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BUDDHA: Military Strength in the Modern World


Catching up with some oldies from Mr Wood.

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Military survey: U.S. remains strongest, Russia declining

LONDON (Oct 9, 1996 09:48 a.m. EDT) -- The United States remains the
strongest military power in the world, despite military cutbacks, and
Russia's military capabilities continue to decline, the International
Institute for Strategic Studies said today in its annual survey.

Since 1992, Russian military spending has fallen by about 45 percent to
around $82 billion, it said.  But despite economic difficulties and its
decline from military superpower status, Russia continues to spend more
on its armed forces than any country except the United States.

"The Russians are making a great effort to keep themselves out there,
so to speak, on the world stage in certain key areas" including naval
power and nuclear readiness, the institute's deputy director, Rose
Gottemoeller, told a news conference.

The institute reported no new Russian military trends following
President Boris Yeltsin's election to a second term in July. But, it
concluded, "the decline in capability in all departments of the Russian
armed forces seems set to continue."

Gottemoeller said the possible theft and black market sale of nuclear
materials remains "a very grave worry," but the theft of conventional
weapons poses an even greater threat. The weapons are being stolen from
Russian military depots by poorly paid soldiers who sell them to local
mafia groups as well as abroad, especially in Afghanistan, she said.

In contrast to Russia, the United States is pushing ahead with plans to
secure the capability to fight two major regional conflicts at once,
and expects to improve its ability to rapidly deploy forces outside the
country the institute said.

It said major military developments of the past year included deploying
NATO-led peacekeeping troops to Bosnia and a renewed U.S. commitment to
military alliances in the Asia-Pacific region with Japan, Australia and
New Zealand.

Washington also showed a commitment to Taiwan by deploying carriers
when tensions with China heightened before Taiwan's presidential
election in March, it said.

"In the Middle East and the gulf, military threats to peace remain,
further complicated by increasing terrorism," the report said. "In
Africa, ethnic conflict and banditry continue to claim many hundreds of
lives."

John Chipman, the institute's director, said the greatest threat of
conflict in the coming year was in the Middle East "unless there is
some appreciable forward movement in the
... peace process."

While political control over the military is increasing in the
Caribbean and Latin America, "stability in a number of countries is
threatened by ethnic unrest and rising violent crime -- associated,
principally, with the drugs trade and the ready availability of light
weapons," the report said.

With few exceptions, the past year has not been good for U.N.
peacekeeping, mainly because of lack of funding "and the intractability
of the situations" they faced, it said.

The deployment of NATO forces in Bosnia indicated that forming military
coalitions "for large-scale operations inspires a greater readiness to
commit resources than those under direct U.N. command."

The warming of East-West relations in the late 1980s, followed by the
end of the Cold War, led to major cuts in defense spending and a
decline in international arms trade.  But the big declines appear to be
ending, the report said.

After a sharp decline in conventional arms sales between 1990 and 1992,
sales are now averaging about $30 billion annually worldwide, the
survey said.

Three-quarters of the decline in arms sales has been in the former
Soviet empire, it said.

"The U.S. has become the dominant supplier, taking over half the market
and exporting arms worth over $15 billion each year since 1992," the
institute said.

Five other countries -- France, Russia, Britain, Germany and China --
export over $1 billion in arms annually and along with the United
States account for 80 percent to 90 percent by value of the
international arms trade, it said.

Spending on military equipment in East Asia and the Australia-Pacific
region is still increasing, although the survey reported signs of a
slowdown in 1996.

The Middle East remains the largest global arms market, even though
defense spending in the region fell by 3 percent in 1995, it said.

Saudi Arabia was once again the world's largest importer of military
equipment, with purchases of more than $8 billion in 1995.

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