Military Spending

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Military spending broke the one $1 trillion mark in 2004, a first since the end of the Cold War.

Led by the United States, which accounted for almost half of all military expenditure, the world spent $1.035 trillion on defense, equal to 2.6 percent of global gross domestic product, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said.

Almost half? Think about that, folks. We comprise less than 5% of the world's population and yet we account for nearly half of all military spending in the world! The report goes on to say that just 15 countries account for 85% of all military spending. In a nutshell, if you added up all the money that all the countries in the world spend on their military it would be just a tiny bit more than what we spend. That's scary.

This figure doesn't include the $238 billion allocated since 2003 to fight terrorism. And the story indicates that even these large figures are probably a little low since:

...countries are increasingly outsourcing services related to armed conflicts, such as military training and providing logistics in combat zones, without classifying them as military expenditures. Such outsourcing has more than doubled in the last 15 years, and was estimated to have reached $100 million
during 2004, SIPRI researcher Caroline Holmqvist said. The researchers predicted it would double again from current levels by 2010.

Let's try to put that into some perspective. According to the folks at the Borgen Project we spend $1400 per citizen on the military, yet we only spend $33 per citizen on international aid. Comparing apples and oranges? Or might there be a better way, a more practical way to address the instability in the world?

Does ending poverty sound like a good idea to you? Of course but it would just be impossible, right? Wrong. Now there is now way to be 100% certain that these figures are exact, but time and time again when various organizations have set out to determine just how much it would cost the figures come out very low. Consider the following from the World Game Institute:

• Eliminate Starvation and Malnutrition ($19 billion)
• Provide Shelter ($21 billion)
• Remove Landmines ($4 billion)
• Eliminate Nuclear Weapons ($7 billion)
• Refugee Relief ($5 billion)
• Eliminate Illiteracy ($5 billion)
• Provide Clean, Safe Water ($10 billion)
• Stabilize Population ($10.5 billion)
• Prevent Soil Erosion ($24 billion)

Imagine that. We could foot the entire bill with just a fraction of our military budget and we'd still have enough left over to outspend every other nation on the planet!

How many people do you think would want to fly planes into our buildings if instead of dropping bombs on them we came to their village and helped give them clean water, removed the landmines (that we probably made), taught them how to read? How many?

There's more than one way to fight a war on terror. As Noam Chomsky has said numerous times a good start would be to quit engaging in acts of terrorism. War is, of course, the ultimate act of terrorism. But more than that, more than sitting around singing old John Lennon songs, we actually have the ability, the wealth, the power, the know-how to make this world a better place. We can eradicate so much of the unnecessary suffering in this world for just pennies compared to what we spend to kill our fellow humans.

In the last century untold millions died from wars, wars we were told that would end all wars. It was a lie. War is not peace. It's time we start rethinking our ever-growing military budget. For the cost of one stealth bomber we could provide food to the most needy in the world. Could we do with one less stealth fighter? I think we can.

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