly out of place and contradicting the great interconnection among the peoples, who travel more frequently, the migratory fluxes, the internet information exchange, etc. - are still banners to be brandished.

More than ever, it is now clear the social partition between the social class of the capitalists, with their multiple coordination entities in the political, economic, financial and … military fields, and the greatest part of Humanity which is supposed to be laborious, qualified and, through the global bio-political control, tame and abiding, even when their subsistence levels lower to the point of their inclusion in explicit programmes of genocide.

The global capitalism thus needs a military force also at a global scale, with well established hierarchies in order to establish the authority of the capital before what are the misdeeds of their own existence – international conflicts, social crises, “terrorism”, clandestine migrations, cyber-crime, pirates’ attacks, environmental problems, security of the communication routes, organized crime, drug trade and similar businesses, defence of “democracy”, etc. This force, which is now being built as well as reinforced in what its doctrine is concerned and getting hold of the available and organizational means, is also going through a period of building up other forms of establishing themselves and acting at a territorial level.

This global military power needs the borders to be guarded thus needing regional and local agents the same way a district police command cannot do without the local police stations to enforce law and order. This way, in a global plan, capitalism demands the presence of localized military forces but integrated and movable within a renewed NATO, which in its turn has the Pentagon as its unifying power; the New Strategic Concept is the form found for such renewal.

4- The armament of the main countries

In this chapter the absence of systematic data about the armed forces armament is maintained as part of the convenient secrecy policies implemented by the States. This secrecy applies only to the peoples since the intelligence services always supply their military headquarters with the necessary information about potential enemies and rivals in order to have their human, material and logistic resources reshaped for planning purposes, both operational and of acquisition. Note, however, that it is fairly common, while negotiating acquisitions, the corruption of high rank officials and the interested connection of the latter to the great supplying groups, the same way that very seldom do those groups object to such commissions, where market competition as well as the high value of the transactions play a paramount role. The issue which connects Ferrostaal, the Portuguese Council in Munich and the submarines is an illustrating example, while many of the details and intervenient actors are still to be known.

The following table (Table III) understates and simultaneously quantifies the principal elements of the world main countries’ war arsenals, and particularly estimates the NATO destructive power. The specification was done to what planes, helicopters, tanks, vessels and submarines were concerned (9).

Table III – Military means of the main countries 2001-2008 period

	Planes	Helicopters	Tanks	Vessels	Submarines
Canada	399	168	2.194	34	4
Denmark	161	40	nd	51	4
France	1.023	892	8.536	134	10
Germany	350	748	5.699	130	13
Greece	847	218	4.403	118	8
Italy	1.594	716	3.355	107	7
Norway	141	66	nd	45	6
Poland	807	291	nd	87	4
Spain	691	311	2.869	90	8
Sweden *	744	150	540	77	9
Turkey	1.199	336	6.672	182	13
UK	1.891	779	5.121	139	17
USA	18.169	4.593	29.920	1.559	75
Brazil	1.272	372	1.676	89	5
China	1.900	491	31.300	760	68
Egypt	1.230	243	9.357	93	4
India	1.007	240	10.340	143	18
Iran	84	84	5.449	65	3
Israel	1.230	386	14.200	18	3
Japan	1.957	745	2.040	147	18
Pakistan	710	198	3.919	33	11
Russia	3.888	2.625	79.985	526	61
South Korea	538	502	8.325	85	20
Ukraine	2.451	743	nd	46	1

NATO	27.272	9.158	68.769	2.676	169
Others	17.011	6.779	167.131	2.082	221

^{*UE countries non-NATO members
SIPRI}

Among the air forces present in the table of the countries, the dimension of the NATO countries flotillas is a lot superior to the rest of them which do not belong to the same military organisation, and cannot take advantage of the homogeneity of the equipment. In this field, that numerical supremacy is higher than in other type of war machines.

The US air force alone, without considering other NATO allies, is twice as big as the other countries in question, those non-NATO members. This aerial superiority is possible for two reasons: first, for the domination of technology mainly held by three corporations – Boing, Lockheed-Martin and Northrop-Grumman; secondly due to a constant research and innovation, under the Pentagon’s request, which holds a huge autonomy within the North-American administration, the latter being generous about the budgetary amounts allowed for that purpose. Next comes the existence of a powerful economy which can be maintained due the facility to be allowed credit (issue of dollars) which no other country possesses, and finally for their determination to maintain a world military hegemony that forces the US to consider the rest of the world countries as assets to satisfy “the national interests of the USA”, namely, in what concerns the energetic field.

The US air force, by its dimension, its mobility, its various support bases throughout the world, is the main North-American hegemonic instrument at a planetary level.

Russia and Ukraine occupy the second and third places respectively, although the latter possesses obsolete equipment and the economic difficulties the country has to put up with does not enable the renewal of such equipment.

