Towards a New Vision of Common Security
by
Mark Vander Vennen
A Story
Let me begin with a story describing what drew me into the area of peace and conflict. In the early 1980s I moved into a Catholic Worker home for the homeless in the inner city in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Our ghetto neighborhood looked something like Rotterdam after it had been bombed in World War 2. The landscape was overwhelmed by charred shells of burned-out buildings.
I
remember visiting Esther and Otha
Austin, a lovely African-American couple, about 70 years of age, one
day in their home. It was winter, and we sat in their living room
around what was their source of heat—a steel bucket within which burned
a few chunks of coal. There was no need for a ventilation system,
because when you looked up you saw large swatches of blue sky. Theirs
was a place of snow falling among furniture. This was a neighborhood of
abject poverty.About a mile away stood the tallest building in Pittsburgh, the 55-story U.S. Steel Building. At the time it was the international headquarters of Rockwell International, which was then the third-largest military contractor in the U.S. Some of the most advanced weaponry used in the Vietnam war was designed there. This was now at the height of the Cold War, and literally billions of dollars flowed through that building. One could not help but be struck by the contrast: billions of dollars were flowing beside abject poverty. I was reminded of a line by the poet Gabriella Mistral: "they circle but never find each other/bread and hunch-backed hunger." I felt constrained to act in some way. So I joined a group called Christian Peacemakers, and we undertook a number of activities at Rockwell, at all times unswervingly committed to nonviolence.
Frequently at Rockwell a conversation would go like this. Someone would walk up to us and say, "I see from your literature that you're Christian, well I'm a Christian too and I believe that by working at Rockwell and by building nuclear weapons I am helping to speed up the apocalypse". That is an exact quote, repeated numerous times. We met with Larry Norman; Larry is considered to be the "grandfather" of contemporary Christian music. He proudly told us that he had never before voted in a U.S. election, but he voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980, because Reagan would "help to bring us closer to the apocalypse".
These experiences drove me onto a journey through Scripture, history and current events. I needed to be able to say something to these people, who were my brothers and sisters in Christ. They were quoting to me from the book of Revelation, and they had a specific view of the state of Israel in their chilling view of the apocalypse.
That journey has carried on for over 25 years, and I would like to share just a small portion of it with you this morning, under the topic "Towards A New Vision of Common Security".
Oversimplifications
Given my brief time, and at the risk of oversimplification, I will focus on just one aspect of a new concept of common security. A viable vision of common security requires a great deal of nuance and flexibility of approaches and responses; a comprehensiveness that is almost always underestimated. There are some strong peacebuilding processes that have been developed over the last 20 years that involve rejigging the relationship between so-called political realism and the field of conflict transformation. 1 They form a crucial part of any new vision of common security, but I am not able to talk about them today. So I hope you will not accuse me of oversimplification. In fact, in my view, the current approaches to security, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan or Darfur, suffer from a continual application of oversimplifications.
Military Technological Development and Economic Growth
I will focus on one area that to us, in the writing of our book Hope in Troubled Times, and in my own contribution to it, seems to be left out of the current policy debates, at all stages, whether before, during or after a given conflict. That is the role of technological development in driving military and political practice, and the embeddedness of that military technological development in the economic prosperity of the West. I shall illustrate by briefly describing three new weapons systems and global arms trade.
New Weapons Systems
Bio-Electromagnetic Weapons
An enormous amount of military research and development in the last several years has gone into what are called "bio-electromagnetic weapons". These weapons essentially use microwaves to alter the neurological patterns of people. Already in 1998, in an article entitled "The Mind Has No Firewall", U.S. Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Thomas, recognizing that such weapons were already under development in both the U.S. and Russia, implied that the mind is the next battlefield. 2 The false thinking is that temporarily altering the mind—or using electromagnetic waves to cause temporary intense pain, such as on the skin—is a more humane form of combat. There are reports that prototype systems are currently being used in Iraq. 3 These reports are not confirmed by the Pentagon, but they are confirmed by some U.S. soldiers who are operating the devices. One soldier has said that occupied Iraq has become a "saturation environment" of electromagnetic radiation. 4 Soldiers also report, however, that the use of these devices is affecting US soldiers themselves, causing headaches, disorientation, loss of impulse control, spacing out, rage, and other symptoms. 5 The use of such weapons is against international law. But nowhere does the appropriateness of such weapons enter the public debate, including by those who subscribe to the so-called just war theory.
