November 2004 NewsNotes

NewsNotes is a monthly email update of goings-on at ECAAR. In it you will find information on current projects, announcements of upcoming events and publications, and an action corner. We would like to include information on what our members are doing. If you would like to submit information about an event or publication that you are involved with, please send an email to theaharvey@ecaar.org. (The fine print - we reserve the right to edit submissions for space or content.)

* The Fall issue of ECAAR NewsNetwork will be in the mail later this month. This issue includes the following articles, as well as announcements about our sessions and events at the ASSA meetings in January. You can read individual articles at the links below.

* ECAAR is expanding our presence at the ASSA/AEA meetings this year. Our session topics are The Abuse of Power and The Economics of Space Weapons. In addition to our usual two sessions, we are co-sponsoring a session with URPE/AEA on The Political Economy of Military Spending . For details on presenters, times and locations see http://www.ecaar.org/Events/aea2005.htm.

For the past two years ECAAR has had an "association table" near the registration booths. This year we are adding a booth in the exhibit hall. Please stop by to find out more about our activities, to renew your membership, to find information about our sessions, or just to say hi. We will be in Booth B125

The ECAAR annual dinner this year honors Trustee Robert M. Solow. It will take place on Saturday, January 8, 2005 in the Philadelphia Marriott, Liberty A Ballroom. The evening will begin with a reception at 7:00pm, followed by dinner at 7:30pm. Dr Solow will speak on, "Last Thoughts on Investment and Growth." All current ECAAR members will receive an invitation. If you are not a member and would like to receive an invitation, please e-mail catcohen@ecaar.org.

* Economistas por La Paz y La Seguridad offers a section of their website with papers on economics, peace and security. Included in this section is a new Spanish translation of James K. Galbraith's "Tiempos prósperos para la industria armamentística" http://www.eumed.net/paz/tepys/Galbraith-prosp.htm. EPS is also looking for people to translate economics, peace and security texts (like the ECAAR newsletter) into Spanish. Please contact http://www.eumed.net/paz/voluntarios.htm to volunteer. To read the original English of Dr. Galbraith's article, Boom Times for War Inc. please go to http://www.ecaar.org/Articles/galbraith.htm.

* The 31st annual Eastern Economic Association Conference will be held March 4-6 in New York, NY, at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers. ECAAR is will be hosting a session Saturday, March 5th, at 11:00am, on The Costs of War. The presenters will be:

* Four presentations given in Sydney in April, at the symposium on "Natural Resources and Conflict," will be published in the Policy Dialogue section of the Pacific Economic Bulletin, the academic journal published by the Australian National University. The authors are Graham Hassall, Glenn Banks, Rowan Callick and Steve Darvill. They will be published in the first issue of 2005, i.e. volume 20, number 1 of the PEB. Dr. David Throsby, the Chair of ECAAR-Australia, will write an introduction that will address the media aspects of the symposium.

The Pacific Economic Bulletin's website is http://peb.anu.edu.au/. It is a subscription journal, but Policy Dialogue articles are available for free download. This journal has wide circulation in S.E. Asia, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific, and is regarded as the authoritative scholarly voice on economic matters affecting the region. It has strong penetration in policy circles.

* ECAAR contributed an active presence at the annual conference of the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE), in Rethymno, Crete, Greece, October 28 - 31. This year marked the first official ECAAR participation at this important conference.

Dr. Michael D. Intriligator, Vice Chair of ECAAR's Board of Directors, gave a keynote address at the first plenary session. His talk was entitled "Globalization of the World Economy: Potential Benefits and Costs and a Net Assessment."

Wolfram Elsner, chair of ECAAR- Germany, chaired two panel sessions during the conference on "The Political Economy of War, Peace and (Dis)Armament, and Arms Industries and Conversion." The first included papers by ECAAR members Clark Abt (Countering Global Terrorist Use of Biological and Nuclear Weapons by Civil Means) and Christos Kollias (The Effects of External Security Related Shocks on Financial Markets).

The second panel session included papers by the Chair of ECAAR-UK, Paul Dunne on "The Evolution of the International Arms Industries," ECAAR member Fanny Coulomb on "The Concept of Economic War," members Claude Serfati and Luc Mampaey on "The Alliance between the Arms Industry and the Financial Markets at the Turn of the Century," and Board member Lucy Law Webster's paper on "Overcoming War and Empire by Incentivizing Justice."

