The second Australasian Conference on Security, Peace Economics and Peace Science will be held July 25 – 26, 2008 in Sydney, Australia.

The meeting is being organized by EPS-Australia, Peace Science Security (International), the University of Western Sydney, Macquarie University of Sydney, and Binghamton University. More information on the conference can be found at http://www.efs.mq.edu.au/efs_news_and_events/announcements_listing/
conference_on_economics _and_politics_of_war_and_peace

Featured speakers include: Prof. Jurgen Brauer, Augusta State University; Prof. Steve Chan, University of Colorado; and Prof. Michael Intriligator, UCLA.

The Isaac Roet Prize is an international essay contest about the promotion of world peace through economic interaction. Students from all economic faculties at universities around the globe are invited to participate and to write an essay on the theme of the 2008 edition of the essay competition, Resource access and world peace; policies to promote global stability in view of growing scarcity of non-renewable natural resources.

A prize of Euro 5,000 will be awarded for the best essay on this subject. Deadline for submissions is December 31, 2008. The maximum length of the essay is 10,000 words. Submitted essays must be unpublished. Only essays written in the English language may be submitted to the competition. The participant must not have passed his/her Master's degree (or the equivalent thereof) before January 1, 2008.

Details on the competition can be found on www.roetprize.org or www.peaceprize.org

Call for papers: The European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE) will convene its next conference in Rome, November 6 – November 8, 2008 on “Labor, Institutions and Growth in a Global Knowledge Economy.” More information about the conference can be found at http://eaepe2008.eco.uniroma3.it/index.php/eaepe/

EPS member Claude Serfati is the coordinator of the Research Area “Political economy of peace, war and arms industries.” He is organizing a session on related topics. Persons interested in participating should submit an abstract to him as soon as possible, at Claude.Serfati@c3ed.uvsq.fr.

Copies of Bill Hartung and Miriam Pemberton's new work, Lessons from Iraq, Avoiding the Next War are available for review for those who wish to use the book as a teaching tool.

Institute for Policy Studies Research Fellow Miriam Pemberton and EPS Fellow William D. Hartung have asked the experts to boil the lessons of the war down for the rest of us.  The authors include The Three Trillion Dollar War co-authors Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, pre-war UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, and National Book Award winner Frances Fitzgerald.

More information on the book can be found at http://www.paradigmpublishers.com/books/BookDetail.aspx?productID=180338

Those who wish to receive a review copy may email Miriam Pemberton at miriam@ips-dc.org

Vol. 3, No. 1 - Symposium: The UK Military Industrial Complex of the Economics of Peace and Security Journal is now online.

EPS members receive a 25% discount on the annual subscription to the Economics of Peace and Security Journal. Regular one-year subscriptions are $40 per year; for EPS members the one-year subscription is $30.

The Journal is a peer-reviewed online publication hosted by EPS-UK. Published twice yearly, it raises and debates all issues related to the political economy of personal, communal, national, international, and global peace and security. Past contributors have included Joseph Stiglitz, James Galbraith, and Lawrence Klein. The Journal's website also includes book reviews submitted by members and subscribers.

For more information or to subscribe to the Journal, please visit: http://www.epsjournal.org.uk/

To become a member of EPS (and to qualify for the subscription discount) please visit: http://www.epsusa.org/membership/membership.htm

The Peace and Economics Library is a collection of articles, reports, abstracts and book summaries that span across the existing literature on economic aspects of peace operations. The library includes materials used in the EIP literature review, and a variety of additional sources including academic, governmental, and non-governmental items.

http://www.peacedividendtrust.org/en/index.php?sv=&category=EIP&title=EIP_library

The Global Peace Index 2008 has been released. The index is composed of 24 qualitative and quantitative indicators from highly respected sources, which combine internal and external factors ranging from a nation's level of military expenditure to its relations with neighbouring countries and the level of respect for human rights. These indicators were selected by an international panel of academics, business people, philanthropists and peace institutions. The GPI is collated and calculated by the Economist Intelligence Unit.
http://www.visionofhumanity.org/gpi/about-gpi/overview.php

The top five countries are Iceland, Denmark, Norway, New Zealand and Japan. The US ranks 97, out of 140. http://www.visionofhumanity.org/gpi/results/rankings/2008/

According to the SIPRI (The Swedish International Peace Research Institute) 2008 yearbook, global military spending grew 45 percent over the last ten years. Military spending grew six percent last year alone.

