The increase in Georgia’s military expenditure reached 140%; $148 million were spent on arms and equipment. Perhaps the Georgian government could have better off spending the funds on something else, say, on wineries. Investing in winemaking could have improved the quality of Georgian wine. But that is beside the point. The SIPRI yearbook reminds the reader of a longstanding dilemma: which one of the two is more important – guns or butter?
Potential success in implementing Georgia’s economic and social policies could have reasoned South Ossetia and Abkhazia out of pursuing independence.
The reader may develop curiosity for a similar issue as he looks through the yearbook. According to the liberal school of the theory of international relations, an arms race is a ruinous thing. The money allocated for arms might as well be spent on things of more vital importance. But neither industrially developed countries nor developing nations are willing to value butter higher than guns.
The situation might result in a conclusion about the world’s strongest economies e.g. the U.S. having to spend millions on defense because they have nothing else to spend the money on, as though all social problems have been already solved. However, the facts prove the opposite. The so-called war on terror can hardly justify such a level of military expenditure. The huge military budgets have to do with fighting the consequences, the cause is left out.
The present-day world is undoubtedly rife with most different challenges and dangers. The governments spend an enormous amount of money in an attempt to prevent those dangers. By all appearances, aside from symbolizing power in today’s world, arms and military force is also a tool of putting psychological pressure. The psychological pressure sometimes misfires. Georgia’s foreign policy is one of the examples of missing the target
No comments:
Post a Comment