Next year's conference will be held at the University of Bremen in Bremen, Germany (see call for papers below). We hope that this year's extensive ECAAR presence can be reproduced in 2005. If you are interested in participating, please contact Wolfram Elsner at welsner@uni-bremen.de.

* Wolfram Elsner, chair of ECAAR-Germany, invites you to organize a session at the 2005 EAEPE conference in Bremen, Germany. The European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE) offers an important pluralist international discussion forum for heterodox economists and issues in a broad sense, and in terms of its membership it represents one of the biggest economics associations in Europe. In preparation for the 2005 annual meetings, the EAEPE Council has decided to make this event a broad international discussion forum and to invite guest associations and initiatives from a widely varied political-economic spectrum to contribute their own themes, sessions and panels. EAEPE's Scientific Committee will be glad to consider your suggestions for the final programme.

The title of next year's meetings is A New Deal for the New Economy? Global and Local Developments, and New Institutional Arrangements. The globalization of production is accompanied by an increasing fragmentation of the value-added chains. These changes may provide opportunities for development and improvements in overall economic well-being. Innovative activities play a key role to realize this potential. On the other hand these transformations bear increasing risks for conflict, interventionism and even terrorism as a result of worsening global inequalities. Different forms of socio-economic coordination and cooperation problems require the development of coordinating and conflict-mediating institutional arrangements. The EAEPE Conference 2005 will offer a forum for discussing these topics. Please contact Dr. Elsner by telephone at +49-421-218-7535, or email welsner@uni-bremen.de for more information.

*LINKS*

* Sometimes revisiting the writings of the past can inform the present. President Dwight D. Eisenhower suggested that the following questions should always be considered in making military policy decisions: "Does it or does it not tend to sustain our economy; to provide needed military strength; to increase our understanding of others or others' understanding of us? Does it give us a more secure position internationally? Does it promise to preserve and nurture love of liberty and self-dependence among our people? Does it improve our health and our living standards? Does it insure to our children the kind of nation and government we have known?"

And he went on to say, "If proposed laws and policies are described as mere battle grounds on which individuals or parties seeking political power suffer defeat or achieve victory, then indeed is the American system distorted for us and for the world. If the fortunes of the individual supporting or opposing a measure become, in our public accounts, as important as the principle or purpose of the project and its effect upon the Nation - then indeed are we failing to develop the strength that understanding brings. If the day comes when personal conflicts are more significant than honest debate on great policy, then the flame of freedom will flicker low indeed..."

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=10217&st=&st1=

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* Security Policy Working Group presented a forum on October 19th, on "The Effect of Recent Military Operations on America's Armed Forces." Speakers included Lawrence Korb from the Center for American Progress, James Fallows from The Atlantic Magazine, Pat Towell from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, Col. Douglas MacGregor (ret.) and others. The event was broadcast on C-SPAN Foreign Policy Live. More information at http://www.ecaar.org/Newsletter/Nov04/spwg.htm.

* The National Priorities Project, a Security Policy Working Group partner of ECAAR, has a new interactive report on The Cost of War by State and City, recently released with the Center for American Progress. The report also contrasts this money with the money received by each state for No Child Left Behind and Homeland Security. You can check out the cost of the war for your city; it may surprise you. The report can be found at http://www.nationalpriorities.org/maps/index.html.

* In all the pre-election hullabaloo, a Bush Administration plan to ask for an additional $70 billion in emergency funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan early next year, reported in the Washington Post on October 26th, failed to catch national attention. If approved, the new funding would bring the total cost close to $225 billion. The new numbers "underscore that the [Iraq] war is going to be far more costly and intense, and last longer, than the administration first suggested." http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62554-2004Oct25?language=printer

* id21News of October 2004 features Guest Editor, Jane Chanaa of Oxfam-Great Britain. Her topic is Buying Arms; Selling Lives: Critical Roles in Arms Control. (http://www.id21.org/id21-info/GuestEds/ChanaaOct04.html) The world spends US$ 900 billion on defense each year, but only around US$ 50 billion on development aid. Across Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East, an average of US$ 22 billion is spent annually on arms. This sum would enable those regions to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of achieving universal primary education and reducing infant and maternal mortality. Instead one child in five does not complete primary school, more than 10 million children die each year, and half a million women die in pregnancy or childbirth. id21 Guest Editor Jane Chanaa points to the crucial roles that development organizations and exporter and importer states must play in halting the negative impact of arms deals on development. This issue includes articles on:

