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WORLD HUNGER
vs.
SBUILDUP
by Dan Taylor
Few realíze what the current global arms buildup is costing!
T
ODAY,
many small and
poor nations pay vast
sums to have access to
modern military miracles.
The result? A conventional
arms race as dangerous, if not
more so, than the nuclear arms
race between the United States
and the Soviet Union .
y
et there is a paradox· in all or
this. While nations spend enormous
s ums on weapons, millions of
human beings are malnour ished or
starving. Agricultura) time bombs
continue to tick away, periodically
exploding in isolated, but devastat–
ing droughts and famines .
What's behind this global con–
ventional arms buildup? What is it
costing the poor? More important,
where is it Jeading us all?
The Cold War Context
In 1945, an exhausted world finally
began sifting through the rubble
and ash of the most frightening glo–
bal conflict bumanity had ever wit–
nessed. Hopes for peace, lasting
peace, seemed, to the world's diplo–
mats, possible at Iast.
But while millions were heaving
a collective sigh of relief at the ces–
sation of hostilities, the foundation
had already been laid for future
confljcts and turmoil.
The Plain
Truth
was even then warning: "The
way of peace they do not
know ... " (lsa. 59:8 NIV).
The United Nations, like its pre–
decessor , the League of Nations,
proved to be impotent at preventing
local wars between nations.
It
had
no power to change men's hearts.
The Cold War between the U.S .
and the U.S.S.R. rapidly pro–
January
1983
gressed from the 1940s to the
1960s. The United States saw com–
munism as a force that threatened
to undo society-Western civiliza–
tion itself. As Soviet military power
grew and assumed a more deter–
mined posture, the U.S. tried to
contain it. Under the Truman Doc–
trine, the United States acted to
ring in the Soviet Union by arming
nations friendly to the West. Com–
munist insurgency, it was hoped,
would be stopped.
The Soviets, meanwhile, saw a
different picture. World War 11
had made a definite impression on
the Russian mind. One in 1
O
Soviet
citizens !ay dead. Having been
iovaded four times in 150 years
from the West, the historic-minded
Soviets determined to make sure
that the Russian people never again
suffered the horrors of war on their
own soil.
The Soviets responded to the
U.S. encirclement tactic by spon-
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