Ethics, Scientists, Engineers and the Military - Ethical Engineering for International Development and Environmental Sustainability - page 346

3. The small number of civilian products or technological spin-offs originating
from military technology and the limited relevance of military technology to
civilian technology (Kaldor 1981 ).

Arms sellers are increasingly being required to reinvest ('offset') part of the
proceeds of arms sales in the purchasing country. It has been suggested that these
offsets are benefi cial to majority world ('developing') countries. However, in prac-
tice, the use of offsets generally increases the cost of arms trade deals compared to
off-the-shelf purchases, including through the associated 7-10% administrative
costs. Other disadvantages include the lack of technology transfer, even in the
military sector, the lack of signifi cant contributions to economic development and
the lack of new or sustainable employment (Brauer and Dunne 2004 ).

8 Discussion and Conclusions

Developments in military technology have transformed the nature of confl ict, led to
a focus on weapons-based security rather than peace building and resolving under-
lying problems and in practice heightened insecurity. Although it is sometimes
argued that nuclear weapons have kept the peace since the end of World War II, the
data on deaths in armed confl ict presented in Sect. 2 indicates that this is not the
case. This includes an estimated 11 million people who died in proxy wars during
the Cold War, in which the USA and Soviet Union supported opposite sides (White
2011 ). Since the development of military technology is not possible without the
involvement of engineers and scientists, decisions made by them can have an impor-
tant role in determining whether we move to security based on peace building or
further arms races.
However, there are still varying views about the ethics of military work and the
arguments against it have not yet been won. Some engineers and scientists may still
believe in a duty to carry out military work, based on arguments such as (Kemp
1994 ) the justness of government foreign policy and the legitimacy of preparedness
for war as a means of pursuing these policy objectives, the role of military research
in reducing the destructiveness of war and the duty of governments to protect their
citizens from aggression, including by waging war if necessary. However, beliefs of
this type are based on a number of false assumptions. In particular, as discussed in
Sect. 2 , the majority of armed confl icts are now within rather than between nations,
negating the idea of the need for military preparation for defence against an outside
aggressor. It is often not clear what particular enemy, if any, a particular weapons
system is intended to be used against. For instance, the UK government is being
rather coy about the nature of the threat the multi-billion pound UK trident nuclear
submarines stationed at Faslane in Scotland are intended to counter, and they are
currently not targeted anywhere specifi c (SCND 2000, Private communication,
Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament). Thus, it could be suggested that
these very expensive nuclear submarines are not required for 'defence' against an
external aggressor.