The world's armies bought fewer weapons and fought less often last year, but the slowdown in arms sales may have had more to do with economics than peace moves, Swedish researchers said Thursday.
"It is the best of times in the sense that the two largest military spenders, the United States and the former Soviet Union, are permanently committed to a reduction in defense spending," the Stockholm Peace Research Institute said in its annual report."It is the worst of times in the sense that uncertainty is great and the possibility of conflict is high," it said.
It was the third year in a row that the institute, in its World Armaments and Disarmament report, noted declines in arms spending and fighting.
But it also said that "the fall in military expenditure may be due to technological and economic reasons alone and not a product of arms control." The report was completed before the announcement Tuesday that the United States and Russia would cut two-thirds of their long-range multiple warhead missiles over the next decade.
It also does not take into account the June 12 signing by NATO and former Warsaw Pact countries of a treaty to reduce tanks, helicopters and other war materiel in Europe.
There were major armed conflicts in 30 places in 1991, continuing what the institute called a gradual but noticeable downward trend.
The institute had counted 31 fights in 1990 and 33 the year before. Most of the fighting in 1991 was internal.
The rate of decline in international military expenditure from 1990 to 1991 was less than the 5 percent decline from 1989 to 1990, but it was still significant, the report says.
It says the data was clouded by uncertainties over how much money was spent during the Persian Gulf war and by the disintegrating Soviet Union.
The report says China bucked the trend, with a significantly higher 1991 defense budget than for 1990.
"With the exception of the Middle East, where the situation is still uncertain following the expenditure increases associated with the costs of the Persian Gulf War, the current military expenditure trend in most regions is downwards," the report says.
It gives no overall global spending figures but does give specifics for certain areas. The United States' national defense budget outlay, in 1990 dollar values, declined from $339.8 billion in 1989 to $308.2 billion in 1991.