On the same quantitative level, there are such countries as Japan, China, Great-Britain and Italy, and there are still six more States that possess over a thousand war planes. The Israeli fleet, which according to its territorial and human dimension is absolutely enormous, is a sign of its role as a fortress and permanent threat to all the Middle East and East Mediterranean peoples. In the 80’s, such situation allowed Israel to bomb the Iraqi nuclear power station of Osirak, without punishment, with disastrous consequences for the region as well as a tremendous impact on the energy prices, which is obviously not welcome in recession times.

In what the helicopters are concerned, the superiority of the NATO countries is also extremely high, although somehow inferior concerning the war planes. The helicopter, being a tactical weapon, plays a more localized role, and, therefore, is not an element of strategic domination. The US have by far the highest number of helicopters, but in what the war planes are concerned their superiority amounts to figures that comparing to Russia attains 4.7/1, that figure being reduced to 1.8/1 on the helicopters. On a much lower level than the military superpowers, with 700/800 machines, are situated Great-Britain, Germany, Japan, Ukraine and Italy. Probably, Ukraine’s position in the hierarchy of the war machines tends to get lower as the Soviet inheritance fades away.

In the 2006 presented data, it is clear the relevance of the Iranian air means, well away from what the North-American propaganda intends to make the world believe, which, and before the facts, reveals that the Iranian ‘threat’ is none other but the energetic resources, coveted by the Pentagon for over 30 years.

As for the tanks, the NATO is not so well supplied as in the cases referred above, holding a position, in relation to the remaining countries, of 4/10. That position is due to the enormous parks particularly held by Russia and China. The latter countries, being continental, with stretched and remote borders as well as some border conflicts (such is the case of China with India and also the Taiwan question), supposedly tend to demand an adequate deterrent for their armies.

Within the NATO framework, also, the US do not possess the absolute majority of such vehicles, but even so they hold a volume superior to that of the holders that follow – France, Turkey, Germany and Great-Britain.

Once again, Israel has a relevant place, thus being the fourth country in the world hierarchy, a lot above the remaining countries, and possibly holding the greatest density of tanks per square Km.

Within the framework of the constant regional conflict between India and Pakistan, already protagonists of several wars, the Indian superiority is relevant.

The war navy, similarly to what happens with the aviation, is another instrument of global domination, taking into consideration its mobility and destruction capability. And here again appears the NATO with an evident superiority in relation to the group of the remaining countries of the world, although it has a relatively small power in supporting the attempts for a strategic establishment of the US in Central Asia; unlike the aviation which can operate without geographical limitations, both on land and at sea.

The NATO naval superiority, without taking into consideration the diversity of the composition and the autonomy of the fleets, can be verified by the simple fact that the number of the organisation’s vessels is 29% superior to that of the remaining world countries.

On the other hand, the naval facilities of the US are astoundingly superior to those held by any other country or even the Russian and Chinese vessels together or of all the NATO allies. The United States hold 58% of the war navies of the main NATO countries together.

An interesting fact is that the war navies, historically important or even domineering – the cases of Great-Britain, Germany, France and Japan – do not represent 9% of the North-American effectives, if each of them is to be considered.

In this context, one should also take good note of the enormous concentration of naval means in the Mediterranean/Aegean belonging to Turkey and Greece. The Turks possess the fourth greatest world war fleet, and Greece the eleventh, the fact naturally accounting for the financial difficulties the latter country is currently going through. Within the prevalent logic, the ECB, the IMF and the EC, as well as other obscure ‘markets’, prefer to reduce salaries and penalize the civil servants to diminish the deficit.

It is not impossible to believe that the Portuguese admirals must envy their Greek consorts and anxiously wait for the submarines which will make them go beyond their duties as coastal guards where they have not been particularly successful. Their tough performance in what the fight against small motor boats boarded by half a dozen men (Somali ‘pirates’) in order to protect the plundering of the tuna-fish by Spanish fishing boats among others is known. An interesting note goes to the Portuguese Admiralty which had not sailed in the Indian Ocean waters since the glorious escape in the Pangim port of the “Afonso de Albuquerque” – among merchant vessels anchored, till it was stuck on land – when being confronted with the Indian navy at the end of the Portuguese colonization of Goa (1961).

Finally, the last point here considered, as far as war machines are concerned, goes to the submarines. In this case the NATO supremacy is relative since all the fleets together sum up a higher amount than the total amount of the submarines held by the countries belonging to the organisation.

The USA hold the largest amount of submarines followed relatively closely by China and Russia. Within the NATO context, the United States have only 44% of the submarines.

All the other States possess 20 or less embarkations, with relative relevance to South Korea, India, Japan and Great-Britain. Once again Greece has a relevant position, with a number of units little according to its economic and population dimension, and whose integrity is not being disputed by any other State.

5 – Armament producing corporations

Table IV hierarchically presents the ten main armament corporations according to the amount of sales; it also shows the degree of dependence in what concerns the military orders, the profitability of the business, the use and types of armament produced.

