United Nations study on convent.ional disarnalEnt. 5/ Sone 70 per cent of r,rorldnilitary sPending is attributable to a small nunber of States antt lhe largest ehareto lhe Soviet Unlon and the Uniteal States. ]1/ At Ehe same Eirne the grorrth rat€ ofmilitary spending bas steadily lncreased among sdte of the developing countrieE. Itre raPid extension of the conventi.onal arns conpeEition to regions of lhe developing countries drains enornous reBources and Eechnical capabitities thaE could be used to advance Ehe quality of life of people Ehroughout the eorld.A/40/553 Engl j.sh Page 28 83. The social and econonic costs of nllitary expenditureg are hard to caLculate. The opportunity cosls represented by such expendltures are reflected in the loss ofinvestment capital for civilian projects. conseguently, there is an urgent needfor deternined efforts to stop tbe continuous increase of nilitary expenditures andnegotiate a concrete agreenent or agreerbents for their gradual reduction,parEicularly by nuclear-weapon StaEes ard other nilj,tarily significant States. Inthis process, the elaboration of guidelines to govern acti.vities of slaEes in thesenegotiations would be exerenely useful. 84. New conventional weapons can be used with far greater precision, noved moreeasily and applied nore flexibly, thus bringing virtually the entire norld into Ehepotential keg of nodern conventionar rar. uoreover, when weapons that are deernedto be excessively injurious or to have indiscriminate effects are direceed againstcivilian popurat.ions, by accident or by deslgn, the effecls can be devastafing. rnaddition, the stocks of seapons deployed in peace-t.ine have nultiplied, inereasingboth the size of inventories naincained by individual naEions and tbe nunber ofnations who rnaintain large stocks of nodern convenEional weapons. should
**Analysis**
The text discusses the issue of military spending and its impact on the world, highlighting the disproportionate allocation of resources by a few countries, particularly the Soviet Union and the United States. It also mentions the social and economic costs of military expenditures, including the opportunity costs of not investing in civilian projects. The text suggests that there is a need for reduced military spending and the negotiation of agreements to achieve this goal. Given this focus on military spending and its consequences, I hypothesize that the text is more closely related to the category of "International relations" than any other.

**Category**
Economic development, International relations