Depleted Uranium
Depleted uranium is a heavy metal used on American and other weaponry since the first Gulf War. Depleted uranium gives weaponry a harder surface and improved penetration. It is radioactive, and the radioactivity has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. 325 tons of depleted uranium were dropped in the First Gulf War. 800 to 1,000 tons were dropped in the Afghanistan bombing, and between 1,000 and 2,000 tons were dropped in the invasion of Iraq. 6 There is controversy about the health effects of depleted uranium. But the scientific evidence is growing that the impacts can be devastating and can alter genetic structures. Of the 700,000 American soldiers deployed in the first Gulf War, 240,000 of them are now on permanent disability, many suffering from the mysterious "Gulf War Syndrome". 7 It is said that 378 American soldiers died in the Gulf War. But 11,000 veterans of that war have died since the war ended. 8 These are soldiers who were young and in good health at the beginning of the war. There is an alarming rate of birth defects of children of Gulf War veterans. In a small US government study, 67% of children born of Gulf War vets had serious illnesses or birth defects; uranium was found in the fathers' semen which then was transmitted to the mothers of their babies. 9
There is some evidence that Saddam Hussein used some chemical weapons in that war, and that usage may play a role in the Gulf War Syndrome. Further, there is no firm evidence of a link between depleted uranium and the Gulf War Syndrome. But the scientific evidence is moving strongly in that direction. It is noteworthy that parallel symptoms and birth defects are found in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Iraq—the places where depleted uranium has been used. In each of these places, as with the American veterans, the birth defects now happening rival the birth defects that have been occurring in Chernobyl since its tragic radiation leak.
Complex 2030: Nuclear "Reliable Replacement Warheads"
The Bush administration is seeking Congressional funding for a complete overhaul of existing U.S. nuclear facilities, geared towards producing a "reliable replacement warhead". The stated goal is to return US nuclear weapons production to Cold War capabilities. This is despite the fact that each year the Secretaries of Energy and Defense have certified to the President that the current 10,000 nuclear warheads are "reliable". The project, called Complex 2030 (2030 indicates the date in which it would be complete), would cost $150 billion. Some advocacy for the project is coming from Congress people who are promoting the economic and job potential of the project for their constituents. 10
New and Deadly "Friendly Fire"
All of this—the use of bio-electromagnetic weapons, the use of depleted uranium, the proposed "Complex 2030"—is against international law, various arms control agreements and treaties, and in some cases U.S. military law. Yet the ideology of guaranteed security, as we have called it in our book, provides the rationale by which these technological developments are given complete room to be implemented and used, with almost no questions asked. Policy and norms of justice, respect for the dignity of people, and environmental integrity do not inhibit them. In our view, idolatry is present here. Military technological development seems to veer almost completely out of control, with virtually no constraints. Further, sacrifices are required in order to achieve guaranteed security. How else do we explain the acceptability of these new and far more deadly forms of "friendly fire" against our own youth? I have not even mentioned what is being called the signature wound of the Iraq war, "Traumatic Brain Injury", caused by the effects of improvised explosive devices on the brain, or current intensive developments in the weaponization of space. 11
We have somehow been seduced or tricked by the notion that these developments bring peace and security. The world spends $1 trillion dollars annually on armed forces, while the U.S. government spends 42% of its fiscal budget on military-related matters. 12 It simply cannot be said that insecurity today is due to a lack of military capacity. I am reminded of couples I sometimes see for therapy. Some end up stuck in their marriage because, when something isn't working, they don't know what else to do but to try the same failed approaches over and over again, harder and harder each time.
Global Arms Trade
Consider further five statistics about global arms trade:
- According to the U.S. Congressional Research Service, the five members of the United Nations' Security Council (the United States, Russia, Great Britain, France and China) delivered 86.7% of the world's arms exports in 2004. When other European nations are added, the figure is 93%. 13
- The United States
exports more arms than the rest of the world's
nations combined, often for reasons more economic than strategic.
Weapons manufacturing is its most heavily subsidized industry, after
agriculture. 14
- In 2003, 80% of
the United States' top arms clients in the
developing world (20 of 25) were countries which the United States'
State Department had declared either undemocratic or known for poor
human rights records. 15
- In 1999 the
United States supplied arms to 92% of the world's
conflicts, sometimes to opposing sides. 16
- From 1998 to 2001, the United States, Great Britain and France earned more income from arms sales to developing countries than they gave in aid. 17
The theme I want to draw out is that these developments—new weapons research and development, and global arms trade—have become deeply embedded in our globalized economies. Prior to World War 2, one could still distinguish between a war-time and a peacetime economy. No longer is that the case. Weapons development is now an indispensable, structural component of the economic and industrial growth of the West. That means that developing greater common security is inconceivable without a corresponding drop, however small or large, in the material prosperity of the West. Reducing our dependence on lethal weapons of indiscriminate destruction will slow down economic growth. There can be no sustainable peace without a conscious or deliberate relaxation of our obsession with a constantly increasing GDP. By the same token, making our economies sustainable is inconceivable without a simultaneous commitment to peacebuilding.