Table IV – The main armament producing corporations (2007)*

	Corporation	Country	Sales of weapons		Profit rate (%)	Workers	Type of production
	Corporation	Country	$ millions	% of total	Profit rate (%)	Workers	Type of production
1	Boeing	USA	30.480	46	13,4	159.300	1,3,4,9
2	BAE Systems	UK	29.850	95	6,0	97.500	1,2,3,4,5,6,8
3	Lockheed Martin	USA	29.400	70	10,3	140.000	1,3,4,9
4	Northrop Grumman	USA	24.600	77	7,3	122.000	1,3,4,7,8,9
5	General Dynamics	USA	21.520	79	9,7	83.500	2,3,5,7
6	Raytheon	USA	19.540	92	7,5	72.100	3,4
7	BAE Systems **	USA	14.910	100	9,9	51.300	2,3,5,6
8	EADS	EU	13.100	24	(4,7)	116.490	1,3,4,9
9	L-3 Communications	USA	11.240	81	6,7	64.600	3,7
10	Finmeccanica	Italy	9.850	54	7,2	60.750	1,2,3,4,5,6
11	Thales	France	9.350	56	13,0	61.200	3,4,6

* China excluded Source: SIPRI

** BAE Systems subsidiary company (Great-Britain)

1 - Planes 2 - Artillery 3 -Electronics

4- Missiles 5- Military vehicles 6- Small weapons and ammunitions

7- Services 8- Vessels 9 - Aerospace

As clearly shown, the United States hold a great domination among the main producing corporations. The search for a world hegemonic position leads to the maintenance of hugely powerful armed forces, normally directly involved in wars or promoting them through other actors. This fact forces the existence of an armament domestic sector, with the economically viable guarantee allowed by the Pentagon orders, by subsidiary countries or still party gangs in power, and, for that purpose, a vast network of information gathering and intelligence agents, the promotion of “procurement” or “lobbying” corruption activities are fed in order to enable the transaction of equipments abroad and thus guaranteeing the profitability of the invested capitals. All this represents a typical example of what the real capitalism is, nothing similar to the lyrical idea of the free market brandished by the neo-liberal supporters.

The sales amount show to be very close when the three first corporations are taken into account, it turns really small considering the most distant ones, and the last corporation considered on the list presented in Table IV displays one third less than the first ones, thus revealing a high degree of concentration of the sector at a world level.

All the top corporations employ a high number of workers and achieve a reasonable profit rate. As what is in question are public orders, most of the times from the very countries they are located in, the pressure to lower the prices does not attain the degree it does in other sectors of activity. The States have always been less demanding as far as the prices they pay to corporations in their own military-industrial compounds than in what concerns the individuals who work in them.

As for the diversity of the production, the most comprehensive is the English BAE Systems, with one more valence than the American Northrop Grumman or the Italian Finmeccanica. On the other hand, the Raytheon and the L-3 Communications, both in the US, have their activity concentrated only on two segments.

In the list made public by the SIPRI (10), there are 117 corporations whose grouping according to nationality produces the following result:

Australia	2	Russia	7
Canada	1	Singapore	1
Finland	1	South Korea	6
France	8	Spain	4
Germany	5	Sweden	1
India	3	Switzerland	1
Israel	3	UE	1
Italy	9	UK	11
Japan	4	USA	48
Norway	1	Total	117

In the total amount shown, 75% are located in NATO countries, and, amongst them, the US contribute with 41%, immediately followed, but at a great distance, by Great-Britain, Italy and France. The US world domination in what concerns the production of armaments is very strong when the list of corporations with a volume of sales circa $ 500 thousand, in 2007, is considered.

In Portugal, there are also a large number of corporations that develop their activity in the defence area, which are integrated in a holding company called Empordef – Empresa Portuguesa de Defesa, SGPS, SA. This corporation, with a social capital of 141.9 million euros, presents, in 2008, losses that amount to 66.2 million euros.

The companies which form the holding appear in Table V (11):

	State participation (%)	Activity	Sales (M €)	Net income for the year (M €)
Arsenal do Alfeite	100	ship repair	nd	nd
Estal. Nav. Viana Castelo	100	shipbuilding	129,6	(12,100)
Navalrocha	45	ship repair	6,2	0,700
IDD	100	demilitarization of defense materials	2,1	0,25
OGMA	35	maintenance and repair of aircraft	141,5	5,6
Edisoft	30	software	6,1	0,300
EID	31,8	communication systems	19,5	1,100
ETI	100	simulation software	1,9	(0,170)
Portugal Space	83,75	space technology	0	(0,010)
Defloc	81	leasing	15,0	(0,050)
Defaerloc	100	leasing of aircraft	0	0,000
OGMA Imobiliária	100	real estate	0	(1,350)
Ribeira d'Atalaia	56,58	construction	0	(0,700)

Table V

While elements of the defence sector, these corporations present various characteristics which weaken them. Some of the relevant corporations are dominated by private interests (and even foreign, as the OGMA case) which will very improbably be integrated in a logic dominated by Portuguese military interests. Only very episodically will military equipments be produced, some corporations being mere support or service suppliers. On the other hand, some secondary corporations are grouped in a military compound, namely the rental ones and those of the estate or construction areas. Finally, very little profits have been made in counterparts in the acquisition of military equipments abroad.