To view the June 2004 issue of Insights, also published by id21, guest edited by ECAAR Board member Richard Jolly and including contributions from ECAAR Trustee Oscar Arias and Director, Kate Cell, visit http://www.id21.org/insights/insights50/index.html

* Foreign Policy In Focus recently released a new Policy Brief, Missile Defense All Over Again, by Michelle Ciarrocca. The Bush administration remains determined to deploy a national missile defense (NMD) despite its continued technical failures. Five interceptors have already been installed in Alaska and exercises have begun in order to make the system capable of going on alert by the end of 2004. Deployment of the NMD system will continue to weaken nonproliferation efforts while failing to improve the security of Americans - the most likely delivery vehicle for a weapon of mass destruction remains a suitcase or other non-missile delivery system.

But as analyst Michelle Ciarrocca notes, "the Bush administration remains committed to pursuing missile defense over multilateral arms control and disarmament. President Bush recently said that those opposing missile defense "don't understand the threats of the 21st century." "They're living in the past. We're living in the future," he told a crowd of Boeing employees in Pennsylvania. However, deploying a missile defense system dreamt up over two decades ago simply shows that we have not learned from the past. This is the challenge facing architects of a security policy adequate to the needs of the 21st century. Increasing funding for nonproliferation programs, getting U.S. nuclear weapons reductions back on track, and focusing on diplomatic disarmament efforts will provide real, lasting security."

* In a related article from the Nov. 13th Washington Post, the reelection of President Bush is pushing the Canadian government toward a decision it had hoped to avoid: whether to join a new U.S. system designed to shoot down any missile headed for North America. "Off Canada's northwest shoulder, the United States already is lowering five-story interceptor missiles into silos in Alaska to start the experimental and controversial missile defense system that Bush has championed. His administration has made clear it would like Canada to be part of the project.

"But a new opinion poll released this month showed 52 percent of people surveyed were opposed to the plan, and antipathy here to Bush was intensified by the contentious U.S. election. Opposition from Canada's splintered political
parties has also given Prime Minister Paul Martin's government, already operating with a minority in the parliament, serious pause about promoting missile defense."

Last year, ECAAR distributed our report "The Full Costs of Ballistic Missile Defense," which predicted costs of over $1 trillion, to public policy makers in Canada. Apparently our concerns, along with other opponents' of the system, are being heard, as the article goes on to say, "Opponents echo the complaints of critics in the United States, arguing that the missile defense system is unproven, technologically difficult, hugely expensive and based on an outdated assumption that an attack will come in the form of an airborne missile. In addition, critics here say the system undermines Canada's preference for multinational teamwork and agreements over weapons and defense machinery."

* The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation sponsors scholarly research on problems of violence, aggression, and dominance. The foundation provides both research grants to established scholars and dissertation fellowships to graduate students during the dissertation-writing year.

The foundation awards research grants to individuals for individual projects and does not award grants to institutions for institutional programs. Typically, the range for research grants is $15,000 to $30,000 a year, for a period of one to two years. The foundation welcomes proposals from any of the natural and social sciences and the humanities that promise to increase the understanding of the causes, manifestations, and control of violence, aggression, and dominance. Applications must be received by August 1 for a decision in December.

Ten or more dissertation fellowships of $10,000 each are awarded annually to individuals who plan to complete their dissertations by the end of the year. The fellowships are designed to contribute to the support of doctoral candidates in the final year of Ph.D. work so that they can complete their theses in a timely manner. Applications must be received by February 1 for a decision in June.

