Two months have passed since President Trump made his first foreign visit to Saudi Arabia. But the talk and analyses on the fortune Saudis spent on dealing arms are still on people's lips.
On 24 May 2017, the German SPIEGEL online published a report in which Martin Schulz, the Chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, warns of an incoming 'arms race' in the Middle East.
In the report, by pointing out what had been discussed in the NATO recent summit, Martin Schulz stated that if there is only one phenomenon running in the Middle East, it is the 'race of arms'; instead, a security architecture is needed to be planned.
Schulz also stated that Europe should interfere more strongly in Russia and Europe's superpower diplomacy, and it should not allow the arms deals to fall into the cycle of race and competition. He says EU should prevent military conflicts in order to save Europe from confronting again with the human disaster of migrant crisis.
Schultz also believed that equipping Saudi Arabia with arms, which Washington justifies due to the Iranian military power, will run an arms race in the region.
"Here, it is our duty as Europeans to frankly tell the US that their policy seems unreasonable," Schulz stated in the report.
In this report Schulz expressed his concern over this issue that "The 68-year-old commitment mentioned in the introduction of our constitution has been violated by 2016 worldwide astronomical military costs spent on arms deals, almost in the Middle East, Korean Peninsula and South Asia to increase their attack proficiency."
The world is actually witnessing a new wave of weapons deals. It is evident that with the help of weapons and military forces, the world cannot withstand the structural reasons of struggles and challenges including poverty, drought, displacement and hunger. This disaster won't be solved unless there are economic, political and social developments in the areas affected by the competition over arms deals. What the world actually needs is not more and more weapons, but the justice and the chance for development and progress, a constitution and a commitment like the one Schultz mentioned.
The complexity of today's world is increasingly surging ahead. The two blocks of East and West no longer exist, and even the logic of "horror balance" no longer has validity. In fact, the logic of causing nuclear fear isn't practical any more to stop and prevent the killings and brutalities of terrorist groups like ISIS, withstanding North Korea's dictatorship, and eradicating the worldwide cyber terrorism.
In fact, what is needed for the world is a new peace policy, both for defying the logic of increasing cold weapons, and offering a logical response to world terrorism threats.
Every nation that aims to effectively fight against terrorism must accept the risk of minimizing the terrorist weapons. The justifiable part of this new peace policy should therefore be focused on reducing the use of war weapons, not on dealing them.
History has shown that having more weapons won't bring more security. Instead, it should take more time to invest and research on planning peace projects. Here, the European Union plays a very critical role. The EU indeed should leave the position of a looker-on and play an active role in the establishment of an international peace policy.
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