| THE WORLD REVOLUTION | |
| Introduction
to Global Issues
PEACE, WAR & CONFLICT
Small Arms & Light Weapons
Human security is under increasing threat from the spread of small arms and light weapons and their illegal trade. They have devastated many societies and caused incalculable human suffering. They continue to pose an enormous humanitarian challenge, particularly in internal conflicts where insurgent militias fight against government forces. In these conflicts, a high proportion of the casualties are civilians who are the deliberate targets of violence — a gross violation of international humanitarian law. This has led to millions of deaths and injuries, the displacement of populations, and suffering and insecurity around the world. UN Conference Brochure - Illicit trade in Small Arms, 2001
Nuclear Weapons
Despite the end of the Cold War, some 5,000 nuclear weapons are on hair-trigger alert, ready to be launched on a few minutes notice. A typical modern 150-kiloton hydrogen bomb could cause somewhere between 736,000 and 8,660,000 deaths, depending on the population density of the target city. International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War Nuclear Spending Since 1940, the United States has spent almost $5.5 trillion on nuclear weapons and weapons-related programs. The amount spent through 1996 is 29 percent of all military spending from 1940 through 1996. This figure exceeds all other categories of government spending except nonnuclear national defense and social security. Stephen Schwarz, Brookings Institution, Atomic Audit: 1940-1996. Nuclear Testing Since 1945, there have been 2,046 tests worldwide, about one nuclear test every nine days for the last fifty-one years. Wherever nuclear weapons testing has occurred for whatever reasons there have been environmental problems. Radioactivity has leaked into the environment from underground nuclear tests, large areas of land are uninhabitable as a result of atmospheric and underground nuclear testing, and indigenous people, their children and their children's children's health and livelihoods have been affected by nuclear weapons tests. Greenpeace
Military Spending
Source: United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Report, The State of the World's Children, 1999. World Bank, World Development Indicators, 1998. 49% of all federal tax revenues go towards current or past military costs. Source: Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 1999.
War & Conflict  Since
the end of the Second World War in 1945 there have been over 250 major
wars in which over 23 million people have been killed, tens of millions
made homeless, and countless millions injured and bereaved.
In the history of warfare the twentieth century stands out as the bloodiest and most brutal - three times more people have been killed in wars in the last ninety years than in all the previous five hundred War: An Overview, Peace Pledge Union
One year into the new millennium the world still wrestles with a welter of problems left over from the 20th century. There are still more than three dozen major active conflicts (those with over 1,000 casualties, both military and civilian) in the world. Center for Defence Information, The Defence Monitor In armed
conflicts since 1945, 90 per cent of casualties have been civilians
compared to 50 per cent in the Second World War and 10 per cent in the
First. 3 out of
4 fatalities of war are women and children. War
and internal conflicts in the 1990s forced 50 million people to flee
their homes.
Children and War
In the past decade, around 2 million children have been killed in armed conflict, three times as many have been seriously injured or permanently disabled, and countless others have been forced to witness or even to take part in horrifying acts of violence. Graca Michel, Impact of Armed Conflict on Children, UNICEF In the wars of the last
decade, more children were killed than soldiers. Child victims of war
include an estimated 2 million killed, 4 to 5 million disabled, 12
million left homeless, and more than 1 million orphaned.
Child Soldiers
Human Rights Watch While most child soldiers are aged between 15 and 18, many are recruited from the age of 10 and sometimes even younger. Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers
Landmines
Adopt-a-Minefield (www.landmines.org)
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More
than 500 million small arms and light weapons are in circulation around
the world – one for about every 12 people. They were the weapons
of choice in 46 out of 49 major conflicts since 1990, causing four
million deaths – about 90 per cent of them civilians, and 80 per cent
women and children.
The
threat of nuclear weapons has been a fact of life on earth for more than
half of the 20th century. The size of nuclear arsenals worldwide peaked
in the 1980s and remains at approximately 30,000 warheads today,
including strategic and tactical weapons. The sophistication of the
science and the political dependence on the doctrine of deterrence --
the threat of "mutually assured destruction" as a strategy for
security -- have both increased steadily since 1945.
Current
global military spending has reached $781 billion annually; more than
the total income of the poorest 45% of the global population.
Millions
of children are caught up in conflicts in which they are not merely
bystanders, but targets. Some fall victim to a general onslaught against
civilians; others die as part of a calculated genocide. Still other
children suffer the effects of sexual violence or the multiple
deprivations of armed conflict that expose them to hunger or disease.
Just as shocking, thousands of young people are cynically exploited as
combatants.
In
dozens of countries around the world, children have become direct
participants in war. Denied a childhood and often subjected to horrific
violence, some 300,000 children are serving as soldiers in current armed
conflicts. These young combatants participate in all aspects of
contemporary warfare. They wield AK-47s and M-16s on the front lines of
combat, serve as human mine detectors, participate in suicide missions,
carry supplies, and act as spies, messengers or lookouts. Child
soldiers are being used in more than thirty countries around the
world. Because of their immaturity and lack of experience, child
soldiers suffer higher casualties than their adult counterparts.