Market expansion.

Weapons are big business. Many poor countries spend huge sums on arms. Rich countries are happy to take their money, arguing that if they don't someone else will.

The 1994 Human Development Report, published by the United Nations Development Program, says that too often rich countries offer aid and promote peace in poor countries with one hand and push weapons at them with the other. It's estimated that 66% of all U.S. weapons exports go to Third World countries. According to one author, American arms are playing a role in 39 of the 48 conflicts.

As one U.S. arms seller put it: "Foreign arms sales provide jobs, help maintain the industrial base, and ... give us power and influence in international relations." In 1993, U.S. overseas weapons deals kept half a million American workers employed. And, they helped beef up a thinning U.S. military budget.

While the worldwide arms market shrank to $31.9 billion in 1993 - less than half of 1988's $67.9 billion - U.S. sales of weapons overseas went up. Since the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, U.S. exports have totalled $82.4 billion, about 16 billion more than sales rest of the world's nations combined. U. S. arms-transfer agreements in 1993 amounted to $22.3 billion, with sales to 86 nations. Russia came a distant second with $2.8 billion, followed by Britain with $2.3 billion. And, that doesn't count the older weapons that the U.S. gives away to avoid the cost of scrapping arms. Last year it approved the shipment of $2.2 billion in free weapons and military supplies to about 50 countries and sanctioned commercial arms deals with 146 of the world's 190 nations.

In 1986, the U.S. accounted for 13% of the world's arms exports. By 1994, the American share of the weapons market reached 70%. In 1995, it expects to sell more fighter planes to foreign governments than to its own. And by 1996, exports of these aircraft are expected to outpace falling domestic sales by more than five to one.

Russia also is trying to boost its crumbling military industry, which once employed about 15 million people. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the country's defence establishment shrank. At one time, about 80% of Soviet industry was tied to the military, now it comprises only about 15% of the Russian economy. Military production fell by about 42% in the first half of 1994 alone. Four hundred military plants were temporarily shut down and 1,500 more factories were working below capacity. Half of all defence plants are near collapse. Dozens of half-built warships await completion across Russia.

The government hopes increased arms exports will pick up some of the slack. In 1993, it started a marketing campaign to sell its weaponry to foreign buyers. As a result, arms sales increased that year to $2.5 billion and to about $4 billion in 1994, compared with $1.3 billion in 1992. Russian officials expect to sell more than $5 billion in arms exports in 1995 and hope, eventually, to have annual sales of about $15 billion.

Critics think that unless the U.S. and Russia work together to limit arms sales, the world arms race could get seriously out of hand. They're particularly concerned that it will further fuel instability in the Middle East fuel instability in the Middle East and East Asia. Treating weapons as just another lucrative export to boost domestic economies, they say, could backfire.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. There has never been a war with liberal states on both sides. The worldwide spread of liberal institutions might, if not eliminate the motives for war, create conditions where they were far less likely to occur. List the reasons why liberal democracies do not fight each other.

2. Authorities estimate there are still 12 million unexploded shells from world war I lying buried under the soil in the Verdun region of France; since 1946, 630 bomb-disposal experts have been killed in France dealing with explosives left over from war. Hold a mock trial in your classroom in which the family of a dead bomb-disposal expert sues the weapon's manufacturer for damages.

RELATED ARTICLE: FACT FILE

Area cleared of mines by a UN program in Afghanistan between 1991 and 1994: 33 [km.sup.2]

Number of years it will take to make 20% of Afghanistan free of mines if clearance continues at the rate of 25 [km.sup.2] per yearl: 4,300