In this context, it is not strange that the sales, the military ones only, correspond to circa 1/3 of the total amount and that the exports only 54.5%, in 2008.

Invoicing in 2008

	M €	%
Military	98,8	32,1
national	45,0	45,5
exports	53,8	54,5
Civilian	208,9	67,9
national	43,9	21,0
exports	165,1	79,0
Total	307,7	100,0
national	88,9	28,9
exports	218,9	71,1

Finally, it is understandable that Portugal has not even one single corporation in the 117 largest corporations in the military area, and that it is an importer of equipments as will later be made clear.

6 – Armament selling countries

In accordance with SIPRI, the armament exportations accumulated in the twenty years which ended in 2009 correspond to $ 468 199 million, at 1990 constant prices, in an annual average of $ 23 410 million, which represent circa $78 per existing human being.

That cost may look derisory for the Humanity. However, it is worth stating that it is just a calculation which only assesses international transactions of the various parts of the countries’ arsenals, and thus not considering the production for the armed forces of the producing countries themselves. If the poor countries, deprived of relevant armament factories, will essentially have to get hold of the importation to fairly equip their already many and ill-paid soldiers; the same does not apply to the rich and powerful countries, those which possess the greatest military budgets, the great factories of sophisticated equipments, the same way they also have their armed forces supplied with high technology equipment as well as well-paid cadres.

Thus, an enormous proportion of the armament production of the producing countries is not included in the international trade for it is absorbed by their domestic armed forces, which largely contribute to their economic viability. On the other hand, the second hand armament sales will be considered in the international transactions, those not involving the producers but rather the object of not always clear financial and political ingredients.

In order to update and modernise their armed forces, the States try, when ordering new equipments, to make the obsolete armament they possess available to countries with a lesser financial support or interest in placing themselves at the top of the existing technologies.

However, in order to appraise the distance between the world armament production and its exportation, the slice which is absorbed by the producing countries themselves can be assessed. In an approximate exercise, due to the various measure units, it is possible to achieve an estimation by comparing the trade of armament in 2007 - $ 25 443 million (1990 prices) to the $ 213 840 million of the sales of the eleven largest groups referred above (Table V) in 2007 (current prices).

In this field, some interesting comparisons can be made to the $213 840 million of those sales:

GDP in 2007: of Thailand $ 245 384 million (population 63.9 M); of Venezuela - $ 233 450 million (population 27.7 M); of Portugal - $ 219 499 million (population 10.5 M)

Grosso modo, that amount of armament sales would have permitted to double the income of the 320 million inhabitants of the 25 Eastern and Central Africa countries, whose GDP altogether amounted to $244 032 million in 2007.

The period that immediately followed the end of the Cold War and the subsequent dismantling of the USSR has brought a period of international transactions reduction as far as the equipments are concerned, which was a cause for deep concern among the armament producers and the general staff, for different reasons but coincident as for the way to overcome that demand crisis.

It seems all natural that the armament producers could do with more wars and tensions in order to maintain their producing chains active and their shareholders’ pockets full. The generals and admirals needed to be creative in order to justify their own existences and be able to explain the governments and the peoples the need for rearmament.

This creativity is shown when the NATO, after a first phase where there was a certain confusion following the disappearance of the enemy which justified its very existence, made up a whole number of threats, some of them quite vague or ethereal, and others rather dangerous once they ended up in real wars – with no figurants, as in the traditional manoeuvres – with the destruction of lives and property in a geographically enlarged context (6).

The fact that there was no carrying out of the threats and the emergency of the enemies does not occur out of the lack of reasoning of the military personnel and their consultants, but rather out of a deliberate purpose to let a void in the field of application of the military interventions, unlike what used to happen during the Cold War, where the space and war motives were minutely calculated.

When the countries purchase armament everything obeys to medium run planning, namely if the acquisitions in question are new equipments where the makers’ chains of production, financing as well as payment delays will have to be taken into account. Each country has its own planning and schedules thus the summing up of the international transactions has variations which are not in juxtaposition with the periods of wars and crises or even the lack of them. On the other hand, the validity delays of the military equipments are limited, as any other equipment, even those socially useful.

After the decrease understated in the following chart, at the beginning of the 90’s, 1997/1998 is a fresh outbreak period with responsibilities shared among different buyers – Greece, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, the US being the main supplier. India was supplied with by Russia, and finally Taiwan whose suppliers were the US and France.

Armament sales (1990/2009) M $ of 1990

The 2000/2005 period reveals to be only relatively active in what the international armament transactions are concerned, regardless of the fear imposed upon the peoples before the 11th September terrorist threat and the North-American and their allies’ invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

In 2006/2007 there is again a new growth in armament purchasing. That growth being the result of a group of purchasing as well as supplying countries much larger than ten years before. Among those countries supplied with armament by the US are South Korea, Canada, Kuwait and Japan; India and Algeria are supplied by Russia; Holland supplied Norway, Chile and Germany; on its turn Germany sold a lot to Italy, also a great supplier of Greece (in partnership with France) and Malaysia, the latter also supplied by Russia.

