ABSTRACT: The lead article in "the Economist" of 18 January 1991, entitled "The Futility of War", contained the following statement: "Despite all their military strength, the Serbs have obtained more of a defeat than a victory." Andrč Fontaine, in "Le Monde" of 24 January, wrote as follows: "'The day when Germany is re-united - said Georges Pompidou, who believed such an event to be inevitable - we will be glad to have our little bomb'; we still have to ask ourselves whether the new-found power of Germany and Japan is partly due to the fact that they do not possess the little bomb in question."

(THE PARTY NEW - N. 5 - FEBRUARY 1992)

These observations help us to reflect on the role of armies in the modern world. Do they still serve a purpose? Or rather, do they not end up by destroying that which they should defend: the security of society?

The Serbian lesson is undoubtedly important for all the new States in Eastern and Central Europe which now have to administrate public affairs on the basis of new rules and new situations. As we know, the first signals from the Republics of the Commonwealth of Independent States are hardly encouraging: we need only think of the insistent attempt by the Ukrainian government to take possession of the Black Sea fleet, and the ambiguous position of the Ukraine itself (and also of Belorussia and Kazhakistan) with regard to nuclear weapons. Any reasonable person must wonder why on earth a relatively poor country, with a whole range of urgent problems to face, should need a military fleet as large as that of France - a fleet that is trapped, moreover, in a lake (the Black Sea) within another lake (the Mediterranean). It is vital that the leaders of these countries reflect on the history of the post-war years, a history which clearly shows that the wealth of a nation is related inversely to its military strength. Th

e first and most striking example is the ex-Soviet Union, right on their own doorstep. There are many reasons for its dissolution, and I do not intend to deal with them here in a superficial manner. However, it would be absurd to deny that the fact that one-fifth of the national product was devoted to military spending - inevitably the most unproductive field - contributed to a large degree to the ruin of a country rich in human and material resources.

The lesson is also clear in the Western world. The countries that have invested most in the military sector, that is the United States and Great Britain (with an average of 5-10% of GNP in the post-war period), have come out badly from economic competition with Germany and Japan (which devote 3% and 1% of GNP respectively to military spending):the very countries, that is, which were defeated by the United States and Great Britain in the Second World War, and which were forced to put severe limits on their military spending. The consequence is only apparently paradoxical: losing wars is better than winning them (as in the Yugoslavian case), especially if the conflicts are followed by measures which concentrate resources on the civilian sector of the economy.

The effect of the distortion produced by excessive military spending is actually much wider than the economic statistics show. One crucial point, for example, is scientific research: in the United States and Great Britain, about 50% of funds for research are absorbed by the military forces. u2e. In Germany and Japan, on the other hand, research is concentrated in civilian sectors. The result is that they are able to use scientific discoveries for the development of products for the international civilian markets much more quickly than their competitors. Further proof is given by the Soviet Union: a country with a vast number of brilliant engineers and scientists, yet structurally incapable of meeting the primary needs of its own people.