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World Military and Social Expenditures by Ruth Sivard
2nd edition (1976)
 

Foreword by Hubert H. Humphrey

When we discuss national security, we tend too often to give it a military label. It is, in fact, much broader than military power and much more complex. There can be no security without a commitment to social betterment.

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In this study, Ruth Sivard, an experienced economist who has worked for some years on military and arms control matters, takes a look at the arms race in terms of the factors that are propelling it onward and the sacrifices that it entails for society.

She points out that the governments of developing countries devote just as much public revenue to military programs as to education and health care combined, and that the number of people unable to attend school, read or write, to see a doctor, to enjoy a minimally adequate diet is continually growing larger.

I can think of few subjects that should be of deeper concern to all humanity than the problem of how to restrain the world’s military colossus and turn the race for arms into a race for peaceful development. When we do it, the four billion people on this earth will be the winners.

Hubert H. Humphrey
Vice-president of the United States, 1965-1969
Congressional Gold Medal, 1979
Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1980