The distribution of armament sales in the 1990/2009 period among great supplying groups is presented in the chart further down.

For all the period in question (1990/2009), and summing up, the NATO member countries carry out circa 2/3 of the world armament sales, against 21.2% of China-Russia-Ukraine altogether, while the neutral European countries (Sweden and Switzerland) reach 2.4% and the rest of the world 9.3%.

In the two first years of our chart there is a classification problem since data for Russia and Ukraine are unknown, it is not possible to separate them from the rest of the world countries, which slightly falsifies the accumulated value for the two decades.

Taking into account what has just been stated, in the 90 decade, the NATO countries (where Israel, for reasons already made clear, is included) always reach amounts above 70% of the sales total amount, reaching even 84.6% in 2008, levels never achieved again.

Armament sales (1990/2009) per group of countries

NATO members – Europe/USA-Israel/

European neutral countries/China-Russia-Ukraine/Rest of the world

The triangle China-Russia-Ukraine establishes during the 1999/2004 period a consolidation of its position at a much higher level than it had previously attained and which reaches 37.6% of the world demand, in 2001, which would seemingly stabilise to market shares between 25 and 30%.

In what concerns the EU countries which are simultaneously NATO members, throughout the 1994/2000 period, their weight related to the total amount of the armament sales was a little over ¼ of the whole volume, and in the last five years it has maintained a share which shows a tendency to be maintained slightly above 30%, and in 2007 it even attained 35.1%.

As for Europe’s neutral countries, a steady position has been maintained, which has clearly risen since 1999, attaining its maximum of 5.4% in 2001.

Summing up, these tendencies show a relatively equal share between the US, the binomial USA-Israel and China-Russia-Ukraine altogether.

Among the main European countries, a tendency for the growth of the market share in all of them can be observed, particularly in the last lustrum with the exception of Great-Britain.

Average share per period (%)

	1990/1994	1995/1999	2000/2004	2005/2009	1990/2009
France	3,9	8,4	7,4	8,0	6,9
Germany	7,6	6,2	6,5	10,6	7,7
Italy	1,0	1,6	1,4	2,6	1,6
Netherlands	1,8	1,9	1,4	3,6	2,2
Spain	0,5	0,8	0,4	2,5	1,1
UK	5,6	6,5	5,8	4,1	5,5
Total	20,4	25,3	22,9	31,4	25,0

The US, encompassing almost a half of the world armament sales in the 90’s, draw back to less than 1/3 in the first decade of the twenty first century. This so happens precisely, when soon after the bombing of Yugoslavia, the US strengthen their tensions, their aspirations to an absolute hegemony and carry out their intervention by means of warlike actions, making use of the terrifying “diktat” uttered by G. W. Bush “Those who are not with us are with terrorism”, well within the framework of the typical Manichaeism of the Christian fundamentalists. In actual fact, the wish for a planetary domination shown by the US faces not only the peoples’ or the States’ explicit or less explicit resistances, an evident economic fragility which manifests itself, in this particular case, in the loss of relative importance in the armament trade.

Average share per period (%)

1990/1994	1995/1999	2000/2004	2005/2009	1990/2009
49,2	49,5	32,1	29,8	40,9

However, the US great value in the world economic context is essentially their unlimited capacity to issue currency as well as public debt, thus transferring to their creditors the responsibility for their potential insolvency. As for the production of goods and services, strategically and beyond the sectors linked to the military (aviation, communications, software…) the following will have to be named: cinema and contents production (with an inherent ideological role, and the cereal production, the latter being highly subsidized).

Within the China-Russia-Ukraine group, and during the period in question from which the 1990/1994 period is to be excluded for reasons already made clear, it can be seen that a stabilisation of the relative weight of China and Ukraine, which performed modestly, there is Russia which appears as the second world export power in spite of the decline shown in the second half of the last decade.

Average share per period (%)

	1995/1999	2000/2004	2005/2009	1990/2009
China	2,4	2,3	2,4	2,8
Russia	13,3	28,7	23,6	16,8
Ukraine	1,9	1,9	1,8	1,5
total	17,6	33,0	27,7	21,2

Referring to Portugal, and having focused on the data base reported by the SIPRI, the country’s exportations are situated only in 2008 and 2009 and amount to 87 million and 40 million (in accordance with 1990 prices), which corresponds to 0.38% and 0.18% respectively. Note, however, that in the Empordef report already referred to, the 2008 military exports amount to 53.8 million where there must be included the exportation of services which has not been taken into consideration in this chapter.

The Portuguese armament exports in 2008 were directed to Chile and Uruguay, and in 2009 to Belgian.

7 - Sellers per type of armament

In the previous point, the distribution of the armament sales were made clear, we shall now follow to its assessment per type of equipment.

The preponderance of the NATO countries (where Israel is also included) is to be observed in all types of equipment, the global average corresponding to circa 2/3 of the world sales. Only the case of the tanks shows values below that level (54.9%, but the supremacy as far as satellites and “other items” are concerned is paramount; as for machines and sensors the sales weight of the NATO countries is circa 3/4 of the world total amount.

