Often ignored in the flurry of contradictory facts and figures, charges and countercharges about the nuclear arms race between the U.S. and the USSR and the conventional arms race between NATO and the Warsaw Pact is the degree to which Third World nations have been building large and increasingly potent armed forces. During the 1970s, Third World nations—some 130 of the world's 161 nations—spent more than $800 billion on military forces and munitions.