A declaration of independence from the U.S.

Jeffrey D. Sachs, Professor of Economics, Project Syndicate

George W. Bush is obsessed with the war on terrorism, especially with the military response to terrorism. American foreign policy reflects that obsession. This year, the United States will spend around US$450 billion for the military, including the costs of the Iraq War, while it will spend no more than $15 billion to overcome global poverty, global environmental degradation, and global diseases.

In other words, U.S. foreign policy spending is 30 times more focused on the military than on building global prosperity, global public health, and a sustainable environment.

Throughout 2003, the world lived with President Bush's obsession. Debate over Iraq dominated international diplomacy, and took up almost the entire UN agenda. The war in Iraq cost countless innocent lives, such as when the United Nations' headquarters in Baghdad was bombed.

At the same time, Bush's emphasis on a one-dimensional, militarized approach to global problems has fueled unrest and instability throughout the Islamic world, leading to increased terrorism in Turkey, North Africa, Saudi Arabia, and Southeast Asia.

The nature of suffering around the world hardly justifies this narrow strategy. Focusing on terrorism to the exclusion of other issues, and emphasizing the military response to it, will not bring prosperity and peace, or even a significant reduction in the number of attacks.

While 3,000 innocent people died in the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, in Africa 8,000 innocent children die every day from malaria.

Yet malaria is preventable and treatable. The problem is that most of Africa is too poor to mobilize the methods of prevention (bed nets) and treatments (anti-malarial medicines) that could save millions of children every year. The U.S. spends more on Iraq each day than it does on Africa's malaria in a year.

As 2003 draws to a close, it is time for world leaders to help guide the world away from the obsessive, failing approach of America's government. President Bush should be made to understand that the U.S. will find no true international support if America speaks incessantly about terrorism while doing almost nothing about the problems that really affect most of the world: Poverty, lack of access to safe water and sanitation, vulnerability to disease, and climate change.

Ironically, President Bush claims that the UN does not follow through on its word. He declared in London recently that "the credibility of the UN depends on a willingness to keep its word and to act when action is required." Yet the U.S. repeatedly violates its own UN pledges.

For example, at the International Conference on Financing for Development, in Monterrey, Mexico in March 2002, America signed the Monterrey Consensus, which includes a promise by rich countries to raise their development assistance towards 0.7 percent of national income.

That would bring an additional $60 billion per year in foreign assistance from the U.S. -- approximately what it spent on Iraq this year. Yet President Bush has simply ignored this promise.

There are many other similar commitments that the U.S. has made in recent years to the UN that remain utterly unfulfilled. The U.S. promised action to fight man-made climate change as a signatory to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992. It has so far failed to act.

America also promised -- in the Doha Declaration in 2001 -- to open its markets to the world's poorest countries. Yet at Cancun, Mexico earlier this summer, it refused to open its markets even to exports from struggling African economies.

The list goes on and on. At the Millennium Assembly in 2000, the U.S. promised to pursue reduction of global poverty, yet it has taken few steps in that direction. At the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002, America committed itself to protect global ecosystems, yet little has been seen or heard from U.S. policy makers on this issue since then.

America is certainly not alone in failing to promote the international goals adopted in the UN. But because the U.S. is the richest, most powerful country in the world, its neglect is devastating.

If the U.S. really wants to undercut terrorism, it must recognize the interconnectedness of extremism, poverty, and environmental degradation, and it will need to understand the struggles for survival that are underway among the poor everywhere.

But the world should not wait for the America to come to its senses. The U.S. represents just 5 percent of the world's population, and just one vote of 191 countries in the UN General Assembly.

Poor countries, especially the democracies of the developing world -- Brazil, South Africa, India, Mexico, Ghana, the Philippines -- should say, "We need to act on the issues that concern us, not just on the issues that concern the U.S." What the world needs most in 2004 is a declaration of independence from American willfulness.

The writer is also a Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.