When the planes come into question, the binomial USA-Israel, namely the US, perform the most part of the world sales followed by China-Russia-Ukraine but at great distance, the participation of the European NATO countries being rather modest.

Sales of armament per type of equipment (1990/2009)

NATO members – Europe/USA-Israel/

European neutral countries/China-Russia-Ukraine/Rest of the world

In what concerns the anti-aerial systems and tanks, the participation of NATO-Europe and China-Russia-Ukraine is very close to ¼ of the world sales, just behind USA-Israel, lower in the tanks context, regardless of the fact that in both cases they hold the biggest market slice. As for the tanks, the remaining countries hold a higher degree of participation (18.2%).

In the artillery sales, the domineering position belongs to NATO-Europe, followed very closely by USA-Israel. The remaining countries represent a superior weight to that of China-Russia-Ukraine.

In the case of the machines, the predominance of USA-Israel is high, followed by NATO-Europe which reaches 1/3 of the sales, while China-Russia-Ukraine and the remaining countries present approximate values.

In what the missiles are concerned, the USA-Israel binomial is again in the first place, followed by China-Russia-Ukraine together responding for ¼ of the total amount, a lot above the NATO-Europe position, which, according to the SIPRI, is the only satellite seller.

As for “the other equipments” the NATO countries have a very great slice, the same applies to the sensors where the relevance of the neutral European countries, Sweden and Switzerland, is notorious.

In what concerns the war vessels, NATO-Europe appears in a domineering position with 55.7% of the total amount in the whole of the three decades, USA-Israel occupying the third place behind China-Russia-Ukraine.

The exporting features of each group of countries, in accordance with the type of military equipment, consolidated in the last two decades, presents clear differences as shown in the table below.

(%)

	NATO-Europe	USA-Israel	European neutral countries	China-Russia- Ukraine	Others	World
Aircraft	26,6	55,6	24,6	49,3	40,7	44,9
Anti-aircraft systems	3,7	3,6	7,2	4,3	0,7	3,6
Tanks	10,9	9,2	11,7	14,0	23,6	12,1
Artillery	2,7	1,5	1,7	1,2	3,3	1,9
Machines	3,4	2,7	0,4	1,4	2,8	2,6
Missiles	9,8	15,8	9,0	15,3	12,8	13,8
Others	0,7	0,6	0,0	0,0	0,7	0,5
Satelites	0,0	0,0	0,0	0,0	0,0	0,0
Sensors	7,4	4,9	28,3	1,8	1,5	5,1
Vessels	34,8	6,0	17,2	12,6	14,0	15,6

The world exportation is dominated by the high value planes, followed by vessels, missiles and tanks on the same level.

In what concerns the NATO European countries, the main sectors lie on the sales of vessels and planes. As for each country, there are significant specialising differences. In Germany, the predominance goes to vessels and tanks. Spain exports both vessels and planes. In France and Great-Britain the sales of vessels and planes are important, while Holland focuses its sales on vessels and sensors, and Italy supplies mainly vessels, planes and sensors.

The US export mainly planes, followed at a great distance by the exportation of missiles, while Israel focuses its sales on missiles and sensors.

Between the European countries that are non-NATO members – Sweden and Switzerland – there are significant differences. Sweden presents a varied feature of its armament exportations, where the vessels are predominant, but with a high relevance attached to sensors, planes, missiles and tanks. Switzerland focuses its sales on sensors and planes.

China-Russia-Ukraine is similar to the US, but with inferior values when it comes to planes, while the sales of vessels and tanks appear to be superior. In the case of Russia, the similarities with the US are still closer, but not so close in what concerns the vessels, which in the North-American exportations are poorly represented. China sells planes and vessels, while Ukraine supplies planes and tanks.

The rest of the world countries seem to concentrate on the exportation of planes and tanks.

Finally, Portugal, where the exportations of the last two decades amounted to 128 million (1990 values), but without any relevance in the global context whatsoever, and were mainly planes and vessels. It should be interesting to take note that what is jocularly referred to as Portuguese defence sector, the technical expertise is concentrated on the OGMA and on the shipyards (EN Viana do Castelo and Navalrocha).

8 – Armament purchasing countries

Using again the SIPRI data to the 2005/2009 period, the world armament trade was $115934 million at 1990 constant prices.

With importations superior to $ 100 million, there are 65 countries which in the whole represent 96.3% of the global value referred to in the previous paragraph. Those that import over 3000 million are only 16; they absorb 53.2% of the world total amount and appear in the chart that follows.

Importers with over 3000 M (2005/2009)

The two main importers – China and India – together possess very close to 40% of the world population, and do not have armament corporations with enough technology to do without such a high volume of importations. India is on the list (10) with three corporations – Hindustan Aeronautics (43ª of the list) with $1670 M invoicing in 2007, the India Ordnance Factories (50ª) and the Bharat Electronics (63ª). China has not been included in the SIPRI list.

