The world is over-armed and the peace is underfunded

Politics and social dynamics are not algebra, so cold numbers cannot describe and define the entire field. But if the figures in question are those of public budgets, which reveal the intentions of conservatives and above all determine the feasibility of choices, they clearly cannot be considered as a secondary element.
For this reason, new SIPRI data on global military spending provides an important snapshot, and one that should not be analyzed superficially, of the dynamics of militarization the world is witnessing. Not only in absolute terms – that is, the historical record of $2,240 billion – but also in trends and comparisons that the data from the Swedish Institute allows us to make.

We always remember that we can never find each other You are faced with an unexpected increase or a break with the past, since military spending has been growing for decades and is now 35% higher than the level of the Cold War and is twice (in constant and comparable values) the share inherited at the end of the last century. The US leadership remains firmly established (39% of the total) despite China’s continued growth with a budget close to $300 billion. The total size of NATO is $1.232 billion, far exceeding the nearly $380 billion for Russia and China combined. In general, the tendency to shift an ever-increasing share of military spending to revenues from the war industries, the real beneficiaries of these options, remains.

Of course, the war in Ukraine (as well as tensions in the South China Sea) have given many governments reason to give a bigger boost to their military budgets. But beyond that, the real break is that rhetoric: a conflict seen as “closer” has paved the way for declared and demanded options for rearmament, which are no longer convincing. On the contrary, they consider the only “fetish” weapons capable of solving global political and security problems for very different reasons (and therefore many other possible solutions). Why, then, in a state of incessant rhetorical bashing in this sense, are the figures released these days of little interest in certain circles, and are even ignored by the main ‘mainstream’ Italian newspapers? Because with a real analysis of the numbers, such as the one just demonstrated, much of the rhetorical façade of militarism would collapse, highlighting its ineffectiveness: if spending on armies could really give us security, perhaps with the trillions we have spent in recent decades. have already arrived. But how can the fact that the European continent has recorded a growth in military spending of 13%, a return to Cold War levels, or that the EU totals 266 billion (an annual increase of about 3% and if we also take into account the participation of the United Kingdom and Norway in defense initiatives We have a total of 343 billion combined: more than China and four times as much as Russia spent)? Without forgetting the funds made available directly by the institutions of society, which amounted to 5.2 billion (of which 3.2 were for direct military aid to Ukraine) while only five years ago it was almost zero.

However, there is still room for a real alternativeWhich prefers peace investments rather than war investments. It is enough not to turn away from the real threats and crises that are unfolding before our eyes. Last year, the Global Campaign Against Military Spending (GCOMS, an international coalition of which the Italian Network for Peace and Disarmament is also part) stressed the lack of investment towards peace paths (a small part of global military spending would make it possible to achieve the main achievement of sustainable development), recalling what he said Then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2009: “The world is full of arms and peace is underfunded.” For 2023, the focus has been on the threat of environmental crisis and the need for climate demilitarization, starting with the observation that the annual increase in military spending alone (an additional 127 billion) far exceeds the 100 billion raised annually through COPs as necessary to address the negative impacts of the climate crisis. . Instead, “money that could be used to mitigate or reverse climate disruption and promote a peaceful transition to conflict, disarmament, and global justice initiatives is being spent instead to militarize an already over-armed world.”

If political decision-makers continue to choose to dangerously weaponize the world for various interests (of easy political accommodation, alignment with strategic lines that come from outside, or of direct or indirect economic advantage), they will be able to lobby for the path of various organizations. Social. Able to read numbers as well as people’s real needs.

* Coordinator of the Italian Disarmament Network for Peace Campaign