Designed for high school global education classes, this document examines ways in which the arms race affects the poor. Military expenditures and foreign economic aid of the developed nations are compared with survival needs of developing nations. Statistics support five premises: the arms race (1) diverts resources from productive activity and basic human needs; (2) contributes to repression of legitimate social change; (3) increases debts of poor countries who are buying increasingly modern and sophisticated weapons; (4) undermines efforts to establish a new international economic order; and (5) makes poor countries more dependent upon the superpowers. Involvement of the United States in the arms race is discussed in terms of national security, propping up the U.S. economy, jobs, technology, inflation, investment, industrial modernization, and trade. The document includes a chart from "World Military and Social Expenditures, 1981," and quotations from Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Archbishop of Canterbury, an official of Lockheed corporation, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Ideas for action and a brief list of resource materials are provided. (KC)