China has gradually been assuming the role of main exporting world power as well as the most important Eastern State, competing with Japan and in geo-strategic tension with the US. China maintains areas of potential conflict with Taiwan (which is Chinese territory) and which works as US carrier; with the China Sea coastal countries for the control of the Spratley, Paracels and other islands, although small as they are, allow the control of a vast territorial area, with reasonable resources of hydrocarbons in their sea depths; with India, in several areas of the Himalayas, namely the Aksai Chin region and on the border between Tibet and Assam. China deals with an inner conflict with the Xinkiang uighur separatists - an ethnic group which is also present (circa 300 thousand people) in the Central Asian Republics. Russia is by far China’s main supplier with 88.6% of the latter’s purchases in the 2005/2009 period, in the whole of a small group of supplying countries.

The Indian imports come from ten countries amongst which Russia occupies the first place with 76.9% in the whole of the last five years. Apart from the conflicts with China already referred to, India has a conflict with Pakistan over Cashmere, which raises tensions, sometimes bloody ones, between Muslims and Hindus, liable to provoke a war with Pakistan. India, in order to satisfy its regional hegemonic tendencies, has already intervened in the war in Sri Lanka, participates together with the US in the patrolling of the Malaca Strait, and with other countries in the Somali seas.

South-Korea is the third importer and is part of the North-American apparatus in the East, where the latter has had troops stationed and military bases for over fifty years. Those troops participate in the encirclement and intimidation of China as well as in activities of vigilance of North-Korea before a chimerical North-Korean invasion; it also aims at the Russian Far East, where the naval base and the oil terminal of Nakhodka are located, and the Sakhalin Island, where oil is also explored, very close to eager consumers such as China, Japan and South Korea.

South Korea possesses powerful armed forces and one of the most dynamic economies of the world. Military monitored by the US, it is all too natural that 65.9% of its armament importations in 2005/2009 stem from that superpower, at a great distance from the second supplier, Germany (19.6%) in what is a total of six suppliers.

In fourth place come the United Arab Emirates which belong to the Gulf Cooperation Council, having as their partners Kuwait and the United States that, obviously, while offering them “protection” (that possibility was opened by Saddam when he invaded Kuwait) charge, as counterpart, the right to establish themselves in the territory in order to control the Persian Gulf and the maritime traffic that use that route. This way and in spite of the US military presence, the Emirates still import armament from France (40.5%), and from the United States (27.6%), amounting to a total of thirteen suppliers, during the 2005/2009 period.

Greece, somehow in a paranoiac manner, understates as the fifth largest armament importer during the 2005/2009 period. Note, however, that there is an underlying conflict with Turkey, on the border drawn in the Aegean Sea waters and because of the Cyprus issue, where Turkey sponsors a so-called Turkish Republic of North Cyprus. However, Turkey being a partner of Greece in the NATO, an open conflict is not predictable, specially now when the former is highly interested in integrating the EU. On the other hand, in spite of the Greek cultural proximity with the majority of Cyprus’s population, Cyprus belongs to the EU, and no one believes the Turks will embark in a military adventure in the Southern part of the island.

Instabilities and wars, on the other side of the northern Greek border, do not seem liable to become a real threat for Greece. Those maniacs aspiring to a Great Albania must not be allowed to destabilize the Epiroby using a small Albanese minority (some 100000 people), as they did in Macedonia. The presence of European troops in Kosovo, around the great Boldsteel base, and subsequently that becoming a North-American protectorate, imposes some kind of order in the Balkans.

It has already been pointed out that the financial “markets” have never been willing to investigate the Greek squandering with such voluminous errands of military equipment since that would allow the producers huge profits. Those suppliers, eleven in the whole, are dominated by Germany (34.9%), the US (26.3%) and France (23.1%), becoming less cooperative and less obliging when the Greek crises broke out.

As already stated, Israel is a militarized entity, a great armament importer, most of it stemming from the US (98.1% in 2005/2009), within the framework of a privileged relationship between both countries, and of the financial and military support which the US have supplied for decades.

Singapore is, since its creation by the English, the key to the passage between the Indian Ocean and the East. This strategic position as well as its ethnic and linguistic composition (3/4 of the population is of Chinese origin) differentiates Singapore from Malaysia and Indonesia. During the Vietnam War, Singapore established a close relation with the United States, by being responsible for the maintenance of the US navy vessels. In the region, it is the most interested actor in the security of the Malaca Strait, whose maritime circulation is the basis of its prosperity, and which could be affected if the Chinese and Japanese claims imposed the construction of a canal in the Kra isthmus or, most unexpectedly, if any loaded tank-vessel were the object of an attack likely to block the maritime circulation. The main armament suppliers of Singapore in 2005/2009 are France (51.3%) and the United States (37.1%) in a total of eight countries.

The US occupy the seventh place as far as the armament importation is concerned, regardless of their capacity as a producing country; the productive partnerships, the segmentation of expertise, as well as financial questions as demanded by counterparts. In a group of thirteen producers in the 2005/2009 period, Great-Britain (32.1%), Canada (21.1%) and Switzerland (18.4%) are to be highlighted.