In 2007, US$1,339 billion (851 billion euros) was spent on arms and other military expenditures, corresponding to 2.5 percent of global gross domestic product, or GDP, and 202 dollars for each of the world’s 6.6 billion people. The United States spends by far the most towards military aims, dishing out 547 billion dollars last year, or 45 percent of global expenditure. Registering the greatest regional growth was Eastern Europe, which saw its military spending skyrocket 162 percent between 1998 and 2007 and 15 percent from 2006 to 2007. Russia, whose expenditures ballooned 13 percent last year, was responsible for 86 percent of the growth in the region. In the past decade, the Middle East has boosted military expenditures by 62 percent, South Asia by 57 percent and Africa and East Asia by 51 percent each.

As a direct result of the increased military outlay, sales by the world’s 100 leading arms producing companies (excluding in China) jumped nearly nine percent in 2006 compared to the year before to 315 billion dollars, SIPRI said. Sixty-three of the 100 top weapons firms are based in the United States and Western Europe, accounting alone for 292.3 billion dollars in sales in 2006, the last year for which SIPRI has numbers.

http://yearbook2008.sipri.org/

The Office for Disarmament Affairs recently released its 2008 Small Arms and Light Weapons Selected United Nations Documents. The book is a convenient collection of key international instruments relating to the issue of small arms and light weapons at the UN, as well as the most recent documentation from the Security Council and the General Assembly relevant to the subject. It includes a 2007 report on illicit brokering in small arms and the 2008 Secretary-General's report on small arms to the Security Council.

http://disarmament.un.org/ddapublications/SALW/Small_Arms_2008-full.pdf

The School for a Culture of Peace at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona is pleased to announce the publication of Alert 2008! Report on conflicts, human rights and peace-building, and 2008 Yearbook on Peace Processes.

Alert 2008! is a study that provides a yearly overview of the international situation. Indicators have been used to describe the following eight large groups: armed conflicts, situations of tension, peace processes, post-war rehabilitation, humanitarian crises, disarmament, human rights and transitional justice and gender and peace-building. 2008 Yearbook on Peace Processes analyzes the negotiation processes undertaken throughout 2007. Both reports are meant to help people become more acquainted with the advances, setbacks and various situations that affect humanity on the whole.

A PDF of Alert 2008! can be found at http://www.escolapau.org/img/programas/alerta/alerta/alerta08i.pdf

The PDF of 2008 Yearbook on Peace Processes is at http://www.escolapau.org/img/programas/procesos/08anuarii.pdf

The Washington Times recently published two pieces that presented two very different pictures of how well the US Army is dealing with the turmoil and stress of America's overcommitment of soldiers to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Brookings' Michael O'Hanlon asserts that things are going "reasonably well."  CDI's Lawrence Korb strongly dissents. You decide.

These pieces, "Military Check-Up Time" by Michael O'Hanlon and "Reagan and the Draft" by Lawrence Korb, appeared in the May 4 and May 16 issues of the Washington Times. 

The Korb piece can be accessed at:
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/may/16/reagan-and-the-draft/

To find the O'Hanlon piece visit:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/may/04/military-check-up-time/?page=1.

A recent op-ed by Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, states “Change, failure and fear are propelling us toward a world without nuclear weapons.” Mr. Cirincione credits four converging factors for the move towards disarmament: deep and ongoing concern about existing nuclear threats; the widespread sense, among policymakers and the public, that existing US policies have failed to lessen these dangers; in response to this policy collapse, a new drive for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons; and a nearly simultaneous leadership turnover in most of the world's major nations, creating openings for new leaders less rigidly wed to the failed policies of the past.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-cirincione4-2008jun04,0,3225210.story

Member Susan Edelman has written an article for EPS reviewing The Numbers, Just the Numbers: GWOT and the Requests for Supplemental Appropriations. In it she discusses the atypical use of supplemental appropriations in the Global War on Terror as compared to past wars. She also details the actual outlays for each year since fiscal year 2001.

http://www.epsusa.org/main/articles/edelman.htm

"Arms, War and Terrorism in the Global Economy Today: Economic Analyses and Civilian Alternatives" is a volume published by Bremer Schriften zur Konversion that presents papers of two joint seminars of EPS and the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE) which took place in Rethymon, Crete, Greece, complemented by papers from the Second International Conference on Defense, Security, and Economic Development held in Larissa, Greece in 2004.