Visit the foundation's Web site for specific program details and application guidelines. http://www.hfg.org/ or contact The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation at 557 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10022. Tel: (212) 644-4907

* ECAAR is pleased to announce the release of the first in a series of Fact Sheets. This first issue presents an overview of Military vs. Social Spending: Warfare or Human Welfare. The fact sheet compares US and global military spending with the costs of achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals in an accessible, graphic format. The fact sheet, which was compiled and designed by ECAAR's Project Manager, Paul Burkholder, is available in PDF format at http://www.ecaar.org/factsheets/milexMDG.pdf

* The ECAAR Review 2003. Titled "Conflict or Development?" this edition has a regional focus on Africa, the site of most of the world's current armed conflicts. In its pages some of the leading economists of the day analyze and reflect on the relationships among military spending, domestic and foreign policy, security, and human welfare. Features include country studies and sections on business and conflict and "Trends in World Military Expenditure." Written in clear English, with informative maps, tables, and graphs, the series is designed to inform the debate among policymakers, activists, journalists, academics, students, and citizens worldwide.

You can order the Review at http://www.ecaar.org/Review_files/order.htm

We believe the Review can be a valuable teaching tool in economics, political science, and international relations courses. If you are interested in teaching this book, please contact Kate Cell (katecell@ecaar.org) for a copy to review.

* "The Full Cost of Ballistic Missile Defense" The study estimates that the total life-cycle cost for a layered missile defense system could reach $1.2 trillion through 2035. You can order a copy of the report from the co-sponsor of the study, http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/nmd/fullcost.html, or download the PDF file from http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/nmd/fullcost.pdf.

* As early as this week, the full Senate Appropriations Committee may vote on whether to fund new nuclear weapons for fiscal year 2005. The committee is expected to take up an "omnibus" appropriations bill, which would take the place of the unfinished appropriations bills and is expected to include funding for the nuclear weapons program. The Bush administration has asked Congress for $27.6 million to continue a study on the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP), or nuclear "bunker buster," and $9 million for the Advanced Concepts Initiative for new nuclear weapons.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (CA) intends to offer an amendment in committee to delete the funds for new nuclear weapons. The amendment is unlikely to pass. However, the bill will then quickly go to a House-Senate conference committee, which is expected to complete its work before Christmas. The House earlier zeroed out new nuclear weapons funding and may insist on doing so in conference committee. A partial or complete victory for nuclear restraint is possible in the final bill coming out of the conference committee. The result will depend in part on how much opposition Senate Appropriations Committee members hear from their constituents.

If you would like to contact your Congressional Representative to let them know that you think funding for new nuclear weapons is a bad idea, or that new nuclear weapons will not make the world more secure, follow the link below to easily send an email or fax. Start with the sample letter posted on the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) Legislative Action Center, personalize the language, then send your message directly from the site. http://capwiz.com/fconl/issues/alert/?alertid=6631026&type=CO

* Anyone who would be willing to put an ECAAR flyer up on a departmental bulletin board or similar venue, please contact Thea Harvey, Development Manager at theaharvey@ecaar.org.

* November 19. 2004. The Study Group on the Economics of Security in the Post-9/11 World presents Winslow Wheeler to discuss his new book, "The Wastrels of Defense: How Congress Sabotages U. S. Security" (Naval Institute Press, 2004). Mr. Wheeler is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Center for Defense Information in Washington who spent 30 years working on Capital Hill, on the staffs of both Democratic and Republican Senators, and for the General Accounting Office. He was recently on 60 Minutes (October 31, 2004), commenting on equipment deficiencies for US military personnel in Iraq. The Study Group will meet at 66 Fifth Ave. (between 12th and 13th),
Room 720, New York City at 2pm for coffee and snacks. The presentation will begin at 2:30. RSVP to Frida Berrigan, berrigaf@newschool.edu

* November 21, 2004, 3:30 to 5:30pm. Professor Johan Galtung, founder of the discipline of Peace Studies and Director of TRANSCEND: A Peace and Development Network, will deliver the Gita and Tulsi Savani Lecture on "Gandhi, Nonviolence and Contemporary Conflicts: Washington, Al-Qaeda and Kashmir" at The Ahimsa Center in Pomona, California. The event is free, but please RSVP as space is limited. http://www.csupomona.edu/~ahimsacenter/home.html

* November 22-26, 2004. Peacebuilding, Conflict Transformation & Post War Reconstruction and Resolution. A Five-Day International Training Programme for Practitioners, Policy Makers, International and National Agency Staff and NGOs working in peacebuilding, conflict transformation and post-war recovery, at the Romanian Peace Institute in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Sponsored by TRANSCEND and PATRIR. Cost €450 - €750. http://www.transcend.org/tpu/courses.shtml.