Algeria has in its interior territory the Salafi insurrection which directly challenges the Algerian armed forces, in a latent war, whose contours is little dignifying as far as human rights are concerned. Outside, there is a permanent conflict in Morocco, aggravated, since 1975, with the presence of thousands of Sahrawi in their territory. It has, between 2005 and 2009, eight armament suppliers, with special relevance for Russia (91.9% of the whole).

Pakistan maintains, as already mentioned above, a quite serious conflict with India which has already led to several wars between both countries. More recently, Pakistan got involved in the Afghanistan war led by the US and the NATO, since the flux of Afghan refugees find (in Pakistan) a very friendly environment in the North East part of the country as well as in Waziristan, where most of the inhabitants belong to the Pashtun tribes, as in Afghanistan.

On the other hand, the misery of the population, in contrast with the strong corruption and the power of the military and of the ISI, the tentacular secret service, provokes both political and social unrest, namely focused on the mosques. The intervention of the US in the domestic Pakistani politics, stimulating the army to exert military actions in the so-called ‘tribal regions’, and the direct intervention of the US warlike means tend to integrate both Pakistan and Afghanistan in a common war.

Turkey is the link between Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, and it is an essential device for the Pentagon’s strategy to encircle Russia, as in the XIX century. The country is crossed by the liaison between the Mediterranean and the Black Seas, hosts the sources of both rivers Tigris and Euphrates, essential for Syria and Iraq, it has a close relation with Israel as well as an internal problem with the Kurd minority. Turkey also feeds tensions with Greece and Cyprus. Moreover, because of the community funds, it has to soften the authoritarianism of its own traditional political power, focused on its armed forces. The country also represents an important channel for the North-American strategy in order to enable the circulation of Central Asia, without the Russian and Iranian intervention (the BTC pipeline), it hosts important bases of the US close to the Syrian border, leaving the latter stuck with Israel on the other side; and, as a counterpart it has refused the use of its space to the America invasion of Iraq and it maintains good relations with Iran.

Turkey possesses the second largest armed forces of the NATO and the eighth position in the world, while its navy lies fourth in the whole planet. Its armament acquisitions are scattered throughout ten countries during the last five years, with the predominance of Germany (53.2%), Israel (16.1%) and the USA (12.6%).

Malaysia lies in the same region as Singapore and partially its geo-strategic framing is similar. However, the country has another element of potential conflict which is the disputed division of the Southern China waters, rich in oil, with China, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Amongst the thirteen suppliers of Malaysia, in 2005/2009, we highlight Russia (43.1%) and Germany (21.1%).

At last, and outside the graphics whose significance have been described, Portugal’s situation is referred to. In the last twenty years, Portugal has imported $ 3044M (1990 prices) in armament, with $ 999 concentrated in the last five years, contrasting with the total amount of $ 165M in the 1995/2004 period, precisely the period when the economic environment was more favourable. In a clear counter-cycle, the PS/PSD governments fill the budget with military expenditure, exactly in periods of social and financial difficulties, showing not only their technical and political incompetence of management as far as the public expenditure is concerned, but also their social insensibility.

	1991/1994	1995/2004	2005/2009
GDP average growth (%)	1.8	2.6	0.3
Annual average military expenditure ($ 1990)	450	16.5	200

Sources: Pordata (PIB) and SIPRI

Throughout the whole period in question, eleven suppliers with greater relevance are to be registered: USA (37.5%), Germany (30.9%) and Holland (14.4%). If the observation is to be focused on the last five years, the main suppliers are Holland (35.6%), USA (32%) and Spain (11.8%).

Vítor Lima

Pagan – Plataforma Anti-Guerra, Anti-Nato (Portugal)

http://antinatoportugal.wordpress.com/

antinatoportugal@gmail.com

Ângela Prestes (tranlation)

april 2010

----------------------------

Notes

(1) The Rumaila ore deposit was handed in to a consortium which included BP and CNPC (China) (Democracy Now/03/11/2009)

(2) http://translate.google.pt/translate?hl=pt-PT&langpair=en|pt&u=http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100317/wl_mideast_afp/pakistaniranindiaenergygas);

(3) M. K. Bhadrakumar, “Le Turkménistan réserve ses fournitures de gaz à la Chine, la Russie et l’Iran. La géopolitique des pipelines à un tournant capital”, Asia Times Online (Chine), quoted in Voltairenet

(4) Eric Margolis, Toronto Sun, quoted in Esquerda.net 26/2/2010)

(5) Joe Biden, Fevereiro/2009

(6) “Um problema mundial chamado NATO”, Vítor Lima,

http://www.scribd.com/doc/20691174/Nato

(7) http://www.globalfirepower.com/active-paramilitary-manpower.asp

(8) http://www.nationmaster.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_troops

http://www.globalfirepower.com/active-military-manpower.asp

(9) http://www.globalfirepower.com

http://www.nationmaster.com/

(10) The SIPRI top 100 arms-producing companies in the world excluding China http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/production/Top100/Top1002007/arms_prod_companies

(11) Activity Report in 2008

terça-feira, 3 de janeiro de 2012

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