4 SOCIAL SCIENTIST buy a major new US weapon before it had been offered to NATO. The cumulative impact of these decisions was to nullify in toto the policies which had governed US arms sales since the Second World War. Whereas all previous administrations had held that arms transfers to Third World countries should be carefully screened to prevent the spread of sophisticated arms, the Nixon-Ford administration insists that American interests are best served by building up the defence capabilities of friendly governments abroad. "The importance attached to the Nixon Doctrine/5 Deputy Secretary of Defence William P Clements told Congress in 1973, "makes it axiomatic that nations having the necessary economic capability should procure their own military equipment and services for cash or credit on appropriate terms."* Expansion of Weapons Trade When questioned by members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, however, Clements acknowledged that there were other compelling reasons for accelerating military sales to the Third World: first, to help reduce America's mounting balance-of-payments deficit; second, to insure full production (and thus full employment) in the aerospace industry, and third, to extend the production run of US weapons and thus to diminish the price the Pentagon pays for its own military hardware. Any restriction on US military exports, Clements argued, '^decreases the potential contribution of sales to strengthening both free world security and the U S economy and balance-of-payments position." (Emphasis added.)8 This logic has propelled US military sales to the Third World from an average of $ 200 million per year in the 1960s to $ 3.7 billion in 1973 and $ 9.9 billion in 1974.8 (See table I.) Total Third W^orld orders for US military hardware in the 1970s (fiscal Years 1970-75) comes to a staggering $ 23.4 billion—an amount equal to triple the total of all US arms exports worldwide for the 15-year period 1950-65! TABLE I U S FOREIGN MILITARY SALES ORDERS, 1950-75 (U S dollars in millions) 1950-69 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 Developed nations 8886.5 547.9 528.6 1476.8 706.2 824.7 3027.4 Underdeve- loped nations 4582.7 404.7 1128.2 1784.4 3662.2 9984.2 6483.3 Worldwide Total 13469.2 952.6 1656.8 3261.2 4368.4 10808.9 9510.7 SOURCE: U S Department of Defence, Foreign Militaiy Sales and Military Assistance Facts, Waihing ton DC 19.75, pp 14-15. Although the Pentagon's arms merchants have concentrat ed their activities in the Third World, they have not neglected lucrative markets