ABSTRACT
The developed countries are the source of most Third World arms imports and a prime if not exclusive impetus for their patterns of militarization, internal repression and consequential structural violence. In one sense it may be inappropriate to treat the effects of militarization in developed countries as relevant to a study of its consequences for the Third World. The implications of the foregoing are vividly delineated for the United States by a number of projective opportunity costs analyses. In some countries, such as the United States, there is a statistically significant substitution only with domestic investment, while in other countries such as France and West Germany this substitution relationship appears between defence and foreign investment. The job creating differential between spending $1 billion on the military sector and the same amount on public service employment has been estimated to be roughly about 51,000 jobs in a major industrialized country like the United States.