Contributing authors include Michael Intriligator, Fannie Coulomb, Jacques Fontanel, Jurgen Brauer, Gulay Gunluk-Senesen, J. Paul Dunne, Luc Mampaey, Claude Serfati, Christos Kollias, Clark Abt, and Lucy Law Webster, as well as many other notable economists.

The book is available from the publishers, LIT Verlag, for €24.90 at http://www.lit-verlag.de/isbn/3-8258-0045-1.

Fact Sheets: Periodically, we release two-sided fact sheets designed to give an accessible, graphic look at one specific issue of concern to our members and constituency.

Global Arms Trade 2004 examines the world's supplies of conventional weapons and small arms. http://www.epsusa.org/publications/factsheets/globalarmstrade.pdf

Military vs. Social Spending: Warfare or Human Welfare compares US and global military spending with the costs of achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals. http://www.epsusa.org/publications/factsheets/milexMDG.pdf

Conflict or Development? This book 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, sections on business and conflict, and "Trends in World Military Expenditure." Written in a general-interest style, 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 Conflict or Development by emailing theaharvey@epsusa.org.

Conflict or Development is also a valuable resource in teaching economics, political science, and international relations courses. To review a copy for use in your syllabus, email Thea Harvey at theaharvey@epsusa.org.

Data Resource webpage offers links to data sources for:

• International military expenditure and conflict indicators
• US military expenditure and capabilities
• Western Europe
• Russia

http://www.epsusa.org/network/data.htm. If you know of a data source that you feel should be added to our list, please contact Thea Harvey at theaharvey@epsusa.org.

For nearly a half-century, the peaceful use of space has yielded immense benefits to humans worldwide. Now, the Bush administration is requesting funding for a program that would, for the first time, set the United States on a path of placing weapons in space. This dangerous program could lead other countries to develop similar space weapons to be used against other satellites. The US Senate is currently considering the annual defense bills that will determine whether to fund this program. To write to your senators and urge them to oppose putting weapons in space and oppose funding for this program, visit http://ucsaction.org/campaign/5_30_08_space_weapons/?qp_source=wacucs%5factaspotlight

Want to get the word out on the topic that matters most to you? With a letter to your local paper, you can help bring your message not only to your neighbors, but directly to the offices of your Members of Congress as well, where staffers and our lawmakers themselves follow opinions from home with an especially watchful eye.

The ACLU has a tool that helps write and send letters to local papers. Available are a list of media outlets by state, tips on how to write a letter in your own words, plus talking points for the listed topics.

http://action.aclu.org/site/PageServer?pagename=LTE_SOTU_2007&JServSessionIdr001=3bu4
9o8t91.app20a

June 30 – July 2, 2008. Jan Tinbergen European Peace Science Conference in Amsterdam at the Tinbergen Institute, Roeterstraat 31, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Registration fee is €50. For more information visit http://new.prio.no/NEPS/News/2008-Jan-Tinbergen-conference/

September 3 – 7, 2008. The European Science Foundation presents a conference on Imaging War: Intergenerational Perspectives in Vadstena, Sweden. Closing date for applications, as well as for abstracts is June 11, 2008 More information at http://www.esf.org/activities/esf-conferences/details/confdetail258.html?conf=258&year=2008

Giveline is a new way to support Economists for Peace and Security when you shop online. Giveline has over a million best-selling products, and every purchase you make generates a significant donation. We invite you to check out the store by clicking this link: http://www.giveline.com/default.asp?v=V013334298.

If you have enjoyed this issue of EPS NewsNotes, or if you wish to support our mission, please consider donating to EPS. You can do so securely online through our website or by sending a check to:

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