UN General Assembly
1977

209. There is no need to be a prophet to predict that, if nothing is done within a reasonable time to improve the situation of the developing countries, their growing bitterness will surely give rise to increasingly dangerous tensions in the world. 210. The sums swallowed up by the production of military arsenals come close to $350 billion, whereas aid for development barely reaches $15 billion. Let us recall that mankind has also devoted to the arms race since the Second World War more than $6,000 billion, which nearly equals the gross national product of the entire world for the year 1977. 211. This comparison is obviously not arbitrary. On the contrary, the stagnation, and even contraction, of public aid to development is the direct consequence of the arms race. In fact, while arms production contributes to the promotion of the economic activities of certain States, it undoubtedly leads to pauperization of the developing countries, which have become the tools of ideological confrontations and struggles for hegemony, thus misdirecting their burning desire to devote their resources to