* November 23, 2004, 9:30am to 5:30pm. Professor Johan Galtung will lead an all-day (six-hour) workshop on "Peaceful Conflict Transformation: The Transcend Approach" at The Ahimsa Center in Pomona, California. Registration is required. http://www.csupomona.edu/~ahimsacenter/home.html

* Nov. 29-Dec. 3, 2004. Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons annual meeting. The Hague, Netherlands http://www.opcw.org/

* December 3, 2004. The Center on Terrorism at John Jay College presents a seminar on The Second Nuclear Age: Nuclear Weapons * The New Terrorism * The Culture of Fear from 9:00am to 6:00pm, at the CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street, New York City. Registration is by phone at (212) 817-8215. For more information visit http://www.jjay.cuny.edu/terrorism/

* December 10, 2004. The Study Group on the Economics of Security in the Post-9/11 World presents Mia Bloom from the University of Cincinnati, whose book, "Dying to Kill: The Global Phenomenon of Suicide Terror," will be published by Columbia University Press in 2005. She will talk about her research. 66 Fifth Ave., Room 720, New York City, at 2:00pm.

* December 17-19, 2004. The Global Reconciliation Network hosts Towards Harmony: Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation, a meeting to address issues concerning the sources of conflict that arise out of the action of global processes, such the operation of the World Economic Forum and the World Social Forum, in New Delhi, India. Themes to be addressed at the meeting will include the following: local conditions of conflict and possibilities for cross-cultural dialogues within specific communities; local rights to the use of resources versus the conditions imposed by the globalized economy; community rights to environmental self determination as opposed to the sovereign rights of states; the concept of, and the possibilities for, “multiculturalism” in Western and non-Western societies; perceptions of the West from non-Western societies, and vice versa; the ethics of terrorism and responses to it; and the possibilities for civil society based movements for global cooperation and conflict resolution. Participants will address a range of issues relating to regional and international conflicts, and strategies based on action within local communities to promote reconciliation. Participants will include people working in India itself in this field, including representatives of academic institutions and community based organizations, and international contributors with experience in both theoretical and practical aspects of these issues. For more information visit http://globalreconciliationnetwork.org, or register online at http://www.idealist.org/en/events/102917:48/87161:202

* January 7-9, 2005. The annual meetings of the Allied Social Sciences Associations (ASSA) and the American Economics Association (AEA) in Philadelphia, PA. For more information, see http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AEA/anmt.htm .

* January 11- 21, 2005. Economists for Peace and Security-Spain have organized the First Virtual International Meeting on Economia de la Paz y la Seguridad. The meeting will be conducted via the internet, entirely in Spanish. Additional information and call for papers are at http://www.eumed.net/eve/.

* January 21, 2005. The Study Group on the Economics of Security in the Post-9/11 World at .66 W 12th; Room 510, New York City at 2:00pm. Study Group co-chairs Bill Hartung and David Gold will speak on the prospects for the defense budget in a second Bush Administration.

* March 4-6, 2005. The 31st annual Eastern Economic Association Conference will be held in New York City. Conference program and other information is available at http://www.iona.edu/eea .

* If you are considering buying a book online, please take a look at WhatWeGive.com (http://www.whatwegive.com/). They have tens of thousands of titles available at a discount to you, and ECAAR receives twenty percent of your purchase price. After you check out, a pop up window will ask for information about the organization to which you wish your donation to go. Enter Organizational Account # 32 and "Economists Allied for Arms Reduction" in the organization field, and your purchase will be credited to our account.

* Please consider becoming a member of ECAAR. Your annual membership entitles you to discounts on publications, invitations to events, our informative newsletters, and more. Most importantly, by joining us you help to ensure that reasoned perspectives on essential economic issues will continue to be heard. Membership dues and other donations are fully tax-deductible. Visit http://www.ecaar.org/Membership.htm for more information.

* If you have enjoyed this issue of ECAAR NewsNotes, or if you wish to support our mission, please consider making a donation to ECAAR. You can do so securely online through our website at https://www.chi-cash-advance.com/sforms/appeal196/contribute.asp or by sending a check to ECAAR, 39 E. Central Ave., Suite One, Pearl River, NY 10965. If you have any questions call (845) 620-1542, or email ecaar@ecaar.org.