A New Shared Vision
But it is precisely here that a new shared vision for common security begins. Just as we have argued in our book that a deliberate choice to slacken the pressure for economic growth, for the sake of others and the environment, could relieve the extraordinary pressures on our economies and bring significant economic benefits, so too choosing to slacken economic growth could have significant benefits for security and peace. This is what we refer to in the last chapter of the book as the rope-ladder principle. A step-by-step turn away from one ideology—the ideology of unending material progress—can help to make possible a turn away from another ideology—the ideology of guaranteed security. That is why I am so enthused about the Honourable John McKay's Bill C-293, the "Development Accountability Act", which requires Canadian aid to go directly to people in need, not diverted to efforts whose purpose in the end is to enhance Canadian economic growth and/or Canadian and NATO security or "vital interests". 18 It is a fundamentally anti-ideological bill, with simultaneous impacts in the direction of economic sustainability and peace.
A new approach to common security therefore involves accepting levels of military vulnerability while at the same time, and in coordination, meeting the needs of people and the environment. A new, non-ideological approach to common security involves gradually decreasing our dependence on weapons of lethal destruction and increasing our ability to meet human and environmental needs. But this should not surprise us. This is precisely what God expected of his people throughout Scripture. God's people were to practice Jubilee, where everything on the margins of society—the poor, the environment, the isolated—is brought back into the centre. Jubilee made the uninterrupted accumulation of wealth impossible. At the same time, and as part of Jubilee, God's people were required to accept military vulnerability, such as a refusal to acquire the most technologically advanced weapon of the day—the horse and chariot. Micah 1:13 calls Israel's acquisition of the horse and chariot "the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion." Today, just as then, doing Jubilee and accepting vulnerability are acts of faith. They require questioning our fundamental commitments. What is the meaning of life? How do we understand safety and prosperity?
The Realism of Peace
This is a realistic approach, because ideologies, in the end, do exhaust themselves. They do not carry the day, even in such places as the Middle East. It is blatantly clear that advanced military technology development and unprecedented military capacity not only do not bring peace but create greater threats. Jesus' statement "Those who live by the sword die by the sword" is a fundamentally realistic and descriptive truth, born out by history, including in the Middle East. Its converse, namely that those who live by peace are given life, is a source of genuine hope. There is also concrete evidence for the truth of this, including in the Middle East and in other war-torn areas of the world today.
Eliminating weapons of lethal destruction and taking a step back from uninterrupted economic expansion is a step of realistic faith — faith that in taking steps down this path of peace and prosperity we will be met at some level by the living God. That is my faith today, and I'm so thankful that it's shared by so many courageous people, here and throughout the world.
ENDNOTES
1. See, for example, John Paul Lederach, Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies (Washington D.C., United States Institute of Peace Press, 1997) as well as his The Journey Towards Reconciliation (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1999) and Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Social Change (New York: University of Oxford Press, 2004). See too Jarem Sawatsky, "Extending the Peacebuilding Timeframe: Revising Lederach's Integrative Framework", Peace Research, vol. 37, #11, May, 2005, pp. 123-130, as well as Mary B. Anderson, Do No Harm: How Aid Can Support Peace — or War (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999).
2. Timothy L. Thomas, "The Mind Has No Firewall", Parameters, Spring 1998, pp. 84-92.
3. See, for example, Bryan Bender, "US Testing Nonlethal Weapons Arsenal For Use In Iraq: Program Fuses High Technology with Psychology", August 5, 2005, Boston Globe; Steven Komarow, "Pentagon Deploys Array of Non-Lethal Weapons", USA Today, July 24, 2005, retrieved at http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-07-24-nonlethalweapons_x.htm; "Electromagnetic Weapons: Come Fry With Me", The Economist, January 30, 2003; Lester Haines, "US fires up crowd-roasting microwave gun: 'Less than lethal' Silent Guardian unveiled", January 25, 2007, The Register, retrieved at http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/25/microwave_weapon; Peter Clarke, "Microwave Beam Weapon Reportedly To Be Deployed in Iraq"; Eetimes Online, Global News for the Creators of Technology, August 21, 2004, retrieved at
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=47900605;
"Star Wars in Iraq", a documentary on the U.S. use of experimental weapons in Iraq, produced by Maurizio Torrealta and Sigfrido Rannuci for Italy's RAI TV; and William Thomas, "Microwaving Iraq with 'Pacifying' Rays", January 26, 2005, retrieved at
http://www.envirosagainstwar.org/know/read.php?itemid=2301.
4. William Thomas, "Microwaving Iraq with 'Pacifying' Rays", p. 1.
5. Ibid, p. 2.
6. As noted in, among other sources, Leuren Moret, "Depleted Uranium: The Trojan Horse of Nuclear War", World Affairs: The Journal of International Issues, July 1, 2004, pp. 9, 14, 15. Some estimates are as high as 2,200 tons used in the Iraq invasion.
7. Ibid, p. 10.
8. Ibid, p. 10. /...15
9. Ibid, p. 10.
10. For more on "Complex 2030", see Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), "U.S. Nuclear Buildup: A Return to MAD?", Washington Newsletter, May 2007, No. 717, pp. 1-8, available at www.fcnl.org. FCNL works tirelessly on Capital Hill, interacting with legislators on various issues, using as a resource its research. The FCNL's outstanding, careful research is taken largely from reports provided by the Congressional Research Office.
11. Some estimate that as many of 30% of U.S. Iraq war veterans suffer from Traumatic Brain Injury. There is currently an intense debate in Poland and the Czech Republic about whether to agree to a U.S. request to serve as installation sites for the planned U.S. missile defense shield.
12. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute notes in its SIPRI Yearbook 2005 (Chapter 8) that 2004 was the first year that world military expenditures exceeded $1 trillion. The U.S. government spending estimate is made by FCNL, and it includes interest payments on past military-specific debt (Friends Committee on National Legislation, Washington Newsletter, March, 2006, No. 705, p. 5). The Newsletter notes:
In total, we estimate the U.S. spent $783 billion in FY05 for past and present military activities. This included funding for the Defense Department, Energy Department nuclear weapons programs, military-related activities of other agencies, foreign military financing and training, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, mandatory spending for military retirement and health care, and the estimated portion on the national debt which can be attributed to past wars and military spending ($170 billion) (p. 5).
13. Richard F. Grimmett, "CRS Report for Congress: Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1997-2004", August 29, 2005, Congressional Research Service, The Library of Congress, p. 82.
14. See Federation of American Scientists, "Fast Facts", p. 1, retrieved online at
http://fas.org/asmp/fast_facts.htm#WorldMilitaryExpenditures, as well as the Federation's "Eliminating Taxpayer Subsidies for Arms Sales", retrieved at http://fas.org/asmp/campaigns/subsidy.html. Arms trade is typically exempt from free trade agreements. In its report "Arms Trade Insider", The Council for A Livable World has identified a process whereby arms procurement and arms exports are driving each other upwards — in other words, a process whereby the United States is in an arms race with itself. The report notes that after, and occasionally even before, new weapons roll off the assembly line, they are offered to foreign customers. Each overseas sale of top-line U.S. combat equipment represents an incremental decrease in U.S. military superiority. This gradual decline in military strength spurs politicians, the military and the defense industry to press for higher military spending to procure increasingly sophisticated equipment superior to weapons shipped overseas. This latest technology is again offered to foreign customers, and the cycle begins anew. (#51, August 9, 2001, as noted in Anup Shah, "The Arms Trade is Big Business", retrieved at
http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrade/BigBusiness.asp#GeopoliticalandEconomicAgendas).
15. Frida Berrigan and William D. Hartung, with Leslie Heffel, World Policy Institute, "U.S. Weapons at War 2005: Promoting Freedom or Fueling Conflict?", June, 2005, p. 2, retrieved at http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/wawjune2005.html.
16. Federation of American Scientists, "Fast Facts", p. 1. In 2003 the figure was 72% (Frida Berrigan and William D. Hartung, "U.S. Weapons at War 2005", p. 2). In "Globalized Weaponry", Tamar Gabelnick and Anna Rich note that "profit motives in the military industry have resulted in arms export decisions that contravene such U.S policy goals as preserving stability and promoting human rights and democracy (Foreign Policy in Focus, Vol. 5, #16, June 2000, p. 3), retrieved at
The practice of "arming the enemy" has intensified after the events of September 11, 2001. Arms trade export barriers have been relaxed in order to help arm countries in the fight against terrorism. Arms trade restrictions were lifted with both Pakistan and India, for example, both of whom possess nuclear weapons, and each of whom has careened perilously close to war with the other. The U.S. Ambassador to India was positively gushing over the new markets open to American arms manufacturers as a result of this relaxation. As another example, after September 11, 2001, Congress permitted arms sales to Azerbaijan despite the fact that it was at war with Armenia. To "balance" this, it also sold military aid to Armenia.
17. As noted in a report entitled "The Arms Industry" by Control Arms, retrieved at
18. See "Bill C-293 General Backgrounder Briefing Note", retrieved at